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Sales Man Up Blog
Mind The Small Things
If you can't do the little things right, you will never do the big things right.
William H. McRaven
Drip...drip...drip...goes the leaky faucet. Is there anything more disconcerting than lying in bed, struggling to find sleep, and feeling like your ears are being water boarded by a dripping shower or sink faucet ? In the scheme of life, does such a little thing like water dripping from a fixture matter all that much, really ? Yes, it does. Small things do matter, because they add up to become big things. The EPA has determined that …” A leaky faucet that drips at the rate of one drip per second can waste more than 3,000 gallons per year. That's the amount of water needed to take more than 180 showers! “ (EPA . Gov) Pardon the pun, but this river runs deep throughout our personal lives as well as our careers.It is the small actions and habits that we do on a consistent basis that either make us or break us.
This plane landed home with me on this subject a few weeks ago when one of my design clients requested samples for a meeting with their healthcare end-user and contractor. This is not a difficult thing, as I order product samples everyday for my clients. Except in this situation, when I submitted my request to my Samples Dept, I failed to add the state into the address; and the samples were not shipped. The product didn’t show up for the meeting. My client was majorly inconvenienced and nearly switched out my product for another. All over two little letters- FL. Let me ask you, do small things matter ? You bet they do. At the end of the day, I owned my mistake, apologized to my client, and sought to preserve the relationship; but I learned a valuable lesson : Paying attention to details is paramount to success.
How about remembering your Anniversary day? Is that important? “ I think it’s sometime in the Fall” is not going to cut it . One small date. One big consequence. The same is true in business. Just try overlooking a little thing like completing your expenses for two months, and then try to accurately put all of those pieces back together. Not that I’ve ever done that before. Better to keep up with it every week, than to feel like you are trying to solve a murder mystery while reconstructing your life.
Just a small spark plug powers a big engine, and a tiny rudder can guide a huge ship; so the small things within our lives cannot be overlooked or minimized. It is the small kisses, the brief hugs, and the “ love yous” over the phone , done on a daily basis, that keep those personal relationships alive and growing. Like daily brushing and flossing keeps our teeth healthy and strong; the prompt returning of phone calls and emails, keeping our promises, showing up on time, and following up and following through , add up to be big relationship builders as business professionals. Little things do matter. So, please pardon me as I step out to call a plumber to fix some leaky faucets!
God tests and proves us by the common occurrences of life. It is the little things that reveal the chapters of the heart.
Ellen G. White
