03/12/2026
Compliments are always great, but when you get them from your competition - that's an extra awesome bonus!
I walked into one of my job sites we're finishing up the other day to take a few photos so I could do some calculations back at the office. I noticed about 5 people in the MDF working on other BMS and Fire systems. I rode the bike up, so I'm just standing there in boots, jeans, a t-shirt, looking nothing at all like a network professional, but I was only going to be on the site for about 2 minutes.
One of the guys on-site was terminating the city's fire-paging system in a panel near our rack. He asked who I was and when I told him I was the owner of Twisted Networx and I was just checking on the final status of our network cabling in the MDF, he stopped what he was doing and said "Man, I've been doing this for 30 years and THAT is some of the best and cleanest cabling I've seen in my career. That looks great. Does all your work look like that?"
I told him I'd been doing it for 25 years myself and that yes, we try very hard to pride ourselves on both the function and appearance of our finished products. When the customer is paying $100,000 for something, it needs to look and perform like it's worth every penny they paid.
He told me about his company and what they do. They also have a LV division and are a large name I recognized from the area. But the fact that he wanted to remember my name and our company in case they needed to outsource something - that's the best compliment you can get.
When your "competition" comes in and compliments you - you're doing it right.
I say that to say this: ALWAYS make every job look like getting your next job depends on how well this one performs - because it very well might. It doesn't matter if it's 5 runs or 500 runs.
They say integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking. Sometimes it pays off in unexpected ways.
On this particular job, the general contractor has already been impressed enough with our work that he's asked us to sign on for his company for more projects. The AV team has asked us if we're available to sub-contract for them if needed. And now another LV team has asked the same.
If you do GOOD work, sometimes the right people notice and you'll get more work just based on that example they see. But if you do BAD work, if you cut corners, there's a 100% chance they'll pick up on it and never forget it.
Give every job 110% every time. It WILL pay off.
