Variety is the spice of life

The best advice I’ve ever gotten in my business career was from the manager of the used semi truck department at a Volvo semi truck store. I had been striping an average of 100 trucks a year for them for 10 years. Towards the end of this 10-year run, he pulled me aside and said, “I know you’ve been doing a lot of trucks all over Northwest Ohio and things are going good for you, but don’t put all your eggs into the semi truck basket.”

He said it was better to do a variety of work. He had been in the business for many, many years and said he didn’t want to see my business fail due to changes in the marketplace or economy. He had seen it happen to too many other businesses who relied on one thing for the majority of their income.

At first I was stunned. I thought, “Why would he tell me this when everything is going great?” But I can’t tell you how many times I have thanked him over the years for this very advice. Sure enough, he was exactly right.