It's the Customer, Stupid!: 34 Wake-up Calls to Help You Stay Client-Focused

Chapter 21. Master Your Time or It Will Enslave You

Time, both yours and theirs: Master it or it will master you.

If you were given $86,400 every day and told to invest it wisely or lose it, you would treat the process very seriously, would you not? If you were rewarded $31,536,000 tax-free this year and told, "Use it or lose it," hopefully, you would become a good steward of those funds in the truest sense of the word.

Each of us begins our day with an identical number of minutes: 1,440. We are each awarded 86,400 seconds when the clock hits 12:00 am Why is it that some of us spend that judiciously and others waste it? I suspect there are hundreds of reasons.

Both you and your client have more valuable things to do with your time than to waste it on unproductive matters and conversations. One of the biggest complaints that customers lodge is the time they have to waste to get a problem rectified.

You may be fabulous at the client service you render, but if you're a lousy manager of your most valuable resource—time—then all could be lost for naught. It starts with better organization and clear-cut priorities. Eliminate the time robbers that rip away at your schedule like hungry piranha.

In my nearly four decades in the insurance industry, I have concluded that there are scores of "time thieves" that attack us and our clients on a daily basis. They range from uninvited drop-ins to unwelcome e-mails, from junk mail to the piles of regulatory rubbish that has inundated our industry.

All ...