A couple weeks ago I read an article by Lindsey Wilson where she shared that every day she says, “God, please send me the people who need me.”  Then recently I told my significant other about this statement, and within a few minutes he saw a program for military veterans that would be a good connection for our non-profit, Soaring Spirits Equine Assisted Therapy.  It’s funny how things work out sometimes.

Later that same evening I was writing my Infusionsoft Tips and Tricks article (side note: click here to subscribe) when I logged into my Infusionsoft application.  On the dashboard I saw that someone had filled out my Contact form.  Yikes!  Why yikes?  Because I hadn’t gotten a notification that it had been filled out!  My brain went into overload…why hadn’t I got a notification, how many others had completed the form, oh, no…they needed me and I ignored them!! 

I found the problem, fixed it, and then emailed every person.  Yes, some of them were from several months ago.  But I contacted them.  I apologized for not getting back to them, explained I had not gotten a notification when they filled out the form and asked to schedule a call.  I could easily have only contacted the people who had filled out the form recently, but I didn’t.  Every single person, I emailed — personally.  I reminded them of when they reached out to me and what type of help they wanted. Some were looking for Virtual Assistant support and others were looking for Infusionsoft support or training.  Most have probably found the help they needed by now, but I don’t know for sure…nor do I know whether they are happy with that help.  And I definitely do not want someone thinking I just completely ignored them!

So what was the problem?  It seems that I don’t follow the same “rules” for my business that I do for my clients’ businesses.  Otherwise, I would have caught the problem sooner.  For clients, I test webforms after they are put on a website to make sure they’re working, and I look at the reports for sign-ups.  If I’d done either one of those things, I would have known immediately I had a problem.  I wasn’t getting those notifications for one simple reason:  I had a typo in my email address for where to send the notifications.  Yep, something as simple as that led more people than I care to admit—who came to me seeking help—to think I didn’t care enough to respond.  Ouch.

Why is it that we don’t treat our own businesses as well as we treat our clients’ businesses?  I can think of many conversations I’ve had with entrepreneurs where they ask me advice, I share, and their response is something along the lines of, “I just suggested that same thing to Jane last week for her business.  Why didn’t I think of that for myself?”  Or where I’ve had a conversation with my coach and she suggests something for me to do, and I had suggested that same thing to a client…yet, never thought about it for my own business.

So why do we seem to have a mental block when it comes to treating our own business with the level of care and respect we show others?  Share your thoughts with me below.