Leave the Door Open

Sunday night, an email landed in my inbox from one of the founders selected for this year’s Fayette Pitch Contest. After a string of rejections from the companies their pitch depended on, they were pulling out.

I wrote back that I understood, that we’d take them off the lineup, and that I wished them and their business the best.

Monday morning, a second email arrived. They’d had a night to rethink the pitch and wanted to know if they could still present.

I replied, “Not too late.”

Tuesday night, they made the finals.

I’ve thought about that exchange all week, because it shows something many of us get wrong in business. We treat a closed door as final, and we treat our network like a ledger. Who can help me? Who can buy from me? When the answer looks like no, we move on.

Think about who surrounds the average founder in Fayette County. Launch Fayette runs free short courses almost every week. The Chamber is rebuilding its small business programming. 1 Million Cups meets every Wednesday morning in Peachtree City. There are coaches, bankers, attorneys and other owners who have already solved the exact problem you’re stuck on. Almost every resource a founder needs already exists here.

What’s missing is someone connecting the dots.

On Wednesday, I sat on the Launch Fayette Economic Development Panel at the U.S. Soccer National Training Center, representing small business and entrepreneurs. Here’s what I told the room: “Small business in Fayette doesn’t need more programs. It needs more introductions. Every resource a founder needs already exists here. What’s missing is someone connecting the dots for them. So the most powerful economic development tool in this county isn’t a tax incentive. It’s you, making one introduction.”

I believe that because my own business was built on introductions. Years ago, I started showing up to Chamber speed networking events. Thirty-second intros, a lot of handshakes, and no idea what would come of it. Those rooms introduced me to a business coach I still lean on, the partner who helped me launch Night Market, and a client I’ve now worked with for ten years.

So how do you become the person who connects the dots? I see three ways.

The first way is to make the obvious introductions quickly. This week I met a rancher whose flock of more than 200 sheep grazes solar farms. I’m also working with a man whose company cleans solar panels. The connection clicked instantly, and the email took about two minutes to write. When two people share something tangible, introduce them today.

The second way asks more of you: introduce good people without knowing what will come of it. Some of my favorite introductions had no expected outcome. I connected two people simply because they were good people, and I trusted that good things happen when good people know each other. That’s the heart of S.E.E.D., a dinner series I host. You leave the business cards in the car, lead with who you are, and let what you do come up later.

The third way is the one I nearly missed. A friend reminded me recently that you can only pour as much water out of a bucket as the bucket holds. I’ve used that exact analogy in workshops to talk about website conversions, and I had never once applied it to myself. When I looked at what fills me, the answer was the communities I’ve helped build. The members at The Nexus who show up for Mindful Mondays, Roundtable Tuesdays, Thought Lab Thursdays and Flipside Fridays. The 1 Million Cups regulars. The crew that shows up consistently to help with Night Market. I built those rooms to connect other people, and they keep filling me back up. If you’re the one making introductions for everyone else, find a room that does the same for you.

So here’s my challenge this week. Think of two people in your world who should know each other. Send one text or one email introducing them. You don’t need to know what happens next.

And if you want to see what this looks like around a dinner table, S.E.E.D. No. 27 (Select Entrepreneurs Eating Dinner) happens tonight, and all ten seats sold out. That tells me people are hungry for this kind of connection. Join the list for the next one at selectentrepreneurseatingdinner.com. I’ll share more about the experience in next week’s column.

As for the founder who almost walked away, they’ll take the stage at McIntosh High School on November 19, competing for a share of more than $47,000 in prizes.

Keep your door open, and make the introduction. You may be the connection that someone else’s story is waiting on.