Sitting in the boardroom with the owner and his wife, we were trying to understand why the business had stalled. Why were we, the new outside marketing agency, the ones going to fix the problem?

This was an amazing home services business with a unique offer; they should have been killing it. They were operationally excellent because they could deliver on their brand promise tied to the unique offer. It didn’t make any sense.

They were first-generation immigrants who came to the country with nothing, couldn’t speak the language, and had already built a $20M-a-year business. Their origin story was everything a writer could hope for. They had exactly what makes a dream client for us, but something was obviously wrong.

When we started talking about their competitors, they said that because they had been around long enough, people had started copying them and their offer. They mentioned that one of them was run by their previous top salesperson. And I innocently asked, “What happened there?”

His wife, who had been silent through most of the meeting, jumped in and said, “He drove the Bentley to work.” And I immediately understood.

You see, when I owned my computer training company and we had an unbelievably good year, I made the mistake of buying a Porsche and driving it to the office. Twenty-two years later, that car still acts as a reminder.

What I didn’t know then, and what my client also learned the hard way, is that your staff sees the world differently, and there is nothing you can do about it. No team-building session, no book by the latest hot-shit CEO on leadership, and no culture system can change the basic fact that you are the owner, they are employees, and you see the world completely differently.

Their internal dialogue will always be, “Don’t they see what I do around here? This place would crumble without me. I’m vital to their success, and all I’ll get is more work and a lousy paycheck.” They go to work to provide for their family and enjoy their weekends. They rightly or wrongly want to do only what’s necessary to get through the day or the week. Yes, there are exceptions to the rule, but the bigger you get, the more you get good employees – the ones that show up on time, get the job done, clock out, and go home.

When you have a salesperson who’s killing it, hitting their targets, getting their bonus or commission, who has begun to think they are crucial to your success, and you show up driving the Bentley, what happens? The voice inside their head starts screaming at them, “I bring in all the sales. I paid for that Bentley, and all the owner does is sit in his office all day while I’m driving all over the place to meet with customers face to face. I know how this business works; I don’t need this place. He just proved I’m not that valued; otherwise, he would have bought me a car too. I’m out of here.”

And that, my friends, is how his largest competitor was created. For me, it was a lot less dramatic; people just started doing what was required, and only that. The extra was gone because they saw it as the fund that paid for my car.

Only other business owners can understand the sacrifices you make to run your business. Only other business owners are happy to see you succeed, because it means they can too. Employees want comfort and stability; you want growth. Growth means change. Growth means more work. Growth means more headaches. Don’t worry; every business is a monkey tree. When you look down from the top of the tree, you see smiles. When an employee monkey looks up, all he sees is a-holes.

Most days, this basic system isn’t a problem. Because most days are normal days, with normal glitches, and everyone rolls with it. But when you decide to tell everyone, “Hey, I’ve hired this amazing new marketing firm; they are going to be instrumental in helping us grow the business.” You are going to see a bunch of smiles looking back at you, because what they just heard is: “If this works out, that means more work for me. But let’s wait and see if anything really comes of it.”

This is how you can tell the amazing employees from the good employees. Amazing employees try to grow themselves and their contribution to the company because they have figured out that this is a place that encourages and supports their growth, and it’s good for both of us. These are the people who naturally grow with the company and rise with it.

If our hubris hadn’t gotten in the way, maybe we would have left our cars in our garages and not shown off to our employees, and neither of us would have taken a sideways step with our businesses. Understanding and maintaining that delicate balance lets your culture grow instead of festering, because driving the Bentley to work makes it bloom and become efflorescent.

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