There’s no doubt that being seen as ‘the nice guy’ by clients and staff has its benefits, but there comes a point when it can be detrimental to your productivity and reputation
A trap most business owners fall into is saying yes too often, and too fast. We train ourselves into the habit of always saying yes to clients, straight away – often without fully thinking through the implication of doing so. Then, we’re left to clean up the mess afterwards.
The mess is created because there are always other things we’ve already committed to – and now there isn’t enough time to get everything done. We’ve all been guilty of this, but continuing to do it keeps businesses stuck in chaos (and it costs them because chaos reduces profit margins).
Instead, try this. Use this simple line when answering a client: “I’ve got to check our work schedule/programme first”. Even if you don’t really have a schedule or programme, saying this instead of saying yes straight away gives you time to consider everything else you have already committed to – that way you can make your client a promise you can keep.
If your default answer is always to say yes straight away, you probably end up failing to meet some promises. Or, you end up dropping the service level to another client that
you’d made an earlier promise to. Both ways, someone loses out – either a different client, your team (because you’re rushing around like a stressed-out headless chicken), or yourself (by working constantly in stress mode).
So, stop saying yes! We share this simple technique a lot with our coaching clients and it always results in them having happier customers, happier teams, a more controlled environment, and more profit!
Closed Door Policy
Are you too available? If you’re busy and want more time, read on!
In our experience, the ‘open door’ policy is one of the worst concepts ever invented. It means that any staff member can interrupt you at any time to get their urgent matter dealt with. You become ‘too available’.
Being ‘too available’ can be a bad thing for a number of reasons:
Your team is discouraged from solving problems without you (why would they when they can just ask you?).
You end up being constantly distracted and losing focus.
Rather than working on important issues that grow your profit or give you more free time, you spend all day handling minor crises
A good way to combat this is to set rules for how and when staff can access you by creating ‘restricted access’ times. This is effectively you closing your door. You know what it’s like when everyone has left work and you can get stuff done – so this is a way to create more of that for yourself during the day.
Maybe you could become unavailable (except for real emergencies) before 10am, or between 12-2pm? Just try something. This gives you solid blocks of uninterrupted time to be more productive and get important things done. The rest of the day you can be available as normal.
If you can see some of yourself in the examples above and would like some more ideas to get more in control of your business, download our free eBook now by visiting: www.redhot.co.nz/freereport.