It was a date. 

My family and I are leaving on vacation for Buenos Aires this weekend for two weeks. I sent a courtesy email to those prospects as well as to close clients saying, “Hi. FYI, I will be out of the country and pretty much out of touch from ... to.... If you are thinking of future training or coaching, please let me know by Friday of this week, even if times are tentative. Otherwise, I will respond to any inquiries when I return.”

To my surprise, everyone responded!  My guess is that until they received that email with the specific dates in it, they had put me on the “when–I-get-to-that, I’ll-respond” priority list.   The Friday deadline suddenly made responding urgent.  It was an example of  the evergrreen time management principle that  "deadlines drive action."

So, what are the lessons here?

One, find a way to “go on vacation.” Find a logical deadline to put into your emails and phone message to spur faster returns.

Two, on a broader scale, put deadlines on all those things that you have been procrastinating doing:

-Contacting a set number of prospects a week

-Re-connecting with a set number of clients per week

-Learning whatever new skills you need to get you to that next level of sales success (I can help)

-Attending to key matters in your personal and family life

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Thursday, April 8th, 1PM EST. $99 For more details, go to Register Today

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