I was talking to an electrician the other day who said that normally he enjoys his work and prides himself on a job well done. However, he'd responded to a cry for help recently – no electricity! Having established that it wasn't a power cut, he proceeded to turn every appliance off but couldn't find the fault. By this time he was running late for his next appointment so had to admit defeat and leave.

This was obviously a less than satisfactory experience for him and the customer, and he was left feeling annoyed with himself for not being able to find the fault and complete the job.

So where's the learning in that you may ask? Well, the electrician realised that the way he enjoyed working and gained the most satisfaction was to assess and quote for jobs before doing them, be on time for his customers, and give himself enough time to do a good job, but he still wanted to help people out in emergencies.

This is what he decided to do. He knew from his experience that there were a number of things to look for if the electrics failed, so he decided to respond to emergency calls by spending 5-10 minutes on the phone with the person getting them to check various things first. If that didn't work, he would tell them that in his experience it could be a time consuming exercise and in fairness to them he would suggest that they contact a bigger organisation who had the necessary resources to see the job through to the end.

If I was that customer, I would certainly want to contact that electrician again if I wanted a non-emergency job done, because of his helpful and honest approach. In my view, it goes to show that being true to yourself is just as important in running a successful business as it is in other areas of your life and when we don't feel right about something, rather than repeating the experience over and over again, we should learn from it and do something different.