Working on Your Business and Not In Your Business

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend a seminar, sponsored by The Phoenix Business Journal and presented by Nathan Sachs of Blueprints for Tomorrow,  focused on working “on” your business and not “in” your business.  The day before the seminar, I started typing an email to the Phoenix Business Journal to cancel my reservation because I have been so busy recently that I just wasn’t sure it was a good idea to spend the time at this seminar that I could spend getting my tasks done back at the office.  As I was typing the email, I laughed at myself as I realized this was exactly the reason I needed to make sure I attended the seminar.

I attended the seminar and walked out feeling like I was ready to go back to the office, delegate my tasks and start working on the business.  A lot of the concepts I heard during the seminar were a refresher of things I already knew, but hadn’t taken the time to focus.  Others were interesting ideas I wanted to immediately implement after driving back to the office. Here I sit a week later, just now starting to go through my notes for the seminar.  What happened?

I let my task list get the best of me, and I came back to the office and immediately started running around addressing any immediate issues that needed to be fixed.  When speaking with a potential customer this morning, I realized they were a step ahead of me in working on their business.  The potential customer had contacted me looking for some help with their call volume.  She told me she didn’t have time to focus on building her business and meeting with her clients with the phones constantly ringing. This individual had been referred by a friend of hers who stated we had been able to provide them with virtual reception services, allowing their office to focus on building their business while they outsourced a business process that wasn’t making them any money, and wasn’t their strong suit.

I now realize that I need to start doing exactly what it is all of our clients pay us to do.  We are here to be their partner in business, answer their phones in a professional manner and provide the highest level of Customer Service to their telephone customers so they can focus on growing their business.  After writing this blog, it’s time for me to focus in on what our core business is and see if I can’t work on delegating or outsourcing all the items that get me tied up IN the business.