Just got back from a week in lovely BC visiting my friends & biz partners Andrea Lee & Cindy Greenway. Andrea and her hubby Mike were kind enough to let us stay with them for the week, and Cindy came out for a few days as well. Such a rare treat to see each other face to face, in this virtual world we so enjoy. 🙂
(on the beach pic just down the street from Andrea & Mike’s house)
Anyhow, I had a bit of a ‘duh!’ moment while on vacation…
On Wednesday morning we were driving in two separate cars to Nanaimo about an hour away – I was in one car alone and Andrea & Cindy were in the other car. I was ahead of them and knew we had a turn off coming up to take the exit to the highway. I saw the exit ahead and right at that moment my cell phone rings (my cell phone is my business #)… I answer thinking it is Andrea or Cindy confirming this is the exit to take.
It wasn’t Andrea or Cindy… rather it was a man who I believe was calling to inquire about coaching services. The fact that it wasn’t who I thought it was totally threw me off, and in between trying to take the right exit on the highway I was confused and essentially came across quite rude on the phone. One of those moments where i’m not quite sure what I said (something like ‘what are you calling for, i can’t talk right now, i’m on the road, etc) – i’m sure I sounded like a jerk to put it mildly! Needless to say the gentleman ended up hanging up on me, and can’t say that I blame him one bit. Nor was I able to get his name or phone # to call him back and apologize.
Lesson learned – don’t answer my business phone unless I am able to have a professional conversation at that time!
We had a good chuckle about it later, because that is really quite unlike me to be so rude on the phone and the timing of the call was spot on (a minute before or after and I would have either been able to have a proper conversation or let it go to voicemail and been able to call back.)
But I can’t help but recognize as well that this was a potential client who was interested enough to call me and now will probably have no respect for me or my business. Not a good thing.
Lesson learned indeed! And to the gentleman who called me, if you do happen upon this post please accept my apology.