A Limerick A Day to Keep You On Your Way January 24
January 24
There once was a fiery young man,
Who forgot it was okay to be human.
He tried his best.
With all is zest.
Until one day he said, “enough of you man.”
How often have you had to say to yourself, “enough of you man.” And the man was you. Or in my case, woman.
Just today I was faced with the decision again to let one of my clients go. At the same time appointments scheduled the following week were being disrupted by someone else’s scheduling conflict. “Yeah, well why should I have to suffer loss of income because of someone else’s inability to plan better!” I didn’t like how I was feeling or handling these situations.
Entrepreneurs are always faced with a higher financial risk. We try very hard to be flexible and available for our clients. We build relationships on having people know us and like us before they trust us. If they can’t trust us they won’t do business with us. It is the same for me if I am the customer. But what happens when your customers break the trust boundary?
In my 20 years as a business owner I had to grow a backbone. I had to say, “enough of you man!” It didn’t happen overnight and I caved many times because I believed I needed the money. That thought can be very disempowering. It’s not about just making money. It’s about valuing my time. That lesson is hard sometimes to learn. How do you value your time over money? Do you feel pressure to cave in to a client/customer who doesn’t value your time because you believe you need their business? When do you say enough, man!
Let’s bring the value up on how we view ourselves and our services. In the long run we will attract more business with those same values. And yes there will still be times when it happens again but we can quickly recover when our mind set says it’s okay to let a client/customer go who is costing you your time. Enough of the you man…be the man or woman you value.
