I have this young sales guy that works for me. (The poor son-of-a-bitch made the mistake of working for a guy who: a.) is obligated to produce a column every week, b.) has less than ten employees to choose from, and, c.) regularly depends upon the day-to-day happenings in his company to come up with the ideas for his columns.)

Me.

Nonetheless, the kid is twenty-four, just shy of three years out of college, and only a darker shade of green than he was when we hired him in May of 2009.

Anyway, and like so many young people, this young salesman (let’s just call him “the salesman”) has this tendency to shoot bullets that haven’t even been loaded yet. It got so bad that we made him put a sign on his office door. This sign reads, “Slow down --- think it through.”

I’m not sure how he interprets this sign, but I do remember why he put it up. He put it up because of an incident involving a long-time customer.

We met with this customer on a recent Thursday, and right at the end of the meeting we worked out a renewal contract agreement with him.

The very next day, I was copied on an e-mail from our young Padawan to this same customer. I can’t recall the specifics, but the gist of that e-mail was something like this: “You’re damned lucky to have us promoting your business and your products on our radio station --- now, I want the money within a week. In fact, I’ll come over to pick it up.”

I’ll never forget reading this. Within ten seconds of finishing it, I was on the phone to the customer --- apologizing. He told me that he was in fact just sitting there --- with smoke coming out of his ears --- strongly considering the different ways to tell us how we can go straight to Hell. He was more than angry enough to cancel his agreement.

It all worked out well in the end, however, but you can bet that our salesman’s “end” was considerably smaller by the time that day was over.

The funny thing is, the salesman meant no harm. He was just anxious to get the money into the company (we may have been having a cash flow issue at that time, I’m not sure) and where the part about “you’re damned lucky” came from, I’ll really never know.

This is a very, very good kid. He seldom takes days off, he works like crazy, and he brings in a lot of business every month. He does a lot of things right.

And, he almost never makes the same mistake more than once.

But he’s still young. And as I’ve said to him many times, “One cannot microwave experience.” Try as I may, he’s going to have to learn by getting whupped --- just as every one of us, and at some point in our lives, got whupped.

Last week, I sent readers of this column copies of excerpts from Regis McKenna’s “Rules of Investing.” You’ll recall that one of Regis’ rules was “BE PATIENT.” This was related to investing --- Reg was telling anyone who would listen how dangerous it is to jump, and both feet at once, into an investment. This still happens to me with “new” things.

For example, I remember when I got started in buying private equity. Pretty soon, and because I wanted to commit one-million-dollars to my private equity portfolio, I began investing rapidly, without first doing the due diligence. This of course resulted in a ton of losing investments.

Patience is a virtue. But it is a virtue that is very difficult to learn. Watch any novice fisherman. They will move to anywhere from six to twelve new locations while the grizzled veteran fisherman remains rooted, in the same spot. Guess who walks away with the most fish?

Ever play sports? The trick to hitting a curve ball is to wait, wait, wait. When it’s almost certain that the ball is behind you, in the catcher’s glove, is probably when you should be swinging. Over time, you learn this and you begin hitting that same curve ball.

I could go on. But whether I’m talking about buying land, hiring a new employee, or getting my newest product to market, the rule never changes --- hold on! Hold your water as long as you can.

By nature, entrepreneurs are impetuous. Always in a hurry, can’t stop even to sit down and have lunch. It’s hard-wired into their brains.

Remember Socrates’ “Know Thyself” (one of the first Immutables, BTW)? If this sounds like you (that is, having an impatient nature), then you must learn this about yourself and retain the services of a “brake pedal” person who can and will force you to be patient.

I warn everyone --- failure to counter-balance impetuosity will result in (and most times) flat-out business failure.

But however you manage this tragic flaw ………….. just do it.

Before it does you!

* Listen to Ron on The American Entrepreneur Radio Show. Ron and his colleagues can be heard on PBR stations seven days a week! Tune in M-F from 3:00 - 6:00 p.m.; Saturday from 9:00 a.m. - Noon (all on AM 1360). Ron can also be heard on Sundays from 10:00 a.m. -12:30 p.m. on FM 104.7.