My coffeemaker broke this morning.
I don’t know about you, but coffee is what gets me moving and my brain working in the morning. And without warning, I woke up to a coffeemaker that simply wouldn’t turn on. What happened? It couldn’t possibly be that I bought a cheap knockoff version of a Keurig. Or that I didn’t want to spend the money on the cleaning pods I was supposed to use. Or that I have no clue how the coffeemaker actually works.
Regardless, I spent about 25 minutes of my morning trying to fix the coffeemaker, to no avail. So I decided that I’d work without the coffee. It was one of the most inefficient mornings I’ve had in quite a while. I had a long list of things to do, coworkers who needed things from me, and no energy to do any of it. So I got in the car, drove 10 minutes down the road, spent $5 on a cup of coffee, drove back, and finally got some work done.
And this morning, as I sat in the drive-thru line, I thought to myself, “Why didn’t you just buy the nicer coffeemaker and take care of it? Was it worth saving 10 or 20 bucks? Because now you’re paying $5 for a cup of coffee, wasting time driving around town, and your coworkers don’t have you at your best.”
It kind of got me thinking: this is only a fraction of how frustrating it is to show up in the morning to a computer that won’t work. We’ve heard the same story over and over again: one day, stuff just stops working. Maybe you didn’t want to shell out the money for nice equipment. Maybe you bought nice equipment but didn’t take care of it. Or maybe, you just don’t understand how it all works.
Whatever the issue is, you’ve spent too much time and energy and money trying to fix your system yourself. You’ve tried working without it. But you can’t. Your coworkers and employees get frustrated, you’re overwhelmed, and at the end of the day, you shell out more money anyway.
Here’s what I’ve figured out: some things are worth investing in. Whether it’s something small like coffee or something big like your IT, some things are worth investing in. If you’ve learned that the hard way, don’t feel bad, because I have, too.
Now I have a choice. I could order the exact same coffeemaker and treat it the exact same way and have the exact same problem in another six months. But tonight, I’ll order a more expensive coffeemaker, and I’ll order anything I need to take care of it, so that I can get back to what I do best—which, trust me, is not fixing coffeemakers. When your IT has problems, you can either throw more money at it again and have the exact same problems again, or you can partner with us and get back to what you do best.
I’m going to invest. Will you?