Clients hire you to be led.

Are you too slammed to consider new solutions because it's 4th quarter in the benefits business? Are you deferring new ideas until Q1? 🗓

Do your clients know? Would your prospects care? Don't forget that clients hire you (and fire you) because they want to be led. 

If you're a benefits solution, raise your hand if you've been pushed off to the mystical time known as "after-the-busy-season." Makes you wish for a lunch & learn, right? 😉

I see a pattern at firms at all levels (sales, service, platform resources, and leadership) of completely putting off investing time to think, learn and plan because it's "the busy season."

I understand the demands of competing priorities and am concerned about what those delays will cost you. If you don't revisit an idea until Q1, it's unlikely you'll execute and capitalize on it until mid-2020. That may not be quick enough in a dynamic market.

I've been thinking about this quote from Jason Fried, the CEO of Basecamp.

"I'm not busy, I'm working. Being busy is a badge of honor for some, but it's a horrible state of being for me. Work makes me happy, busy makes me sad. Work is deep and focused, busy is shallow and scattered. I work, I don't busy."

"Busy" makes me sad, too, because it's an easy trap that will only make things more painful for you and your team down the road.

The next time you catch yourself putting something off, ask yourself if there's a lame meeting (see last week's LinkedIn post) or conference call you can skip to invest time to move your business forward.

Every. Single. Action. Counts.

An additional message for benefits solutions....you can't fall into this "busy" trap either. And please don't mistake my words of caution to our broker friends as an invitation to be absurd in your requests of your channel partners. I'm not suggesting they entertain ALL ideas. I just don't want it to be zero. Your biggest sale during the 4th quarter is to fight for mindshare and earn some time a broker has fought to get back. Get creative and make it worth their while!