Going With Your Gut Instinct
January, 2008

If you had just one really great idea you could share with the alarm industry, what would it be?

This month’s great idea comes from Brett Bean, president of F.E. Moran Inc. Alarm and Monitoring Services, based in Champaign, Ill., home of the Fighting Illini, and home of an alarm dealer who is fighting for a place atop the alarm industry food chain. Bean, along with his management team and partner, Brian Moran, has a great understanding of what it takes to build a platform company.

BEAN’S GREAT IDEA IS:

“Surround yourself with the brightest people you can find and go with your gut on selecting them. It seems to have worked for me!”

Brett Bean is one of the top young people in our industry. He’s in his mid-30s and has already built a company with operations in Chicago, Detroit and central Illinois. His company will soon be visible to all in a yet-to-be-defined location in the southeast. I would have to say that this company is one of the fastest — if not the fastest — growing alarm companies in the industry.

The company has grown through diligence, hard work and perseverance — and all those other adjectives that Bean has demonstrated in building the company. What I have seen in Bean that is unique, and what really ties in with his “great idea,” is his willingness to pitch in to get the job done.

So many executives in the industry today seem to be focused on their position and their role in the company’s hierarchy. Bean is a guy that focuses on pleasing results rather than pleasing activities. He gets things done.

It seems to have worked for Bean, and I’ve seen it work for a lot of people in this industry. Hard work is important, and diligence in running your operation is equally important. Take a look at the top 25 names listed in the industry’s top 100 companies. In every instance, you will find a leader who has surrounded himself with the brightest people.

The one ingredient that very few people seem to trust is your gut instinct! Your gut instinct is really a phenomenon that psychologists and psychiatrists have known for many decades. They know a gut instinct is nothing more than an intuitive reaction to something, whether it’s a person, an event or some other entity.

Intuition Equals Good Decisions

The intuitiveness of managers, especially the best, almost always leads them to make better decisions. Bean certainly learned this lesson at an early age, and you can learn it too, regardless of your age.

Here’s how: When faced with a new, different or strange situation, stop and think for a moment as to what is the best direction for you to go in. The answer that pops into your mind first is probably the right one.

When Bean talks about choosing people and going with your gut, what he’s really saying is trust your own judgment. Trust that the decisions you’re making are based in facts and compatibility.

Go to the Internet, logon to any profile of any public company and almost always you’ll find a listing of the company’s executives. In many cases, they are photographed as a group standing by the front door of their building. Or they are shown in the working environment, talking to people, listening to people, manufacturing something, writing something down or working at a computer.

Any of those things can identify what the person does, and if you look at the picture long enough, you’ll start to get a “feeling” about the quality of the person. It’s true in what they say about gut instincts. You’ll recognize your own gut instinct just from a casual observation of a photo and a brief description.

Bean’s idea is superb, and it’s an idea that you can use no matter where you are in your organizational structure. Follow his advice and you will invariably rise to the next level of competence in your organization.

Ron Davis is Security Sales & Integration‘s “What’s the Big Idea?” columnist and contributing market analyst. He is president of Davis Marketing Group (DMG), a full-service consulting firm serving the security industry, which also includes GraybeardsRus. He has 35 years of industry experience, including founding Security Associates Int’l in the 1980s.