Unbury Yourself

A friend of mine introduced me to a CPA. The CPA has an impressive client list. There are several multi-millionaire athletes on the list. There are even a couple of billionaire (with a “B”) clients in his portfolio.

My friend tells me the CPA has an amazing rapport with his clients and he (and his team) work miracles for them in asset protection and tax mitigation.

But, he says, the guy is horrible at returning a telephone call and he can’t get out from under the mountain of email burying him.

My friend asked me to help the CPA.

I called him.

He answered the phone and we spoke. We agreed he needed help. I scheduled time to meet with him. He cancelled the meeting. We rescheduled. His assistant cancelled a second time. I called him to follow-up and left a message. I never heard back.

This guy has a problem that will probably kill him. He is overwhelmed and out of control. The stress this creates is unbearable. It will likely lead to a heart issue or some sort of breakdown.

You may feel the same way.

It’s not your fault.

Somewhere along the line you got some defective programming and it’s been gumming up the works ever since.

Here are the issues:

1). Low Self Esteem

2). Lack of Discipline

3). Weak Systems

See if you recognize any of this:

You worry about saying “NO” to some people. You fear if you say “NO” you will lose the client, lose some money, or even worse, not receive approval, praise, and affection.

You also don’t say “NO” because you were taught that saying that two letter word was bad customer service.

Sometimes you agree to meetings or attend events because you have FOMO (fear of missing out).

You let email pile up in your inbox because you don’t want to miss something and you let regular mail pile up because you will get to it later. Later never comes and the email inbox now has 1,100 items and the pile of mail is so wide you can’t see the top of your desk.

All of these things are due to your low self-esteem.

People with high self-esteem dictate the terms of the interaction. They can say “NO” whenever they want. They don’t ever worry about missing out on something because they know something else, even better, is around the corner.

Think about these scenarios:

You created a system for handling the calls in your office. It works for a week and then breaks down. This happens because you didn’t have time to train everyone on the system.

You hire an assistant to manage part of your workload. After two weeks you wonder why you are even further behind. You get upset with your assistant. She quits because she doesn’t know what to do and nobody ever instructed her (you didn’t have time).

The doctor told you to get more sleep, exercise and cut back on the (insert one – booze, sugar, caffeine, recreational drugs). That was three years ago. You now have (insert one – diabetes, high blood pressure, anxiety, a chemical dependency).

You routinely sit down at your desk and start something only to be distracted and not finish. You have about nine separate things in various states of completion and they have been that way for a week.

These scenarios are a symptom of a lack of discipline. You are not alone. About 98% of the population of planet Earth has the same level of discipline you have (or less).

But you didn’t set out to be in the bottom 98%, did you?

Finally think about this:

You’re like my CPA example. You are always behind. You think you have plenty of staff but nothing ever gets done. They are good people. They work hard (at least you think they do). But they say they are overwhelmed.

Yet you’re not making more money and you’re falling farther behind.

This means you lack effective systems. (You have some kind of systems but they are not productive and scalable.)

Congratulations on making it this far in this article. Most people got upset with me by now and have either fired off some terse complaint or unsubscribed or have simply cursed me under their breath and gone outside to light up a cigarette or eat some chocolate.

Since you are still with me, I will tell you what I tell my clients:

All these things can be corrected in a short period of time. Shockingly short.

Within hours you can begin feeling better.

Within days you can take back control of your life and your office.

Within weeks you can provide world-class service to your clients, on your terms.

Within months you can recapture the enjoyment you had when you first started in this role…and maybe your health will improve and you will live long enough to spend some of the additional money you make.

Before all of that can happen you have to do one thing:

Decide.

That’s it.

You’ve got to really want those things to happen but you’ve also got to decide to make some changes.

The next steps are easy.

But first you have to decide to make changes.

The best time to do this was when you got started in this business.

The second best time is right now.

Have you heard about my fantastic podcast? It’s called the 60 Second Sales Show and it’s exactly what you’ve been looking for to drive your revenue and grow your business.

You can subscribe to the 60 Second Sales Show on iTunes by following this link:

60 Second Sales Show