I am sure I am not alone when I say that interruptions drive me crazy. It seems like every time I am trying to focus on what I am doing someone calls me, knocks on the door or emails me, and I have to take my attention away from the task at hand and give it to this distraction.
One day I realised just what a bad habit I had developed. I was irritated when a customer walked in the door to give me business. Really? Or a member of my staff would be coming to ask a question, mostly to do with their job and normally something to do with meeting the needs of a customer. And when it comes to emails, sure there are lots of distractions, but I get 50% of my work from emails, and here I was getting grumpy every time someone was contacting me trying to give me work.
I must say I felt ashamed at how my attitude had become so bad bad. I also realised that my grumpiness didn’t go unnoticed. I was giving off an irritated “vibe†which was picked up by my staff and my customers, which of course made me feel even more ashamed.
I was relating my new found shame to a mentor of mine and she said something extremely profound. She said “if you think your customers are irritating imagine life without themâ€.
An interesting thought of course. Just how would my life look without customers? Well I would certainly have a lot of time that was sure, but I wouldn’t have much to do if I didn’t have any customers. And of course I wouldn’t have any money, so I would need to find a new street corner to live on. Then there were my staff, no need for them, so I would be responsible for some of their hardship.
This obvious train of thought, and simplistic extension of the reality I could face, really made me stop, think and change my attitude. I made the mental decision to get excited every time a customer came in the door, or a customer called or emailed. Likewise if a member of my team knocked on my door I would welcome them in and give them my full and undivided attention.
It took me a little while but in a week or so, my bad attitude was replaced with one that was much better. Everyone noticed, my business benefited financially and I attracted many more new customers. I think of this every time I walk into a business and I am confronted with a grumpy business owner, who clearly looks at me as an interruption to their day. If only they realised what their attitude is costing them.
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