What a great problem to have?
All December I felt like a title wave of work has been pounding against me. New clients were signing up, existing clients were expanding and hot prospects were pounding on my door. As the work began to pile up, things began to slip. Projects were launched a week late, things I thought I sent never got sent and follow-ups were never completed.
When I would explain to people how tight my time was they would generally respond with “what a great problem to have!” Of course this would make me blush and agree, yes, it is wonderful to be busy because it means that business is booming. But is it really so great to be so busy? As I begin to pull myself out from the mess, the resounding answer is no.
A month plus of simply trying to keep my head above water certainly did nothing to help my business. New clients got started on shaky ground, prospects were turned off because I couldn’t answer their questions and current clients began to question my loyalty to them. All of this because I wanted to do everything at once and I was convinced that growth was good at any cost.
Now that I am getting reorganized and refocused I know things need to change. Yes, I do need more help and that is on the way soon. I also realized that I personally must change the way that I do business. Just because a prospect decides to sign-up does not mean that I need to drop everything to get them started at once. From now on I will only be launching one project at a time. This allows me to focus on the launch, ensure my current clients are still catered to and frees up time to return calls and emails.
Might I loose some clients because they do not want to have to wait to launch their campaign? Sure, but I would rather loose business because I could not meet their schedule than loose business because I could not meet their expectations. Time is a very valuable asset and I must carefully assess where I spend it.
So, yes, it is great that my business is growing and people are interested in my services. But is it great to be too busy? Absolutely not. Having clients that are too happy is the only great problem that I want have!
TAGS: business, clients, prospects, Rebel, time management
This entry was posted on Thursday, January 7th, 2010 at 10:09 am and is filed under Observations, Opinion.
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It is so easy (in business and in life) to buy into the “bigger, better, faster, more!” philosophy, but really, it is the quality of experience, yours as well as your customers, that determines the level of success in any business.