The Legacy of Pat Padgett

I came across a well worn quote recently, it was by the famous and highly successful Warren Buffet, It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently. Pat Padgett the Carpet Cleaner wasn’t Warren Buffet and he wouldn’t have put this thought exactly the same way, but he also knew this to be true. Spending decades as the local serviceman was all about reputation. Communities are small, even our big ones. What was true then is still true today, reputation matters. A Vulnerable Reputation There are two primary aspects of a business that are most vulnerable to depleting a reputation, the quality of work accomplished and the people who represent the company, your employees. If I were to heed Warren Buffet’s words I’d have to focus on my hiring. I’d have to hire the right people.   Because Pat Padgett had a simpler operation, the company's reputation fell onto his shoulders. My dad’s proximity to his reputation g...

Rightfully so, Pat Padgett casted a long shadow, in a similar way any patriarch of a family does.   And, it’s the responsibility of young men to stand in that shadow for a time and then eventually “venture-off.” By 1991 I had built something meaningful. But that year was a fork in the road. It was a year to build something larger, or a year to play it safe, stay in the right-lane and only merge when the road requires it. But a 25 year old Jeffrey Padgett wasn’t looking to play it safe, he was hungry and ready to prove himself, ready to test the boundaries of that shadow and to set-off on his own journey.  In hand I had a business consultant, Mack Clark, I had a management book,  Small Business Management  by H.N. Broom, popular at the time but has since faded into obscurity, and ambition. These were together a dangerous combination: a coach, resources, hunger.  From Mack I had caught the vision of expansion. Up to this point I had grown a business, I h...