Are You Doing a Good Job?

Written by Dave Balch


I'll bet that you are really good at what you do. You are conscientious, creative, and hard working. You would never short-change your customers or give them less than 110 per cent. Right? RIGHT!

But do your customers know that? Do they know that you are on schedule, that you gave them something extra, that you did exactly what they wanted?

"Okay, Dave, what got you started on this one?" you're probably asking.

We have some friends that hired a pet-sitter to take care of their two dogs and two cats while they were on vacation. When they returned, they found no evidence that their animals had been cared for as instructed. Medications looked as if they hadn't been touched. The supply of treats looked virtuallyrepparttar same as it had when they left. True,repparttar 117624 animals were healthy and that'srepparttar 117625 most important thing; to paraphrase Roseanne, "The animals were alive [when my friends got home], sorepparttar 117626 pet sitters did their job!"

>From a business point of view, though,repparttar 117627 pet sitters didn't do so well. The evidence suggests that they did a 'poor' job. Or was it just a case that there was no evidence that they did a 'good' job?

Did they giverepparttar 117628 medications or didn't they? It looked like they didn't when, in fact, they did, and provided an extra service by picking up more. Did they giverepparttar 117629 treats as requested or didn't they? It looked like they didn't when, in fact, they did and provided an extra service by going torepparttar 117630 store to buy more.

Tame the Interruption Beast

Written by Dave Balch


Interruptions. Arghhh. One ofrepparttar biggest problems for us home-based business types isrepparttar 117623 relentless stream of things that disrupt our train of thought. Unexpected phone calls, children that need attention,repparttar 117624 dog needs to go out,repparttar 117625 cat needs to come in,repparttar 117626 sink is leaking,repparttar 117627 car needs to go torepparttar 117628 shop... it never ends!

It is extremely frustrating to be inrepparttar 117629 middle of an important letter or proposal, deep in thought, only to have Aunt Bertha call to tell you about her bunions. What to do? Aunt Bertha's bunions are important! (To her.) Some interruptions can be eliminated, some can be controlled, and some, well........ sorry, FedEx just got here and needed a signature... where was I? Oh yes; and there are some interruptions you've just got to live with.

Let's start with interruptions that can be eliminated: phone calls. Turningrepparttar 117630 phone completely off is always an option; letrepparttar 117631 answering machine get it. That's not always practical, though; we do want to talk to our customers, don't we? Well, I have two words for you: "Caller ID". This is a wonderful service provided byrepparttar 117632 phone company for a small monthly fee that, whenrepparttar 117633 phone rings, displays information aboutrepparttar 117634 caller on a little gizmo that you can get at Radio Shack for under $20. (And, there's no interruption for installation: they do it from their office!)

Bingo! Now you know who's calling before you answerrepparttar 117635 phone and you can make an intelligent decision whether or not to answer it. If it's Aunt Bertha, letrepparttar 117636 machine get it and call her back later when it's convenient for you. You now have power overrepparttar 117637 phone, and it is good. The interruption has been reduced to looking to see who it is.

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