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As a business coach with a specialty in speaking, I often help my clients with the talks and presentations they do to get clients and build their businesses. Recently, while editing a speech with a client, I came across this quote. I love it.

“Is your life filled with work, or is your work filled with life?”

(Sam Harris; Ideaspotting)

It got me thinking about those of us who own our own businesses and how, for most, there was an idea, a product, or a service we were really inspired to offer.

Now, here’s the question I want to pose for your serious consideration.

Do you still love what you do … are you still energized and inspired by what you’re offering?

All of it?

I think sometimes people believe that just because you’re a life coach … or a business coach for that matter … you’re possessed of some kind of innate wisdom and insight.

Ha! Would that it were so. While it may be true for some, I had to learn everything through trial and error, often the hard way … and it seems there are times I have to learn the same lesson with a different twist before I “get it.”

Here’s a recent case in point.

I’m about to give you an action you can take that can absolutely transform the results you get in your business. But I warn you, it sounds so simple, it’s easy to think it can’t possibly be that big a deal.

It’s easy to think there’s no way it could be a make-it-or-break-it factor when it comes to the success of your business … but it is.

If you’re a professional, offering services to the public, you want your clients to think of you as a “trusted provider” … someone they know will take care of them and look out for their best interests.

Fact is, it often takes a long time to build that level of trust, comfort, and security.

And it can be lost in an instant.

There are certain things in life you can never really explain. One of the more mysterious is personal chemistry.

What is it that instantly connects you vibrationally to one person while keeping you hopelessly out of sync with another? I dunno. All I can tell you is this. When it comes to hiring people for your business, it pays to hire people you really click with … people who really “get” you, your mission, your way of doing things.

But how do you know?

Sure, they have to be able to do the job, but people tend to really overvalue credentials and undervalue the importance of someone’s personality, style, and way of being in the world … the more subjective stuff … the stuff your rely on your intuition to clue you into.

What got me thinking about all this was my cleaning lady.

It can be really hard when you’re starting a business. You have to learn all kinds of new stuff. And, you don’t even know what you don’t know. It can be overwhelming.

You may feel reasonably confident in your ability to provide quality professional services, but what about the running-the-business side of things? Are you an expert in operations, management, and logistics? Few of us are.

So, you could wrack your brain and try to come up with a list of what you need to do. But you might miss something important.

Or you could just use the Business Start-up Checklist we’ve created to help you manage the process.

I want to tell you a story about a web designer I worked with a while back … not my current one.

Loved her work.

And as part of our contract, I was required to pay her in full upon launch of the site. Fine, but there were three pages that still needed to be completed after the launch … pages that were part of the original job. We agreed in a very specific email exchange what was left to do to complete the project.

Never happened. Once she got the payment, she was done. Finito. On to something else.

I took some much-needed time off recently and went to Charleston, SC for five days.

And while we usually stay in the heart of the city, I always like to get out to the beach, where I read and walk, watch the babies toddling in the surf, and snooze in my beach chair.

We were in Mount Pleasant on the way to Sullivan’s Island … a notoriously busy and congested road that narrows down to one lane for the bridge … when we saw this sign in front of somebody’s business.

“There’s never much traffic on the extra mile.”

It’s happened to me a couple of times lately. Must be a message from the Universe.

I’ve been on the phone with prospective clients doing a complimentary coaching call and I made the decision for them that they wouldn’t be hiring me.

Say what?

Well, not me exactly. More like the little voice in my head.

What do you do if a customer or client has a complaint or a concern?

1. Acknowledge the complaint or concern and let the person know that you get where they’re coming from.
2. Listen. I mean really listen with your full attention, as receptively as possible.
3. Hear what they’re saying … as in let what they’re trying to tell you really sink in.
4. Deal with the issue in an appropriate way.

Please note that the first 3 steps all have to do with communication. People want and need to be heard.

Here’s what you don’t want to do.

1. Downplay the seriousness of the concern.
2. Disclaim responsibility.
3. Shift blame.

The word mad has two meanings. You’ll see how they both relate to the following story.