Today I attempted to add someone as a friend on a social networking site. I didn't send a message, just a request. Here is what I received:

"conflict of interest

i've done the same thing for the last four years.

sorry.

thats like pepsi and Coke doing an ad together.... "

Done what same thing for the last four years? The person didn't know what my reason for contact was. Are you serious? Pepsi and Coke? They are two multi billion dollar organizations. This person isn't running a million dollar organization.

I have a small consulting firm based in Baltimore. We have small satellite offices in two other cities. We have a mix of employees and subcontractors. It would have been much harder for us to get where we are using such broad limitations. There are two persons who writes business plans for the firm. If they (and I) are too busy to take on another business plan at that moment the client has four options. They can wait for someone to come available, use a trusted source that we will refer, find another provider or attempt to do their own work. It is more likely that the client will wait for us or use or referral because they trusted us enough to want to use our services initially. Sole Proprietors and small businesses can't afford to act as an island.

There are two things we pride ourselves on offering. Of course one is a quality service/product. The other is a referral source. We can't be everything to everyone at every time. We can try our best to steer our clients and potential clients in the right direction to get what they need. Last point about this subject is we work with others on the same project. Many of our clients are in creative, realty and professional industries. We know those areas extremely well. If a project comes that we feel confident in handling but aren't experts with, we reach out. Lawyers do it all the time. The lawyers that we work with know and use many peers and offer them as a resource very quickly. We would rather split a fee to make sure a project has been completed correctly versus not giving a client the best possible finished work.

You can't get it all.