Over the past few weeks there have been a recurring theme as it relates to the blog posts or status updates that really touch me. Usually for me, this means that some personal conflict I am going through is being relayed in that post or social media update from a friend or someone of influence that I follow.
The latest recurring theme has to do with guarding your time, answering inbound phone calls and being available to your clients all the time.
Let me show you what I mean:
Here is a Tweet from someone I follow on Twitter:
– Makes a lot of sense doesn’t it?
And here is an excerpt from a blog post I read and commented on last Sunday:
“Earlier this week, I left my phone on vibrate and it vibrated non-stop with a new call every few minutes. I finally turned it off (as I often do). While I used to work every weekend, now I take time for friends and family – regardless of the workload or the unanswered messages. I simply can’t keep up with running a business, executing the work, marketing my business AND responding to every request from my network. When I need time, communication with my network falters.
I’m not complaining. This is the world I’ve chosen to adopt and work within, and I love it. I’m just asking those of you who benefit from the work online professionals do to take a minute, thank them… and be understanding that we’re doing the best we can.
From Douglas Karr’s Marketing Tech Blog
And there is another instance which I have not shown you because it was a comment I made using my personal Facebook profile. I can’t seem to find it because it happened a few weeks ago. Plus it would take too much time to get permission from everyone who commented – to share with you here. So I will give you the gist of it:
A friend of mine made a comment to the effect that it does not make sense to hide or remove your phone number from your personal Facebook profile because people will find it anyway. Also, he went on to say that he keeps his cell number public so that he is accessible to potential clients. I disagreed of course and we as well as other friends had a healthy debate on the issue. [Let me footnote by saying the debate started from an update about Facebook’s setting that imports all your friend’s contact numbers, who are also friends in your cell phone book to your Contact’s profile…or something like that]
My Point
So I start off with all of that to make just a couple of short and straight forward points.
1) If you are indeed available to all your clients, all the time, it could affect your ability to help them in the best way possible. If you are in the service business, a consultant or coach, you need to have designated times to deal with clients.
Of course, when you schedule these times, like I do, you have a chance to prepare for your time together. I take this time to review the notes from our last meeting, any questions that came up since our last meeting, ideas I have for the client to move forward, etc.
If I take unscheduled calls from a client, I may not have all my notes on hand, I may be preoccupied with preparing for another client meeting, writing a proposal for a new client, etc. When something comes up outside of our scheduled meeting that needs my attention, I respond to the voicemail or email outside of business hours or at an allotted time for returning client phone calls. This gives me a chance to look at your issue, get in the frame of mind as it relates to your business and craft a suitable [meaningful] response.
Do you think that I would be a better consultant or coach when I can deal with your business project or issue completely and be totally present during our calls or time together? How about if I am in the middle of a project with another client? Not so much right?
2) Friends are essential. A friend in need is a friend indeed. There are many quotes about the value of friendship. I am lucky to have some great friends in my life currently and through the years. However, I limit personal inbound calls from friends during my work hours. This is a work in progress I must say. But I am committed to it for my business AND for the health of my friendship.
Scenario: Suppose you take a call from a friend during the work day, where they relay a rough situation that they are dealing with in their life. While on the call you are sympathetic to their situation, but you have a client call coming up in 5 minutes. How much help could you be to your friend?
How attentive would you be? How solid would your advice be?
The truth is that you would be able to really listen and give good advice to your friend’s situation outside of the work day and enviroment. This also applies if you work from home, more so even. People tend to think that your time is more flexible when you work from home.
I don’t have a dramatic end to this blog post. Only to say that it is from the heart and I have come to terms with the points mentioned myself. I have already implemented systems to deal with interruptions that I know will increase my productivity and the value I give to my clients.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this and systems that you use to guard your time and increase your productivity.
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