1/26: DON’T BE LIKE THEM
One of the things that has taken me a long time to accept in this business (and is really probably true of every service business) is that when people sign up to come in for an intro class, only 50% will actually show up. When I started in this business, we used to have a separate time when intro's came in. We very quickly realized that was not the way to go, as quite often even with multiple people scheduled at one time, none of the people would show up and I found myself wasting a lot of my personal time. I do my best to respect people's time because it is the one resource we have that is completely non-renewable. It really, really bothered me (or I should say, BOTHERS me) when people treat my time like it doesn't matter and is something THEY could care less about.
Years ago when we were buying a vehicle, I called 4 dealerships to go look at vehicles that day. After talking with my wife, I realized that none of the vehicles that the dealers were going to show us had a certain feature that we wanted. The easy thing for ME would have been to just not show up. But given that the dealers pretty much all said they would move the vehicles up to the building for us, it was very disrespectful of their time for me to just not show up. So I got back on the phone and called all the dealerships and told them I made a mistake and would not be in to look at the vehicles, so if they hadn't moved them yet, they didn't need to worry about it. I don't know, it just seems like common courtesy to do that.
In the past, it seems to me that people were better at keeping commitments, and I think it all revolves around cell phones. When I was a kid and plans were made to meet somewhere....YOU GOT THERE! You knew if you didn't there was no easy way to contact those that you were meeting, and you knew you were going to be leaving them hanging and wondering. Keeping a schedule and keeping appointments was vitally important. Now, however, that pressure is reduced because with the click of a button you can contact anyone, anywhere, at any time.
This may be a harsh statement to make, but it has started to make liars out of us all. Think about it, it really is what is going on. If you say you are going to be somewhere and don't show up and don't make the smallest of efforts by clicking that button to let someone know you aren't going to be there....you lied! Maybe I should be thankful in this business that that very fact is the first filter removing people that I personally probably wouldn't want to be around. But I'm going to turn the tables on you now. It's very easy to get upset when other people lie to you, but do you get as upset when YOU lie to yourself? And I bet most of you do lie to yourself before you even get out of bed. I hate to admit it, but I fall in this categroy.
Most of us use an alarm clock to get up in the morning. When we go to bed we set a time and say THAT is when we are getting up. Then, when that alarm clock goes off, most of us will hit that snooze button, right? Well, congratulations, you just started your day with your very first action being a lie. You DIDN'T get up when you told yourself you would. Now, will the world come to an end? Of course not. Will anyone really care? Maybe your spouse if that buzzer keeps going off. But REALLY think deeply about what just happened. You are personally OK with starting your day off lying to yourself. Now, if you start your day off like that, isn't it much easier to lie to yourself later on in the day? And if you lie to yourself later in the day, isn't it easier to lie to other people as well? It's amazing how quick we are to hold other people accountable when they lie, but think very little about holding ourselves accountable when we lie to ourselves.
So, I throw out this challenge now: hold yourself accountable to even the tiniest of lies that you commit during the day. "I'll call you at 5:30" and you don't call until 5:35? Sorry, you lied. "I'll call you sometime between 5:30 and 6:00" and you call at 5:35, NOW we're talking! Even the Bible spells it out in Luke 16:10: Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. Train yourself in small matters, because it will lead to those same behaviors in big matters.
