No matter how much we enjoy the various aspects of our personal and professional lives, some days we just don't want to get out of bed.
You know the feeling when you hit the snooze button for the fifth time. The thought taking a shower and driving to work makes a root canal sound appealing. And the last thing you want to do is to have to happily engage in conversation with coworkers, clients, prospects or any other human (somehow we can always find the energy to talk to the dog). We all have those days.
I will admit, that I don't feel that way too often, but today was one of those days. I have a long list of things I have to get done at work, home and for promoting my book.....but I would rather just sneak off and rent a kayak and spend a few hours paddling along Town Lake.
Yet I know better. While playing hookey might make me feel better in the short term, it wont let me accomplish anything for the day, which will just leave me feeling worse tomorrow.
This is especially true if part of your job function involves business development, networking and promoting the image go your company. When you are not feeling on top of your game, it is easy to push these more social aspects of your job to a lower level of priority. I see this with accountants, lawyers and other professional service firms. They know they should be networking and looking for future business, but they just don't feel up to it, so they hide under the covers of the current client work, repetitively hitting the "snooze button".
But we know that we need to work on cultivating tomorrow's business today, or we could find yourself without anything to do when the current project ends. So if your business developing and networking spirit is up to speed, just do it anyway. Pick up the phone and schedule a lunch meeting or take a client to happy hour. Action will lead to results.
Now, if I can take a client kayaking, that might just be the solution!!!
Have A Great Day.
Thom Singer
www.thomsinger.com
thom@thomsinger.com
Order your copy of my new book, "Some Assembly Required: How to Make, Keep and Grow Your Business Relationships" at www.thomsinger.com. $19.95.
2 comments:
Obviously I'm doing something wrong, because it's 2:50 a.m. PDT and I've been up since 5:30 a.m. - yesterday - and I'm reading about your desire to take a client kayaking when, in fact, I live in front of the bay that I have NOT kayaked in since 2003! I think it's time to call it a night and put my client files away!
For a more appropriate comment, you're right about networking when you don't feel up to it. I've put networking on hold for the past year while going through a corporate "transition" and my new business has suffered drastically. I also find when I shy away from socializing to bring in new business, I tend to isolate myself from existing clients because I focus too much on the corp. transition problems instead of putting my energy into my client base where it will generate more business.
Congrats on the book. Glad to see someone from the old neighborhood in print!
Thom,
There must have been something in the Austin air yesterday. I was having the same issues. As always, great advice for getting through those rough patches. 'Doing' seems to be the cure for not wanting to.
Thanks for the reference in yesterday's post. I like the idea of asking people about their competitors. I might have to try that. Another good tool to do a quick integrity check.
Happy networking!
Post a Comment