Tammi's World

Bark vs Bite

Ahhh weekends. Ya gotta love 'em.

I'm tryin' to. Weekends are not my best time. Never really have been. But I'm tryin'....oh yeah, I'm tryin'.

So, I worked Saturday. Should have just been a "quickie" but ended up being most of the day and, more importantly, made HUGE inroads in developing a strong, positive relationship with my customer.

Sunday? Sunday's are mine. The last time I worked in this industry I worked almost every single Sunday. I made a promise to myself I wasn't going to let that happen again.

Which brings me to last night. Here I sat, the house empty after a great Football Sunday. (Well, it was great in the sense that it involved great people. Personally, I bombed in my fantasy leagues.) I'm reading a few blogs, emailin' a friend....when IT happened.

8:30 on a Sunday night my fax goes off. It's my very largest customer. One I'm really strugglin' with. He's faxing a three page order with a note that requests that I call him ASAP.

Now everyone knows I work from home. They all know I'm single, no kids. They also know I'm really serious about rebuilding this territory.

Gotta tell you - it kind of pissed me off. Right wrong or indifferent, I felt like I was being played. It felt like they were taking advantage of the fact that I'm tryin' so hard to gain their confidence and get things on the right track.

I told my friend, via email, that I'm thinkin' ASAP will be some time around noon Monday (today).

Big talk, huh.

Yeah, gotta tell you, that lasted for about 5 minutes. I pulled the order off the fax and reviewed it. I read the note. I watched a bit more of the Pats/Chargers game. Then I picked up the phone.

Yep, I caved. I danced to their tune. I rolled over and played dead. I took the bait.

And actually I'm glad I did. We had a chance to talk, without customers breaking in, or my competitors interfering. We took care of the business at hand and had a chance to connect on a personal level. We talked football.

Overall the conversation lasted about 30 minutes. Not bad, but damn.......9:00 on a Sunday night and I was making notes and scheduling appointments.

There HAS to be a better way. I know that - I just can't figure out what that is.

It's official. My bark is MUCH worse than my bite. I'm not nearly as tough as I like to think I am. Now I just gotta figure out how to keep that little secret.......

Posted by Tammi at September 17, 2007 06:10 AM | TrackBack