A Day of Firsts

On Sunday I had a day of firsts.

I rang triple 0 for the first time. I had an ambulance come to my home. I then sat in said ambulance to be attended to by the paramedics. I then had to go to our local hospital for the first time as a patient. All of these firsts has meant I am now not at full capacity to perform in my role.

Life happens doesn’t it and my situation could be a lot worse. I had my whole week planned. Four days working with a client but I’m going to be really pushing it to achieve the targets I had set.

This has all got me thinking. The reason I am in this position is the result of a domino effect. I had been out in the morning, visited my parents and got home to quickly have my lunch before doing all the tasks I had for the rest of the day. I took a shortcut. If you have read my articles before you may have seen me write about the consequences shortcuts may have. It goes to the proven scientific fact our brains can only handle so much at one time and when you overload it, the easiest, quickest path will be taken and mistakes may be made. As in my case...

Research has shown, aspects of your business which will impact on your bottom line, include the quality of the product or service you provide, whether you deliver your product or service on time, retention of customers and customer complaints. These aspects are on my mind at the moment. Fortunately, for me, this client is a ‘return customer’ and they know the quality of the service provide. I also have a good working relationship with them which means we can renegotiate our targets if we need too. That is no accident.

What about you? Is your business prepared for when the unexpected may happen? Have you built relationships with your customers/clients and delivered a quality product/service on time to ensure when the unexpected arises the working relationship will be maintained?