Laurence
This is a story about how to get what you want.
In the early days of v2food, before we had setup the company, Nick Hazell (CEO) and I were gearing up for the start. We needed a website to be built to provide information for people that would search after we began to talk in public.
We knew the content would be simple at first, but needed it to be professionally built and reflect the brand that we had in mind for the company.
I had in mind an agency that we had worked with before at Main Sequence and began the conversation to engage them.
This presented a window of opportunity for Laurence
At the time, Nick Hazell was wrapping up a course he was teaching around innovation at UTS and we were working with his students to gather early consumer insights.
One of his students was Laurence Presland.
Laurence, who was in the website discussions, said that he would like to build the website rather than the agency.
I pushed back.
“Thanks for your enthusiasm Laurence. This is an important moment for the company and the story around it is going to be critical. We need to go with the agency.”
Don’t accept the ‘wrong answer’ if you believe otherwise
Sometimes, people make a call because that is the easiest way to keep moving and have a reasonable chance of success. This is what I did.
But is was not the final decision.
I received an email from Laurence that night restating that he would like to have a go at the website. If it was not up to standard, we could always go with the agency as a next step. But why not give him a few days to have the first go?
We agreed.
And this is the point. Most of the time, people will agree when asked again. Laurence de-risked our decision by taking away his ego — allowing us to still go with the agency later if needed. He also de-risked our time concerns by committing to fast action so that no delay would occur in the event we needed to return to Plan A.
Laurence now heads up all digital activity at v2food
3 years later, v2food has not looked back. He heads up all digital activity at v2food.
We depend upon him.
He created his next opportunity. He didn’t wait to leave university. He didn’t wait for a job to be advertised that he could compete with others.
He chose v2food.
And we are lucky.
I just wanted to celebrate that.
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