• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

An Entrepreneur's Life

Entrepeneurship + Rapid-Growth, Local and Small Business Marketing

  • An Entrepreneur’s Life
  • My Blogs +
    • On Entrepreneurship
    • On Advice & Information Marketing
    • On Local Business Marketing
    • On Teleseminar & Webinar Marketing
    • On Marketing To Small Businesses
  • Work
  • Schedule
  • Get In Touch

Time And Energy Vampires

March 31, 2004 by Michael Cage Leave a Comment

Seth Godin observes in “Maybe I’m just cranky” the demand on his time and assistance from people who have no relationship with him — forget a paying relationship — not a relationship AT ALL. In my experience Seth is dead-on accurate with his observations.

I love helping people as much as the next guy, particularly because I absolutely love what I do. But if I gave into all the demands placed on my time for “free help” I’d have nothing left to give those who pay me for advice. And that just isn’t fair to my paying clients who I appreciate and value enormously. In my own life, I’ve adopted several strategies to cope with this:

  • I’ve gone to a strict policy where I never answer the phone live. Everything is filtered through either voice mail or an assistant.
  • My E-mail is carefully screened. People with a personal relationship or who are clients have a different, non-public address to reach me at than the rest of the world.
  • I set up the expectation in advance that I do not and never will respond instantly to requests. E-mail has made communication sloppy. Whereas someone used to have to put time and thought into a FAX or telegram, with E-mail I’ll often get half-conherent thoughts and brainstorms that I can do little with. Telling people in advance they’ll have to wait encourages them to put everything I need to answer their question in their communication. It makes for a cleaner exchange.
  • My primary business is helping businesses sell to small business clients using automated marketing systems. I’ve adopted a fair-but-strict policy of politely refusing to do anything for free for a non-client. My paying clients deserve any “freebies” I give out far more.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: productivity, time vampires

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Categories

  • On Advice & Information Marketing
  • On Entrepreneurship
  • On Local Business Marketing
  • On Marketing To Small Businesses
  • On Teleseminar & Webinar Marketing
  • Skunkworks

Recent Posts

  • Restaurants with Flash web sites and menus
  • You have to love the work
  • Automating Replays of Teleseminars & Webinars in InfusionSoft – and other CRMs?
  • 11 Ways Local Retail Stores Profit from Blogging
  • How Local Email Marketing LOSES Money
  • 3 Secrets for Easy Local Referrals in your Business – Audio Referral Marketing Training
  • On Information Marketing, Internet Marketing & Choices
  • Writing about Information Marketing and (G-d help me) Internet Marketing
  • Teleseminar & Webinar Automation + Replay Profits
  • Spotting Business Ideas by Getting Pissed Off

Archives

  • January 2011
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • July 2007
  • May 2007
  • April 2007
  • February 2007
  • January 2007
  • November 2006
  • October 2006
  • September 2006
  • August 2006
  • July 2006
  • June 2006
  • April 2006
  • March 2006
  • January 2006
  • December 2005
  • November 2005
  • October 2005
  • September 2005
  • August 2005
  • July 2005
  • June 2005
  • May 2005
  • April 2005
  • March 2005
  • February 2005
  • January 2005
  • December 2004
  • November 2004
  • October 2004
  • September 2004
  • August 2004
  • July 2004
  • June 2004
  • May 2004
  • April 2004
  • March 2004
  • August 1999

Copyright © 2019 · Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in