Do You Make These Mistakes In Business?

Do you ever feel like an alien? I’m not talking about the kind that’s green, from another planet and oozes nasty fluids. I’m talking about the feeling you get when you feel like you’re the only one who cares that the store clerk is having a personal conversation with her co-worker, while staring right at you, and still just goes right on talking as if they were the only 2 people in the world.

Do you ever feel like you’re the only one who knows how to pick up the telephone and have a conversation with somebody to solve a problem or handle an issue?

I’ve said for a long time that we’re creating a world of passive-aggressive people with all this email and text messaging and it seems to get worse every day. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-inte
et or anti-email, I use them both, a lot, but I also know how to pick up the phone to talk to somebody and I know how to have a one-on-one conversation with another human being.

Am I frustrated? No, not really . . . ok, yes, I am frustrated. Let me tell you why – maybe you can relate.

We’re all busy people. And as busy people, we occasionally have something slip through the cracks. We forget to return an important phone call, we lay something on top of that contract we were supposed to sign and forget it’s lying on our desk. Things happen. No big deal, right? We just make them right, ask for forgiveness, do better the next time – whatever it takes to correct it.

Ignoring the situation isn’t a way to make it right. Avoidance isn’t solving anything.

As a marketer, consultant and event planner, I am constantly negotiating deals with other business people, hotels, entrepreneurs, etc. It is amazing to me how many times people just simply don’t get back to you. It’s as if they have disappeared, fallen plum off the face of planet earth – not reachable by fax, email, phone, cell phone or carrier pigeon. Never fear, sometimes they appear again – sometimes not!

Why I am ranting about this to you? Well, it isn’t because I’m frustrated, it’s because I think we can all learn from this.

I have found that in almost every situation there is a business and/or a marketing lesson to be found – if you just look for it. One way to make this easier on yourself is to constantly be asking yourself this question . . . How Can I Use This (in my business or my life)?

Have you asked yourself that question lately?