Richard Pierce Thomas

Leadership and Small Business Consultant

Every Tuesday morning, my two business partners and I have breakfast together and catch up on small talk, share what is going on with the families, and discuss business from a 50,000 foot view. 

Getting together weekly is especially important for us as we each work from a home office and it is at least a thirty-five minute drive to the closest partner, and over an hour to the furthest. Hence the face time becomes crucial given our geographic separation as we deal with the triumphs and missteps of a growing business.

My good friend and mentor, Gordon, a retired business owner who had a successful distribution business in Portland for over forty years, has driven home the emphasis on face time amongst the partners. Gordon is one of those grizzly business veterans that has forgotten more than I’ll ever know about owning and running a successful business and I make it a point to get together with him at least a few times a year to bend his ear and soak up his wisdom. He always has something prophetic to say, usually in the form of a high heater fastball that stands me up straight and gets my attention. 

“Keep talking, no matter how things are going,” Gordon said once in response to asking his advice on how to make the business partnership work. “And especially when the going gets tough. And you all have to sell, by the way. No one gets a pass on that responsibility.” It was one last thing he said though, that got me thinking. And it came in the form of a question.

“Would you rather be a wolf or a coyote?” he asked.

“A wolf, I guess,” I said.

“Why the wolf?” he probed.

I reflected for a few more moments and said, “I suppose because the wolf is at the top of the food chain. It hunts in packs and can take down large game.” The wolf is also a more regal animal than the coyote, I thought. I live on five acres and we often see coyotes scurrying through the brush with a rabbit or some other small rodent in their jaws. Coyotes tend to look no nobler than a scrawny dog and we are always on the lookout to make sure our house cat or newest addition to the family, Stella, a Frenchie/Boston mix doesn’t end up as coyote bait.

“Yes, definitely a wolf,” I said.

“Well,” Gordon said, “if so, then you’ll go the way of the dinosaur. Unlike the coyote, wolves are not very adaptable. They were hunted to virtual extinction in this country and if it weren’t for the government stepping in, they’d probably be gone for good. The coyote? They are one of the most adaptable creatures around. Highly intelligent, they outsmart the best trappers and still manage to grow the population by continually changing their hunting techniques depending on the environment.”

It was this illustration that hit home and highlighted a key piece of advice that I often share with my clients and have probably mentioned it more than once in past articles: What got you here, isn’t going to get you there. I had to admit that I could be doing more to internalize that advice for our business. 

As with many businesses, we are benefiting from new opportunities and growing at a decent clip, and yet we also share many of the challenges that you are likely facing with increased competition, unsustainable price cutting and an increasingly savvy customer base that requires us to be on our game at all times. 

All challenging things, and it underscores Gordon’s sage advice – choosing to be more like the coyote, demonstrating resiliency and adaptability, over being the wolf, will do more to ensure your business can withstand the changing needs and competition of the marketplace than anything else.

We all could be better served to remember that sustaining the business and living to see another day is way more important than being the biggest and the best. So, the next time you see the coyote trotting through your neighborhood, appreciate the skills and guile they have to survive. And keep your cats inside at night!

Rick Thomas is a Principal and Director of Human Capital at Pilot Wealth Management, a registered investment advisor in Oregon state. Leading their focus on the human component of building wealth, he consults and speaks to organizations across the country, focusing on individual and organizational achievement.