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February 28, 2007 at 07:00 PM
If you are like me, you occasionally put off a task you should really do now. That’s human nature and it is acceptable once in a while. But when procrastination dominates your work and life, watch out. As Mae West once purred, “He who hesitates is last.”
Hesitation takes many forms. It ranges from not prospecting or returning a client’s phone call immediately, to not handling an important administrative task or answering a client’s technical question right away. Whatever form your procrastination takes, it’s not good, since forceful, timely action is a vital step on the ladder of success.
Procrastination hurts clients because it slows down the fact-finding and solution-design process. In financial services, time literally is money. The longer it takes to get things done, the weaker the client’s ability to leverage the time value of money.
It hurts your reputation because the more you procrastinate, the more likely you will create unhappy clients. And negative word of mouth will spread through your community like Britney Spears gossip on the Internet.
Procrastination weakens your self esteem because even though it makes you feel good temporarily (you get to avoid doing something hard or unpleasant), you start to feel bad eventually when you realize you should be working more diligently to serve your clients, which drives success. Slacking off is never good for the soul – or the P & L statement.
