One of the most important characteristics you need to succeed in business is enthusiasm.

You need enthusiasm for your work, for your team, for your products and even for your clients. The difference between people who are enthusiastic about what they do and people who are just phoning it in is apparent to all of us. It’s visible.

However, like anything, enthusiasm can go too far. That’s especially true when it comes to enthusiasm for your brands and products.

Why do I say that? Easy: you don’t want to get overly enthusiastic about products that don’t yet exist.

The software industry has given us a lovely word for products that don’t exist: vaporware.

If this is your first day in the industry, I’ll give you a definition. If the product only exists in development and/or in initial press releases, then for all practical purposes it does not exist. It’s not a product. It’s still an idea.

When can it be said to exist? That’s another easy one:

Once it ships.

The reason is simple. It’s one thing to tease a product that’s in development, but taking orders for it is something else entirely.

Taking orders for a product that’s not ready to ship creates problems for yourself. And why would you do that?

Story time.

Long ago, when I was young and foolish, I got super excited about a new subsystem one of our home automation vendors presented to us.

At the risk of showing my age, I’ll tell you what it was: physical docking stations for iPods.

Not only that, but control integration for iPods from our touchscreens. Not iPads — those didn’t exist yet — old-school touchscreens.

Young people new to the industry won’t believe this, but back then this was cool. It was state of the art.

So what did I do? Like an idiot, I pitched this in the summer of that year to one of our high-net-worth clients whose lake house was scheduled to begin construction the following spring.

Given the scheduled release date, I thought I had plenty of time.

There was only one problem: The product was delayed, missing the ship date.

And then they missed the new ship date. Twice.

At that point, the client lost their patience with me. It wasn’t the biggest crisis of my career, but it’s still in the top five — and one of the few where it was all my fault.

Fortunately, my vendor rep, David, was a great guy. He called my client and took all the blame himself.

He absolutely did not need to do that, but he did it anyway. That’s a lesson I’ve taken to heart and one I now apply for my dealer clients now that I’m in his shoes. Taking responsibility when things go wrong is a powerful tool.

David calmed the client down and got him back on my side. And by some miracle, the product shipped not long after. We were able to finish the installation and give the client exactly what he wanted — which was what I had sold him on.

Believe me, I never did that again. And on the consulting side of my business, I hammer home to my dealer clients that they shouldn’t do it either.

As the saying goes, “Good judgment comes from experience, experience comes from bad judgment.”

When I was still on the front lines of residential AV design, I once went out for coffee with my Crestron rep and his boss. They told me there was a big sign in the foyer of the engineering building on Crestron’s campus that said:

“NO CRESTRON SALES REPS PAST THIS POINT.”

The reason why should be obvious after reading my story.

That’s a message I heartily endorse.