Our neighbors have an invisible fence for their dog. I'll bet you've heard of invisible fences, but you haven't seen one, have you?
I've seen the components which are wire and transmitters, but it is impossible to see the finished product.
I do see the result of the invisible fence however, which is the constant confinement of the neighbor's dog. He respects the perimeter of the invisible fence even when our duck and goose waddle away from the barn on a field trip to taunt him. The invisible fence does its job establishing boundaries.
It must be challenging to sell a product that no one can see. The sales force doesn't sell the product; it sells results. The results are the ability to keep your dog contained within an invisible perimeter. I'm sure you'll agree that boundaries are important in your life especially when you want your privacy and time respected.
Unfortunately, others don't respect the boundaries you want to establish in your business and personal lives.
Have you ever noticed how your customers, employees, friends and family have an unlimited amount of requests to make of you and your time?
Wouldn't it be wonderful to have your own personal "invisible fence" to turn on and off whenever you needed to protect your time with horses and scheduled clients?
Your invisible fence would allow you to get more done in less time without offending the time robbers in your life.
You are not inaccessible, your message is that you aren't always accessible.
How do you create your own invisible fence?
- Let voice mail answer the phone (and cell phone) for an hour or two. If the message is urgent, it will get to you. Disrupting your activity to accommodate a ringing phone costs you more time than you think when you consider the time for the call in addition to getting back on track with the project at hand.
- Get out of the mainstream in your workplace. Retreat to a conference room, back office or back barn and shut the door.
- Leave the barn for a few hours and go to: the library, the park, a coffee shop. Take a cell phone, laptop, yellow pad and you can get a lot done off premise.
- Establish a practice of an early start to your work day. Get to your barn a half hour or more before the rest of the group. Let the early birds know that you aren't available early morning before the workday bell rings.
- Get into the habit of saying No immediately to people who want you to do things that don't make sense to your business plan or to your personal plan. No is the switch that will turn your invisible fence on to protect your boundaries.
Be thinking of other ways to create your private invisible fence to protect others from intruding in your personal back yard.
