Why You Should Never Cancel Appointments | Edmonton Business Coach

Hi and welcome to another edition of ask spurl CPA. Today we’re talking about why you should never cancel appointments. It’s cold. We never did business owners to cancel appointments, effort. Does that ever happen?

Hmm.

Yeah. Business owners, we get into it. They do cancel the appointments sometimes. So the Zig Ziglar quote that I have is, if you don’t plan your time, someone else will help you waste it. When you use a Edmonton Business Coach you get an advantage. Um, the statistic in all we’re always trying to help is 50% of all kidney and small businesses fail. And our belief that they fail for predictable reasons, with a very proven solutions to beat those, um, in the story that we have here is business owners. They get rushed and then begin to reschedule appointments thinking that that is, you know, that’s the move. That’s the thing that they should do to overcome that time crunch. But they don’t realize that rescheduling things ends up making it worse. So cold. What are the questions that you think business owners should be asking and before they get into that, that doom loop sorta speak, why is time and more important resource than couch? So the most important number in business is 168. We all have 168 hours in the week. What are we going to do with them? So I you can get more money. You can sell more things. You can get a loan from the bank, you can go get a job, you cannot get more time. It’s, it’s you know, 100% not replenishable. So there’s, there is nothing more important than time. It’s you know, 100% finite and every person who gets the same amount regardless of how much cash and resources they have,

okay,

why is it a waste of time to second guess things that you previously scope? Okay, so you have a certain amount of decision making power all day. Everyone needs a coach and that is why Edmonton Business Coach programs can help you grow. Um, then you know, that’s why it’s a good idea to do some of the harder tasks first thing. Cause sometimes you depleted that. But let’s say you’ve already planned to do something. You’ve already put this thing on your calendar. Um, do I want to just sit there and lament and go back and forth on if this is useful or if this is not useful or do I want to just do it? And instead of doing that, you know, back and forth, you know, regime of my head, if this was beneficial the first time, you know, do something else, um, then, you know, maybe what’s the worst thing that happens? You attend a bad appointment or you do something and you realize it wasn’t useful, it’s going to make you better and sharper next time you agree to do something more likely to say no to something that, that doesn’t matter. Um, so I think it’s usually a waste of time. You’ve already put some thought into it the first time to say that it was worthwhile, you know, don’t lament on it, you know, and just, you know, put that in your calendar and knock it out when it comes up

is rescheduling immediate or does it take off and take efforts to create interruption? So normally people think that if I rescheduled this hour, I could just do this in another hour over there. Um, but I would argue that, you know, rescheduling is, it often takes, um, it often takes some time. So what happens is now I reschedule, they have probably lamented on it. I probably decided to do I need to do this, can I do it another time? So I spent some time doing that. Then I’m going to reach out to the other person that I was supposed to have an appointment with. The first time you don’t want best case scenario is I can reach out to them to reschedule it immediately. But a lot of times that doesn’t happen to reach out to them. You’re going to leave a message and they’re going to call you back and they’re going to leave a message cause then you weren’t available.

Then you got to call them back another time and, and, and do that. Uh, so not just the back and forth, but how, how many interruptions have we now created and we know that interruptions are the enemy and uh, when it comes, when it comes to getting things done, so we’ve just invited, you know, extra time. The appointment is still going to take as long as it was to do, but now we’ve just had extra time rescheduling and created a bunch of interruptions that make us less productive when we have a time crunch anyways. Um, why is taking 15 minutes to reschedule an appointment? Like a high interest loan? Yeah, this is what I, I’ve likened it, you know, everyone knows that the money marts of the world and the payday loan companies and then everyone knows all those aren’t good. We know those aren’t good, but let’s look at the math on some of these rescheduling activities and let’s just say, and it takes you 15 minutes or it’s costing you 15 minutes in between the time to think about rescheduling, to reaching out to the person they’re getting back to them and getting a new time and creating a bunch of interruptions here and there.

That costs you 15 minutes at a time. This appointment, that appointment might’ve been 60 minutes to begin with. So I’ve just been 15 of my most precious resource. Let’s pretend they were gold diamond coins, you know, to, you know, to reschedule a one hour appointment because I didn’t have time to do it this week. Now this is, this thing is taking me an hour and 15 minutes. So no, 15 out of 60, we’re talking, this is a 25% interest rate. Edmonton Business Coach programs will help you grow. Um, so yeah, I got an hour back but I had to invest an hour and 15 minutes to get that hour back. It, we put that in the form of uh, uh, alone and is you look at that interest rate, it just becomes astronomical. But business owners are doing in all the time because they don’t realize that time invested and rescheduling. You know, if you’re so busy not to do it, if you’re so busy that you felt the need to reschedule, that’s more reason why you shouldn’t because you just don’t have any time to reschedule anything.

What do customers do if you start rescheduling appointments with that? Okay, so now you have customers and let’s say you, you a worst case scenario, the customers gets really frustrated with you and they fire you. That’s, that can be number one. Uh, but let’s say you have a good relationship with that customer and that’s not what happened and they’re pretty easy going about it. Um, so you rescheduled what that customer, uh, and, and, and sure they’re okay with it and you’ve invested in this high interest loan and you felt that it’s okay. I’m willing to take an extra 15 minutes here, but guess what? That’s not where it ends. Now, this customer sorts of things that, okay, all our meetings are kind of flexible. If we can’t make him, we’ll just do it the next one. So now you invested 50 minutes through this one, but now that customer over the lifecycle, then being your customer, they’re going to do that to you.

Again, that’s going to come back to you. They’re going to start to realize that the, these appointments aren’t that, you know, you’re, you know, okay with rescheduling. So they’re going to feel much more comfortable with you. So now we’re not just looking at 15 minutes to reschedule an hour appointment. We’re probably looking at the customer doing it to you. That’s another 15 minutes every half hour to reschedule this one hour appointment. What do employees do if you don’t make good on appointments with them? Same thing though. It will hit their deadlines. You know you’re supposed to meet with them and often you’re paying them to be on the clock, so now they’re going to reschedule on you and this just becomes this vicious circle. Everyone realized that that deadline doesn’t really mean anything and we’re all just spending our time and spinning your wheels, rescheduling this and rescheduling that, and we’re not actually doing anything to knock out the tasks and move them forward, which is the most critical thing because remember, we’re going to tight crunch.

That’s why we wanted to reschedule in the first place. Is finishing on time often better than being perfect? I A hundred percent a hundred percent like, I mean, perfection is the enemy of progress. Now, I’m not saying you do a shoddy job at something and you just get it done for the sake of getting it done. But you know, if you can get it to 90%, if you can get a 90% and 90% is what you know, everything you could accomplish, that’s pretty good. Often getting it to often the timing, keeping the project moving, often your project is just one in the sequence of running a business or helping a client and no matter what it is, and if you can hit that deadline and beyond time and have a, uh, a good quality product, it doesn’t need to be perfect. Find a great Edmonton Business Coach and grow. Um, often being on time is better than being perfect.

Why? Our appointments with yourself often easier to cancel them as others. So these are even the harder ones. We made an appointment with herself because I need to do content, update the website, a do a checklist. So my, so my staff, uh, can’t answer the phones and intake the new clients better. I need to block off time to do my accounting to make sure I have the right numbers, uh, that I can actually make good business decisions on. Uh, but that appointment is with myself and I was supposed to sit down and do some a solitary work with myself. And often that is the easiest appointment. Um, you know, to, you know, to reschedule because there’s no one else in it. But you know, often those ones that you’re doing yourself are the most important things to do. You know, you got an appointment later on with your phone supplier and they’re going to talk about which phones are, are going to be cheaper for your business.

And then either you’re going to save you 20 bucks a month, but yet you didn’t knock out, you know, how to intake clients and do a better checklist. Usually those appointments that you’re doing as the business owner, you know, to go just strategy yourself like they’re the most important strategic initiatives of the business. And because that appointment he blocked off time to do it with yourself, not with anyone else. It could be the most tempting to cancel because no one really knows if he can say of done yourself. Why our appointments with yourself? The most important to keep. Yeah, they’re those big, high level strategic initiatives. I’m going to new content so the phone rings. Um, and you know, often most problems and businesses can be fixed with, you know, uh, more leads more. Uh, if you have more revenue opportunities that can fix a lot of problems.

Um, you know, or you know, I need to put this time in to get the information into the accountant that I can get my numbers right in my business so I can make good business decisions. The appointments with yourself are usually on big, significant strategic initiatives that you had as a business owner are tasked with, you know, they’re not with, you know, the, the day to day. Um, so those strategic initiatives, they often there with yourself and they get canceled when they’re the most important. Is it a bad idea to reschedule one client to deal with another client’s emergencies? And I think so. Yeah. Most people’s are, most, most emergencies are created by someone else’s poor planning. Uh, that’s gonna be a little harsh, but that’s usually the truth. So most emergencies that you’re going to encounter or because of someone else’s poor planning, every once in a while it’s because of your own poor planning.

Uh, but usually that’s, that’s what it is. And you don’t want to reschedule that one good client because they know they didn’t create that emergency for the one that, you know, always has the emergency. They’re there, they’re never going to learn, uh, to plan effectively. Um, so I don’t think it’s, it’s the best use of your time to, you know, to blow off one client to tackle another client’s emergencies. And also, you know, even going further when that sometimes it’s not a good idea to blow off your main strategic initiatives to tackle the emergencies of one particular client as well. There are always going to be emergencies. Your client is always going to have emergencies. So, um, you know, you don’t want to be blowing off in meetings or, or deadlines with clients who somehow mysteriously just don’t have all of these emergencies. Um, or you know, the main strategic initiatives that you have as well.

Why is it important to have some extra time in their schedule to deal with issues? Yeah, so I mean, clients are going to have things that they come up, you know, they’re going to have those burning fires and even good clients, good planning there, couldn’t have things that come and you don’t, you can’t completely ignore them. That’s not what I’m saying to do. Um, but I’m saying you don’t cancel your strategic initiatives. You know, the preplanned appointments with other clients, preplanned appointments with yourself to work on strategic initiatives. When you use a Edmonton Business Coach you get a peak around the corner into the future.  That’s not what you cancel to tackle a client’s emergencies. You need to have time, extra time in your schedule that, you know, what facilitates that. You can deal with an emergency or two, you can give back to people so they can get, you know, quicker information. Sometimes it’s as simple as making your appointment blocks a little longer than they need to be.

You know, you think every appointment’s an hour, but you schedule an hour and 15 minutes. You can get back to someone on a, on an important issue before they’re a, or you have a set walk in your day. What’s you purposely not scheduled with anything? So you can deal with whatever burning fire, you know, happens at that time. So having a little bit extra time in your schedule, make sure that you know all those planned initiatives for other clients, plans, strategic initiative time. Those don’t get knocked off your schedule in the favor of dealing with the, the, the burning fire of today. So I think that’s what we have here for today. Thanks so much for joining us again. As always, please hit the light, can subscribe buttons so we can continue to deliver you tips on how to beat the odds at business. Uh, and if you have any queries, please leave them in the comments below. We’d love to do a future video. I’m one of your comments. Thanks very much. Thank you.