Let the train take the strain

On a June Monday morning, leaving the house to sunshine and a suggestion of warmth, I battled the burnt toast of the children’s attempt to make breakfast, the struggle to deliver my lad to his half term tuition and attempting to peel off a deliciously clingy 5 year old daughter in an attempt to regain my composure, head into Manchester for a significant meeting in one of the Big 4 accountancy firms. (All without spilling coffee on my dress, removing the cat hairs and not getting jam in my hair which now reeked of burnt toast).

Having just about managed this, it was heavenly that the iPhone was charged, the car park was within walking distance and I confidently strode through the automatic doors of the car park and into a Gail force wind and driving rain.

Horizontal rain, freshly (lightly) tanned legs, dress and suit jacket did nothing to prepare me for the extreme change of weather.  Turning blue instantly, streaked like a watercolour, hair now resembling the mess that it was after getting out of bed really put me in the mood for entering the shining slick building in front of me.

Lady luck was with me again, Costa sat shining proudly like a beacon of warmth and hope on the corner.  It didn’t have hair straighteners, umbrellas or a makeup team but it had tea and respite from wind and rain.

The recovery was swift, the meeting was good and I strode back into the storm to take on the next challenge of the day.

The stress was all mine, I had a choice to let that stress take me head on or try to put it away in a box marked “don’t be daft, it doesn’t matter”.  It sort of worked, on that day anyway.

Following this Monday morning, was a Tuesday morning of similar challenges however the storm from the day before had turned into biblical proportions that night, making the trials and tribulations of the Game of Thrones seem tame in comparison.  With the main family car in the garage, I was destined for a 3 hour drive each way for a 10.30 meeting in Hereford in the family Noddy car.

“KEY” was the meeting, in capital letters.  For our little business, this account was crucial.  The thought of sitting on the M6  (and possibly aqua-plaining across it) at 6am did nothing for my state of mind (not to mention having to muck it out, fill it with petrol and remove the Ikea furniture that was still flat packed waiting to be built).

Light bulb moment, what about the train? Aha but this was not London that I was travelling to, this was Hereford – is this possible? Yes it was, there was only one change, and it was an hour and a half on the way there and back.  The starts were aligned.

Sitting here reflecting on some personal time, having a bit of space to admire the view is a nice change.  Fingers crossed I may even get a new client …..

The deep drawer drawer of disappointment

In our office, the beauty of a ‘niche’ team means that we all can have our say, we all can feel the pain and strain of the day and we can all benefit from one another’s triumphs.

I often hear Penny sighing “put that one in the drawer” (sometimes her language is more colourful than that!) when receiving another rebuff or cold shoulder from a closed gatekeeper or decision maker.

This phrase has now swept the office and is used and encouraged to be used by everyone so that we can shed the seemingly continual churn of closed calls, wipe the slate keen, pick ourselves up and move on to the next attempt.

We as a business, must always be aware of the situation unfolding at the end of the phone call.  Visioning the journey that we are about to embark on.  The phone rings, someone picks up the call – in the old days of Secretarial College we were trained to always pick up after 3 rings and always smile.  You can hear a smile at the end of the phone, its true.

Sometimes we benefit from the smile at the end of the phone with the person picking up the phone being open and receptive.  90% of the time we are dismissed and passed on with the swiftness of fly swatting coming to mind.

Seen as a pest at times, a cold caller trying to baffle some poor unsuspecting business owner into a corner, we can be verbally abused, stopped in our stride, cut off and put down.  This will happen regardless of what message we were attempting to pass on, regardless of the benefits, regardless of whether or not the person answering the phone was actually qualified to make that decision to cut us off or not pass us on.

It is obvious, with this knowledge, why many people are terrified of getting on the phones to use this phenomenal invention to talk to people.

As a business, we do not sit and make 250 calls a day, nor are we targeted on making volume appointments.  As a team it is our job to research, run the gap analysis tools, check that we are actually calling a company that could make an informed decision as to whether the product or service could benefit them.

We work on aligning clients with services or products, with a lot of planning, research and thought going into the energy of each call, the reason why that person at the end of the phone should talk to us and why we should listen.

I wonder if we took a moment to slow down and take more time to listen, a little more time to be open and communicate, whether our business decisions would be better informed and more strategically aligned with where we want our business to grow to.

So as Penny and Sophi’s drawer overflow with the fall out of the day, we hear the sound of the Bell ringing announcing a significant call and breakthrough as a result of a call being balanced – between two well informed individuals having a polite, interesting conversation and taking time to listen, heavens there was even laughter.

Whether the defensive gatekeeper was at lunch and the decision maker was free from back to back meetings to take the call is irrelevant.  Numbers in a sales pipeline matter as much as the opportunity to communicate.

May the stars align a little more often, may the terror of picking up the phone to communicate never infect our team and may the sole purpose for which the telephone was invented for, be remembered.  Let’s take more time to talk and listen.