Angry, betrayed, and surprised. This is how I felt when a big customer of my first business poached the technician that we relied on to fix customer’s computers and custom build new ones to fill orders. Oh they were reasonably classy about it, calling ahead for ‘permission’ and ensuring there was a week or two of notice. But I was young with knee-jerk reaction speed, and had the ‘me against the world’ mentality that building a business from scratch sometimes fosters.

I am ashamed to admit that it took me years to figure out the big picture of the career cycle and how it impacted my retail company. Today I am offering you the knowledge of my hard-earned lesson the easy way–by reading this article!