When I was a kid growing up in Iowa back when more people owned radios then televisions and color television was not yet invented I would see commercials on the television for Morton Salt. Morton Salt came in a cylinder shaped blue container with a picture of a young girl walking in the rain carrying an umbrella. The slogan on the container was “when it rains … it pours” and at the end of each commercial the container would be tipped so that the salt poured quickly out of the spout as the announcer would recite the slogan. I remember thinking that the slogan was pretty true, at least in Iowa when more often than not we’d have summer rains that would flood the school’s baseball field and my little league practice would be cancelled.
What brings back this memory is the extraordinary amount of rain we’ve had in Colorado over the last week. The state has been bone dry for almost two months and there have been wildfires scattered across the entire state and all of the sudden it is not just raining but pouring. Flash flooding, sides on mountains collapsing and car hydroplaning across the highway. It is ironic, but Mother Nature always seems to be unpredictable.
Business seems to be the same way. Days, weeks and even months goes by with little or nothing to show for our efforts and then all of the sudden there is a deluge of activity. For me this usually happens right before I’m leaving for a business trip or vacation. I’m not sure if it occurs because I’ve called all my prospective clients and informed them I’d be out of town for a week and they panic, making a decision to commit at that point or if it is just
happenstance. Regardless, it has occurred so many times over the year that I occasional joke to my staff that I need to travel more often so that we have a consistent s stream of business.
Such erratic flows of business can challenge a business infrastructure and adversely impact the level of service being provided to the client. In my opinion the best defense against this happening is to have a good offense. That is why during the slow periods I concentrate on improving my infrastructure with improvements to our computers and communication equipment and training of staff. I’d prefer to be proactive rather than reactive. I’m so confident and comfortable with this approach that I have started to take more time off and travel and guess what, business is picking up.
