Are,You,Doing,Good,Job,amp,#63 DIY Are You Doing a Good Job?
Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;mso-style-noshow:yes;mso-style-parent:"";mso-padding-alt:0in When starting a new work at home business it is very easy to become consumed by it. We spend so much time trying to get the business up and running that we may end up becoming burned out and lose our motivation. There is so much to learn and
I'll bet that you are really good at what you do. You areconscientious, creative, and hard working. You would nevershort-change your customers or give them less than 110 percent. Right? RIGHT!But do your customers know that? Do they know that you areon schedule, that you gave them something extra, that youdid exactly what they wanted?"Okay, Dave, what got you started on this one?" you'reprobably asking.We have some friends that hired a pet-sitter to take care oftheir two dogs and two cats while they were on vacation.When they returned, they found no evidence that theiranimals had been cared for as instructed. Medicationslooked as if they hadn't been touched. The supply of treatslooked virtually the same as it had when they left. True,the animals were healthy and that's the most importantthing; to paraphrase Roseanne, "The animals were alive [whenmy friends got home], so the pet sitters did their job!">From a business point of view, though, the pet sittersdidn't do so well. The evidence suggests that they did a'poor' job. Or was it just a case that there was noevidence that they did a 'good' job?Did they give the medications or didn't they? It lookedlike they didn't when, in fact, they did, and provided anextra service by picking up more. Did they give the treatsas requested or didn't they? It looked like they didn'twhen, in fact, they did and provided an extra service bygoing to the store to buy more.The word is "perception". You may be doing a great servicefor your customers, but leaving them with a differentperception of what you've done.I learned this lesson the hard way. As aprogrammer/consultant at a large medical facility I wasgiven an important program to write. It was a criticalcomponent of a critical system that was supposed to beoperational by a certain date. I worked on it mostly fromhome. My client didn't see me very often, and hisperception was that I was goofing off; procrastinating untilthe last moment. As a result, his anxiety level was high,to put it mildly. In fact, I was doing a GREAT job for him,putting in extra time and even a few extra features.My bad. I should have made a point of letting him know whatI was doing so that he would feel comfortable in knowingwhat was going on. I could have done this in a number ofways both subtle and not-so-subtle. Subtle: "While I wasworking on this at home last night, I came up with a fewquestions." Not-so-subtle: "I know you haven't seen toomuch of me lately, but that's because I've been working onthis project at home. I didn't want you to think I wasputting it off".The point is this: if you're doing a good job for yourcustomers, make sure they know it!
Are,You,Doing,Good,Job,amp,#63