One of the hardest things for a small business owner is to turn down business. I am not suggesting that you ever do that. However, the most important thing is to deliver a quality product in a reasonable time. If you ever “bag that elephant,” be sure you have a large enough network of partners to whom you can outsource.
A good example is a situation a company I worked for lucked into several years ago. A phenomenal salesperson owned a small company. He negotiated a sizable contract with a large university and when finished, he realized he could not deliver on his promises. He came to us with a “hat in hand” and begged us to help him with the business. We agreed, but only if we could enter negotiations to buy his company. As the result, we bought a company, retained a good employee, and inherited a very lucrative contract. While this turned out to be a win-win, I am sure the phenomenal salesman occasionally wondered what life would have been like had he been able to pull it off and retain ownership of his company.
