I was talking to a client recently who found a technical snafu that kept something he had promised months ago from being sent out.
He explained that getting that cleaned up took up a significant amount of time the past week, and so hadn’t made progress on a key project we had identified that was going to help develop his business in really important ways.
I gave empathy, because, lordy, I’ve been there!
And then we talked about what really happened.
Mistaken priorities
There will always be fires that come up in your business. ALWAYS. There will never be a time that there isn’t something that could be considered urgent. NEVER.
My client’s thinking was, “Oh my goodness, I’ve owed this to them for months! I’ve got to get back into integrity immediately!”
My thinking was, “They’ve already been waiting for months. Another week or two isn’t going to kill anyone. Focus on your number one priority, which is developing your business to a more stable place.”
Notice that I’m not saying that integrity isn’t important- it’s critically important. Notice that I’m not saying don’t take care of people. Please take care of people.
What I am saying is to watch your priorities.
This brings me to the number one job you have as a business owner:
Your number one job: Setting priorities.
No one tells you what’s more important. You have to decide that. But let me give you some guidelines that I learned as a paramedic in a 911 system.
Your first priority: You.
Your second priority: Your partner.
Your third priority: Other emergency services personnel.
Your fourth priority: The patient.
Although counter-intuitive, this teaching was followed up by numerous examples of first responders who didn’t take care of themselves and their partners, and ended up hurt, unable to the help the patient, and needing additional ambulances to take care of them, which further depletes the overall emergency response system.
Sucks.
Here’s what I suggest your priorities be.
Your first priority: Your well-being. Because if you don’t have access to your heart, to your creativity, to your health and resources, nothing else works well. I also know it’s nip and tuck with these things, especially if you have kids or other responsibilities. Self-nourishment has many facets to it, and can feel like a full-time job. Make sure that there’s some self-nourishment happening.
Your second priority: Your business’ well-being. If your business isn’t functioning well, then nothing else works. Find out where your business is in the stages of development, and then focus on putting developmental priorities in place.
I often recommend that you give your business an actual client slot, or two client slots, and treating it as such. Meaning, if a client needs a session, you wouldn’t cancel another client to book them in. Don’t cancel on your business, either.
Third priority: Your team’s well-being. If you have anyone helping you along the way, you don’t want to burn them out, or allow clients to mistreat them. Care for them. Help them set priorities, and have reasonable expectations of their bandwidth.
Fourth priority: Your client/patient/customer. You’re going to take care of your clients. You’re going to serve them. If you set them fourth, then you’ll have a ton of help and come to them resourced and feeling good, instead of burnt out, and feeling like you’re getting yanked around.
Then, when you notice a fire in your business, look at it from this order of priorities. Because, truthfully, unless you run a 911 service, it’s not actually a fire. No one is going to die if you stop, connect with your heart, and assess your priorities.
In 99% of cases, your clients will be totally fine, even happy, if it takes you a day, a few days, a week to get to something, as long as you communicate with them.
How do you deal with setting priorities? Inquiring hearts want to know.
With love,
Mark Silver, M.Div.
Heart of Business, Inc.
Every act of business can be an act of love.
P.S. The waiting list.
Our Learning Community is the most obvious step for folks. Although it’s not open at the moment, it will most likely open again in early summer.
So, I encourage you to join the waiting list to get first dibs when we do re-open it. Also, if any members complete (as they occasionally do) while we’re closed, the waiting list may have access to join before we officially re-open.
Just fill out the form below, and you’ll be automatically added to our waiting list.
Or, click here to go take a look at the Learning Community first.
P.P.S. Waiting and not waiting.
Okay, my individual client slots are full for ongoing clients, although I am accepting folks onto a waiting list, if you’re interested.
What there is still room for is in my small group coaching, which is an intimate group of no more than six people, that I follow very closely and give nearly daily feedback to. There’s a wonderful group of folks in there. We meet live twice a month on Tuesdays, noon-1:30pm eastern.
If you’re interested, in any of this, just send me an email and tell me about your business and what you’re facing, and we’ll take it from there.
12 Responses
Mark,
Meeting deadlines with top quality work is fundamental to a business. No one should take on clients they cannot serve as promised.
And if you find after accepting the assignment that you can’t fulfill it, you should either give it top priority or refund any advance payments and enable the client to find someone else to do the work.
I understand that you yourself, Mark, have integrity, but I have personally experienced website support that is irresponsible and unreliable while being indignant at the same time at my very reasonable expectations.
Diana
Diana- yes! Reasonable expectations. Something very important is to outline expectations with clients when they are engaged, and to communicate clearly with them if you can’t respond within those expectations for some reason. That’s very different than the example I used.
Hi Mark,
I found this really interesting. The priorities of the paramedic were indeed counter intuitive – thank you for sharing that experience.
My personality tends towards the conscientious side, so it’s uncomfortable to not attend to all urgent – or heck, even unfinished – things. And – yes, I see the wisdom of not chasing fires. I can’t do it all at the same time, which means some things have to be left on the back burner or even undone for a bit – whether it’s dirty dishes in the kitchen or a broken link on the website.
Thank you for the food for thought!
Karly- so glad this was helpful! It’s hard to resist responding to fires… and remembering they aren’t actually fires, is a big deal! Here’s another one I’ve heard in the fire service: “No need to rush, it will still be burning when you get there.”
This is brilliant, Mark – very well summarized. I’ve found that it really works to put all my clients into 3 calendar days/wk, and then use the other 2 days for admin/marketing/thinking/etc. It is sometimes (often) hard to tell someone that my first availability for a session is 2 weeks out, but then at the practical level, I just find that everything comes apart if I don’t honour that need.
Me, too! For me, usually, clients Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Friday mornings. 🙂 You must honor yourself.
This is spot on! My website shopping cart went down for 2 weeks, and my web guy’s fixes kept making it worse. My practice has been to ship books within 24 hours, nicely wrapped & with a personal message. Now customers were being ‘let down’ and I was getting stressed.
Ironically, book sales had been booming and I sold out of my best selling book and the reprint was happening slower than planned.
The fact is, when I contacted the customers individually and sent them another way to pay, everyone was patient, even when some had to wait 2 weeks for the books. It was only my ‘high standards’ that were causing the stress.
I’m now reviewing the whole way I run the book business, and looking at a more relaxed approach: taking care of myself first. Your article is so reassuring and affirming about this. Thank you!
SO beautiful, Juliet! And I’m so excited at your book sales!
Hi there,
This gives a pretty accurate idea of overall priorities. I didn’t really see things that way, but I find it interesting. I’m about to lounch my first start-up and I’ll need to have a scheme in my mind about what to do first.
Nice post, thanks a lot.
Chris.
Hi Mark,
This is an interesting stuff, thank you for posting! As it happens, we need to set prioritization in our business to make it flow more smoothly and allow all the things which we need to do can be done in the time promised.
I also like the prioritization you set on you, your business condition at the moment, your team, before finally your client. If your business is in a good condition itself and run by greatly conditioned people, it will sure impact positively to our product/service which we offer to the client.
Good Post! Yup, setting priorities is the key to becoming a successful business owner.
I like your thinking about the priorities of well-being. In the past I have certainly put mine, my family’s, everyone’s well being aside in the name of trying to achieve success. Unfortunately, only mistakes and the scars of business seem to be enough for a person to make a change.
I now don’t work +120 hours per week. I do put myself and my family first, to an extent, and I am happier for it.