The Sounding Board

Compassion is important, both in business and personal affairs. It’s important to put yourself in your client’s/customer’s/colleague’s shoes so that you can be more intuitive to their professional needs. However, at what point does compassion, empathy, and your overall involvement become a detriment to you & your business? That answer is different for everyone.

Take for example, a client who just learned they are seriously ill. You can feel compassion, sadness, or empathize with their situation. But (there’s always a but, isn’t there?) when your empathy begins to interfere with your ability to maintain a professional relationship, it’s not always easy to see. I’ve worked with many a client with whom I’ve developed a close friendship & have found myself in just such a situation more than once. It’s hard to draw the line between professional responsibilities & personal involvement as a friend. It’s natural to want to help a friend, but nonetheless, there as to be a line in the sand somewhere..for both personal and professional well-being on both parts.

The line blurs, especially for service professionals whose livelihood thrives on building relationships. Building a relationship with your clients is paramount to a successful practice. However, as most service professionals know, it’s even more imperative to have a clear ‘line in the sand’ dividing professional responsibilities and personal involvement. The health and well-being of both you and your business could very well depend on your ability to draw that line.

Here you are, cruisin’ along with your business…things are going great! You’re making money, clients are happy, life is good. Then suddenly….BLAM! You hit one of life’s little speed bumps & your happy little journey is derailed. A sudden illness, a death in the family, divorce, there are any number of life’s little speed bumps you might encounter throughout the course of your life & the life of your business. Are you ready for it? Whatever “it” might be?

A little less than a year ago, I hit a huge speed bump. My husband (and bestest friend in the world!) was hit & killed by a drunk driver. BLAM! Everything about my life changed in a split second without my ever being able to see it coming. I realized quickly how poorly prepared my business (much less my personal life) was for something like that. (You could argue that one can’t ever really be prepared for something like that, but there are ‘just in case’ things you CAN do to help yourself in case something unexpected like that happens.) Have you thought about those kinds of things for your business?

As creatives, we often are our businesses. Clients and customers come to us for our unique talents. (whether that talent is organization, or a particular art style, or whatever.) You can’t just farm out your unique talents to someone else. It wouldn’t be the same. It wouldn’t be YOUR work anymore, would it? So, what can you do to buffer your business from personal tragedy, illness, etc.? The answer to that is really up to the individual, depending on how you have your business set up.

I have always maintained open conversations with my clients, so telling them when my husband passed away wasn’t so hard or complicated. They understood & were willing to give me the leeway I needed to come to terms with the changes in my personal life.  For those few things that couldn’t wait for me, I had colleagues ready & willing to jump in and take up my slack.

But I was lucky. I stumbled into solutions for my business when tragedy struck. I should have thought about these things long before anything actually happened. Even now, a year later, there are still issues that crop up & interfere with my day-to-day business operations. Some are easy to deal with, others are much closer to my heart and take more time and tender thought to navigate. However, I have found ways to insulate my business from some of those issues. Things like adding a little more time to the deadlines I quote helps ease some of the pressure of unexpected speed bumps (just in case I have an off day & need time to address some personal issues.) Keeping the lines of communication open with clients so we can discuss anything that might intrude on my ‘normal’ work routine also helps. Having back up plans in place, procedure manuals for anyone who does have to step into my shoes for a day or two, colleagues with whom I have a solid working relationship to call upon when I need an extra pair of hands, these are all things I have done to buffer life’s speed bumps.

What will you do to safe-guard your business from the unexpected speed bump?