You’ve probably heard the old saying, “if you’re not learning something new every day, you’re dying.” Well, there isn’t a day that goes by where our team at CPU isn’t learning very valuable business lessons. This most recent business lesson came at the expense of one of our new partners who, unfortunately, had a pretty negative experience with a cloud provider.
What happened?
That is a long story but, to sum it up quickly, our newest partner was trusting their cloud service provider to provide a particular service. They just assumed that everything was happening according to their agreement. Until one day, when something happened that forced them to dive deeper.
A simple technical issue occurred due to months of neglect by their service provider. When a security issue arose, our partner also uncovered serious security concerns with their previous cloud partner.
You see, security of data in the Cloud is something our team at CPU takes seriously. Unfortunately, not all service providers share this same concern for the confidentiality of client data.
What was the lesson learned by both our partner and CPU?
Trust, but verify.
Ronald Reagan was the first we heard use this term when he was deep in the nuclear disarmament of Russia in the 1980’s. Reagan would trust Gorbachev to keep to his word about ending the Nuclear Arms Race. But Reagan, unlike other leaders before him, wanted verification that the Russians were living up to their end of the bargain.
This important lesson would have saved our partner from a few embarrassing moments with their previous cloud service provider.
We all know in business that trust should never be immediately offered. We don’t expect our clients and partners to trust us immediately. It takes time – sometimes months or years – to build trust with a business partner. And we all know and appreciate that trust can be eroded much faster than it takes to build.
Businesses that continue to trust without verification make more errors, have a high percentage of upset clients, struggle to meet the needs of the marketplace and eventually may risk going out of business.
Trust but verify is essential to your success. Verify everything.
“Go Giver” author, Bob Burg (thegogiver.com) talks about, “know, like and trust.” And one of CPU’s strategic business partners, Stuart Crawford from MSP marketing agency, Ulistic, adds “believe in.” ‘Know, like, trust, believe in” – and I would like to add “verify” to the end of this statement.
Introducing A New S.O.P: Verify Everything
You must verify everything. You can trust everyone who works with your organization from partners, clients, and vendors. But verify their work to ensure it meets the standards your organization hopes to achieve.
Practicing “Trust But Verify” will ensure your organization continues to outperform your competitors and ultimately win the trust of your clients. The end result – business growth, and exceptional standards are constantly achieved.
Want to engage in a “Trust, But Verify” discussion? I welcome you to contact me through our website at cloudservicesformsps.com.
