You've Got Two Ears

The Great Calendar Challenge
Your mission, should you decide to accept it, will be to set an appointment and keep it. Oh, don't run. This is not an exercise in making cold calls. You don't have to introduce yourself to any threatening strangers and persuade them to listen to your sales pitch. All you have to do is write something in your calendar and when the time arrives, do what it says to do. It might be to make a phone call. It might be to write a letter. It could even be to meet with someone else, perhaps for lunch. Heck, it could be to have lunch alone.

You're thinking, this guy has got to be nuts. And you're probably right, but not because I'm wrong about the difficulty of keeping time commitments in modern America. You have only to live one day in this crazy business (and, indeed, personal) world to realize that you walk among the schedule zombies. We live on the planet of the calendar challenged.

Ours is a land where people join associations and never attend the meetings. Or they do show up, yet regularly leave early. Why join in the first place if other things are so much more important? Go to lunch in any restaurant. You'll see people jabbering away on their cell phones, ignoring their companions. Or, better yet, both parties are on their phones. They can both be heard saying, "Wish you were here." It seems that people are busy. We've got a lot of stuff to do. We've got places to go and people to see. The problem is that once we get there we have to see someone else. "Hey, I've got to take this call. I'll get back to you on that thing we were talking about."

Ask anyone, "What is your single biggest business problem?" Chances are good they'll tell you, "time management." There are one hundred and sixty eight hours in every week. As far as I can tell that hasn't changed recently. That's about as many hours as there ever were. There were enough hours for Edison to invent the electric light. There were enough hours for Einstein to discover relativity. There were enough hours for Bill Gates to have amassed thirty five billion dollars, and there are enough hours for him to add to that at a rather impressive rate. There's certainly more than enough time to go around.

The problem with time is that it's doled out in very small packets which have an incredibly short shelf life. And, you only get them one at a time. Get one, and zip, it's gone! Think fast. Better make this one count. In the big scheme of things not all time is created equal. The only useful time is now. Both the past and the future live only in service to the present. To be a superior time manager you have only to grasp that simple fact.

How can the future and the past service the present? It's easy. The past lets you decide where you want to go in the future. It tells you who you want to meet with and where you want to be. The present is when you make that happen. You commit, now, to yourself to take a future action based on what the past has taught you. When the moment arrives, you take the action. If you are uncertain now, then make no commitment. Just schedule nothing. But, having made a commitment, keep it. Decide and then live with your decisions. True emergencies are an obvious exception. But how many real emergencies are there anyway? The point is to learn to live with your time decisions. If you make bad ones and suffer the consequences, believe me, you'll start making better ones.

For example, suppose you schedule lunch with a friend. At the last moment a prospective customer wants to see you. The moment of truth has arrived. Break the lunch date and you've not only inconvenienced your friend but also squandered the moment when you make the decision to dine with her. Indeed, you effectively lied to yourself when you wrote the date in your calendar. What? Am I suggesting that you tell your prospect that
you're busy and they'll have to pick another time to meet with you? You bet! What's the worst that can happen? Is their time really worth more than yours (and your friends)? My guess is that if they see you as important, they'll accommodate your schedule. And when they do, of course you'll keep the appointment.

When you write something in your calendar you're either telling the truth to yourself or not. You either made a commitment or a speculation. Your life is either one of certainty or one of probability. Master time. If you'll lie to yourself, you'll lie to others. Shakespeare had it right when he said, "And this above all, to thine own self be true. And it must follow, as the night, the day, thou canst not then be false to any man."

Mark Fitzgerald, Sales Training Institute, Inc., Tampa, Florida provides this column weekly. Mr. Fitzgerald provides both group and customized sales training for professionals and companies. For more information, please contact him by telephone at 813-831-5555 via email at mark@saleskills.com or visit www.saleskills.com. © Copyright Mark Fitzgerald, 2009, All Rights Reserved.