Happy Sunday Everyone:
I’ve been trying to meet with a large potential business partner for quite a while. He finally responded he could meet with me this past Thursday for a glass of wine. I was already scheduled with a fantastic past client and friend for the same thing. Without thinking twice I emailed the past client and said the exact same thing as what I said above, “I have the opportunity to meet with a big potential business partner, so I need to reschedule, sorry!!”. He responded, jokingly, “so he’s more important than me, I get it, we can reschedule”. As soon as his response came back in I got a weird/bad/guilty feeling and couldn’t help but think “what an idiot” to myself. This guy is cool, and in all reality, he’s in business, he’s in sales, he’s successful, and he probably does get the point, and at the same time, there is truth in his response. I went back and counted how many deals I’ve done with him, and how many people he has referred to me, I’ve done 18 loans because of this guy. Our success, and I believe this genuinely, is determined in large part by how we make people feel, not just in sales but in life, and how we make people feel comes right back to how we feel. In this case, I feel like a disingenuine, money grabbing, small picture, flake. Feels awesome. Now am I being a little hard on myself, yes…but the point is that’s what went into the decision. Had I said to this new guy “Can’t wait to meet you but I’m already scheduled with a long time, loyal, great client at that time”…he probably would have respected the response, and had he not, probably not the right fit anyway. So here are a few thoughts that came out of it for me:
1. It’s really easy to forget the people and things that put you where you are today and focus instead on the new shiny object, try to do this as little as possible. New shiny objects are fine, but not at the expense of the loyal. People out there would pay $200 for a lead but have a problem sending $100 gift to a client who just did business with them, doesn’t make sense.
2. find me a flake you like, trust, and respect….impossible. Don’t cancel things you’ve signed up for, just don’t sign up for them in the first place. I heard someone talking the other day about rescheduling with someone 4 times, it’s embarrassing. For me this is a one off…I used to cancel all the time, I rarely do now. This is especially true for your teams (or employees) basically you’re saying “you’re not important to me”. Have the team leave you, you’ll find them to be important real quick.
3. When you make this mistake, recognize it, and make up for it. My client and I are now scheduled for a steak dinner after I apologized for a laughable moment of lapse of judgment..he feels important again, which he is.
Perhaps before you cancel something this week, you’ll think of my doings, and not.
Have a great week. 2018 will start off strong or weak by how we treat the next two months!!