I recently spoke to JoAnne Black, an expert on Referral Systems, and wanted to feature her on our blog. Below is a good article about small business & playing “catch up”:
Just because business is 24/7 doesn’t mean that you have to be, too. Prioritize your sales and business-development tactics, and you’ll find greater balance overall.
“I’m catching up today.” How many times do we say we’re catching up? Let’s be real. Catching up is a fallacy, a myth, a wish, a hope, and plain unrealistic.
Don’t get me wrong. We try. That’s why we work weekends and vacations, and stay glued to our Blackberry and iPhone. We do this partly because we don’t want to miss anything—important or not—but mostly because we have this driving need to catch up.
I’m a culprit. I’m writing this blog over a weekend. What other work am I doing this weekend? Preparing for a sales presentation, connecting with people on LinkedIn, writing my newsletter, writing more blog posts, finishing a client proposal, sending emails to clients (and hearing back from them), and still looking at my “to do list”… which still has more “to do’s.”
What’s the antidote? Options include:
• Add resources to your team
• Chose not to tackle certain projects
• Ignore people on your team
• Drop the ball
• Say “no”
None of these options appears easy (or good business, for that matter). Something’s gotta give, and what stays has to matter. One of my cardinal rules is that I do what’s closest to cash the first thing every day. This really helps with my planning and sales activities. Does this mean that every day is a cakewalk, that every day I have nothing carrying over to the next day? Of course not.
Sometimes the best thing to do is to take a break. Leave your office and your “catching up,” clear your head, take a walk, go to the gym, spend time with your family, take the dog for a walk, and then decide what you really must do.
Know that you’ll never get caught up. It’s not going to happen. Get over it. I really should take my own advice. I’m out of here.
