I recently caught up with one of my first bosses, Steve Barnes, for an episode of the Owner’s Mentality. I worked for Steve for a few years as I worked my way through college at a place called FootAction USA. I was getting ready for my big boy job and Steve was well on his way towards building his family. After the birth of his first son, he felt the best place for his family would be back in his hometown, Dallas TX. Steve joined up with his friend Randy to do some side jobs laying cable as sub-contractors in the mid 90s... Nearly 25 years later they’re still at it.

 

Steve shares a ton of great wisdom in here, but in typical Steve Barnes no nonsense fashion we can boil it down to do the right thing, build good relationships, and hire good people. Steve gives some advice about finding the right career path, if business ownership is right for you, taking advantage of happy accidents, building solid relationships, common sense hiring practices, and how if you start down the wrong ethical road you better be willing to stay there. Steve even takes some time to call me out on my love of spreadsheets. He wasn’t wrong.

 

If you are in the Dallas / Fort Worth Metroplex area and are in the market for a company that specializes in network design of the physical layer and the installation of low-voltage cabling infrastructure for voice, data, audio-visual, industrial automation environments and outside plant applications, we can't recommend Superior Fiber Data any higher. To discuss how their team can help your business achieve true results, get in touch here