Herman: John L. Herman Jr., Author

The Upcoming Hole In My Calendar!

I have just suffered a two week loss of activity. Oh, I worked like a dog for the last fourteen days…but my focus was not on the right activities. I lost my focus over a family crisis and a client who couldn’t pull the trigger on my contract and the fact that our annual Baseball Draft took place last Saturday.

Let’s start with the Basball Draft. It is the best day of the year. Better than your Birthday and Christmas put together. And leading up to Draft Day there is much preparation…there is research on players, draft strategies to complete, angst over player values, and in my case…since the Draft is held in my barn, “The Draft Palace” I had to construct temporary walls to hold all the sheets on which we list everyone’s team during the draft. The walls went up, the floors were scrubbed clean, the massive quantities of food purchased, and the research on players and strategy completed.

It turned out to be a fabulous day…perhaps my best draft ever…and the friendship from fifteen grown men acting like fifteen year olds continues to bring me joy. Chalk this day up as better than any of the other 25 Draft Days we have held.

The potential client heard me speak and leaped on the phone that day to ask if we could meet as soon as possible. I met him the next day. He has a successful company, but worries about the economy make him consider some outside help. He wanted to know what I could offer and how much it would cost. After explaining my method and my price he was very excited. He expected to sign the contract the next business day and schedule our first consulting time. The next day he worried about how he could fit in the time weekly to engage me (obviously a time management problem) and next he wondered the cost benefit of adding me to his team. He told me he couldn’t ever leave his facility unless his wife was there, and she is the primary salesman in the firm which means she is mostly “on the road” visiting clients. (Inability to trust staff being left alone)

My emails encouraging him to get started were met with resistance and here we sit almost three weeks later with no contract for me and no outside help for him. Admittedly even after forty years of “selling” it stings to lose a deal you thought was going to close. This prospect is now in my “wishbook” of potential sales and I will email the prospect a link to this blog posting…I know I could help improve his business but if he doesn’t see a fit I hope he does well even without me.

Now, the family crisis issue is painful and unfortunately all to common in our society…my son and his wife are looking at a divorce…never a pleasant thing…and extremely distracting. I give him and his wife my love and support and mostly care for the children involved. Our flaws as human beings shrink compared to how we handle the most important relationship of our lives.

Whining is now officially over.

Today focus returns.

The lost two weeks will mean there will be a two week hole in my calendar in about two months…because of my lack of focus on building my business…while the outside world dealt me three distractions.

When will you return to focus?

• Posted: 14 April 2009
• Comments: 1
• Category: Business failure

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