The Best Christmas Gift...

I would like to wish all the readers of Whizzbangsblog, members of the Domainers Network and sponsors a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year. I can’t believe another year is over and NamesCon 2018 is just around the corner.

Both Roselyn and I were just so proud and happy for our son Timothy marrying his wonderful bride, Ruth, on her mother’s farm. It was an incredibly joyous occasion that caused me to reflect on three words that are very appropriate to the Christmas season and principles I try to abide by in my own life, “truth, trust and learning”.

You can’t have a relationship, whether it’s with your wife, kids, business partner, colleagues, or other companies without being truthful. Taking the more difficult road of telling the truth in a manner that it can be received will pay massive dividends in your relationships over the years to come.

If Roselyn never knew whether I was telling her the truth, then what would my marriage of 30 years be built upon? It’s exactly the same with business relationships. There needs to be a level of transparency where the other party is confident you are telling them the truth.

Does this mean you need to share everything? Heck no! Being transparent means the other party is confident that what you are sharing is the true. There may be times when due to “commercial and confidence” issues I would say, “I’m not at liberty to discuss that.”

Telling the truth also really simplifies business relationships. You don’t have to remember whom you’ve lied to and if something goes wrong you have the liberty to admit to it, make amends and then move on together. The other party knows they aren’t going to be spun a fanciful story that leaves them feeling they need to take a shower after talking to you.

Now for my next word. All marriages require mutual trust, whether they are between individuals or organisations. Trust is truth over the long-term and shows the other party you’re really committed to them. One of the core foundations that I wanted to instil into ParkLogic was a sense of trust and this has really worked out well over the many years we’ve been in business.

In fact, I was at a conference recently and a person asked, “Why should I put my domains with you?” I answered by saying, “Because we’re still here.” They replied, "Good answer!"

Since trust is built from truth it means you need to be transparent when something goes wrong, listen to complaints, and do your best to fix them and work together to grow the business relationship. This last point is very important as a buyer/supplier relationship means that when something goes wrong (as it inevitably does) the organisations get a “divorce” and head for the hills.

Trust also takes time, and means being committed to the long-term with your business relationships. You can’t rush trust and as you build the trust account of your relationships there may be times when you need to make a withdrawal by saying, “Just trust me.” Going into overdraft in your trust account is never a good thing....so keep on depositing over the years.

This brings me to “Learning”, the third word I would like to share with you. We all blow it with our relationships whether they are personal or business. We get caught out in an expedient lie or just do something silly. Having a learning mentality means you give yourself permission to make mistakes but just not repeat them.

When I was in high school I showed my mother a maths test with a big 95% on it. She immediately asked me what happened to the 5%. Although it was a little disheartening at the time it wasn’t long until I realised that all my future learning came from understanding the 5% and not the 95% I already knew.

Having a love of learning means you also have an insatiable curiosity to learn about anything and everything. One of the things I really look forward to at conferences like NamesCon is sitting down with smart individuals and listening to them talk about wild and crazy ideas. In amongst it all there is often a gold nugget that has the potential to really transform my own thinking on a particular issue.

As we head through Christmas and journey into the New Year consider those people around you and ask yourself, “What is the best gift I can give them this year?” Maybe, it’s telling the truth in love, working on your trust account or making amends by learning from your mistakes? Whatever it is, I pray that your relationships, whether business or personal prosper into 2018.

Have a Merry Christmas and see you in the New Year!