Recently, I have had conversations with several of my colleagues who have been bombarded with people who are on their subscriber list asking for one on one phone time that “will only take a couple of minutes.” Time that they are asking for at no cost. Time from experts who have programs set up where clients pay for one on one time.
I too have received these types of calls and emails. The fact is, all of us would love to be able to answer these types of inquiries, but we are unable to. The reasons vary. The most obvious being that every “this will only take a couple of minutes” usually amounts to 5 – 15 minutes.
Often the person requesting just a moment of someone’s time doesn’t realize that there are others doing the same. Imagine if during any given day six people were asking for a few minutes of “free” coaching. This would add up to a minimum of an hour out of our day.
Besides the time on the call there is the time to get refocused on what we are doing. Whenever you move from one thing to another there is a re-entering of your attention to whatever you were working on.
It’s not that we don’t want the inquiries, but the reality is we may seriously not have the time to do this without setting aside a time to give you our full attention. Our full attention may mean that you will have to pay for the time.
The next time any of us say, “This will only take a few minutes of your time” what does that really mean and how would we feel if someone does that to us?
In success
Kathleen Gage
The Street Smarts Marketer