About six months ago, I moved back to my not-so-little hometown to save for a “big girl” condo in the city. It was a small sacrifice in playing the long-game of life and inevitably proved to be one of the most invaluable learning experiences for my own career in client services. In the last six months, I’ve clocked about three to four hours on the road each day for five days a week. Depressingly, that all adds about to around 500 hours of commuting. So much time spent commuting lent itself to building some bizarre albeit “deep” philosophical work/life metaphors. Here’s one of the more practical ones regarding commuting and how it lends itself to client work in marketing.
Revel in Routine: I’m notoriously a creature of habit. Between dashing out the door, catching the commuter bus and hitting the pavement for an early run, I cherish the consistency of my mornings. Routine can get a bad rap, but one can argue that it instills a sense of purpose and achievement in the day-to-day. The same could be said for client services: creating a consistent experience, setting expectations early and making good on the end product is pure magic in relationship management.
Finding a Way: While routine is great, it’s not a perfect science. Sometimes you’ll miss the mark or completely miss the last bus home. In that case, you gotta get scrappy in finding solutions. When hitting a roadblock (literally or metaphorically) take inventory of your resources, weigh your options, and then make a decision. Ask yourself: “Okay, what’s next best thing, and how fast can we get there?”
Faster ≠ Better and Busy ≠ Productive: Simply because we are accessible 24/7 doesn’t mean we should be. All too often we create the pattern of giving and expecting instantaneous answers, especially in client services. We’ll shoot off late-night emails in the spirit of “being on call” for our clients (so guilty). But we fail to realize that falling into the busy trap does everyone a disservice. We owe it to ourselves, our teams and especially to our clients to dedicate time to thoughtfully weigh in on projects. Strategy trumps speed, and inevitably sets both sides up for success.
My commuter analogy here? Speeding is bad. Tickets. Lots of tickets.
(Photo: Commute by flickr user Kevin Utting via Attribution 2.0 License)
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