You were at a meeting with a client. What the hell are you supposed to do, tell the client "hey I gotta cut this short, hope you buy from me anyway!" and run out the door?
It's clearly your fault that you were late. I'll explain why, but not before establishing that a little of the blame is on her hands too - she should be mature enough to realize that avoiding the situation I just described is more important than being on time for a family dinner. You start blowing off clients, and your professional life is going to go down the crapper - then you won't be able to pay the bills or take care of the kids and that's MUCH worse than being late for some dinners.
That said, your being late is your fault and you could have (and should have) avoided it. I'm seeing two weak points in your skill set that caused this: complete lack of planning skills, and lack of good salesmanship.
Your mistake in planning / scheduling was that you didn't include enough buffer time in between the meeting and the dinner. That's a big no-no: don't ever plan your schedule in an optimistic manner. Keep blank spaces in your day planner or suffer the consequences. You can always fill in the blanks on-the-fly, but you cannot simply wave your arms and create more time when you need it.
Your second mistake - the lack of salesmanship one - involves not being open with your client. You should have told your client, from the moment that you knew about it, that you had a dinner with your wife at 7. There can be nothing negative that comes from this: it makes your client realize that you're a good wholesome family man, and also gives you a way to put time pressure on the client during the meeting.
Every businessperson should know that having the option of putting some pressure on a client - especially "deadline" pressure such as this where you're reminding them that you have a firm end time for the meeting - can speed up the whole process of making a deal.
In short you need to man up, reign in your schedule, and start being more open with your business contacts.
On May 26, 2013 Lumburgh wrote:
You were at a meeting with a client. What the hell are you supposed to
do, tell the client "hey I gotta cut this short, hope you buy from me
anyway!" and run out the door?
It's clearly your fault that you
were late. I'll explain why, but not before establishing that a little
of the blame is on her hands too - she should be mature enough to
realize that avoiding the situation I just described is more important
than being on time for a family dinner. You start blowing off clients,
and your professional life is going to go down the crapper - then you
won't be able to pay the bills or take care of the kids and that's MUCH
worse than being late for some dinners.
That said, your being
late is your fault and you could have (and should have) avoided it. I'm
seeing two weak points in your skill set that caused this: complete lack
of planning skills, and lack of good salesmanship.
Your mistake
in planning / scheduling was that you didn't include enough buffer time
in between the meeting and the dinner. That's a big no-no: don't ever
plan your schedule in an optimistic manner. Keep blank spaces in your
day planner or suffer the consequences. You can always fill in the
blanks on-the-fly, but you cannot simply wave your arms and create more
time when you need it.
Your second mistake - the lack of
salesmanship one - involves not being open with your client. You should
have told your client, from the moment that you knew about it, that you
had a dinner with your wife at 7. There can be nothing negative that
comes from this: it makes your client realize that you're a good
wholesome family man, and also gives you a way to put time pressure on
the client during the meeting.
Every businessperson should know
that having the option of putting some pressure on a client - especially
"deadline" pressure such as this where you're reminding them that you
have a firm end time for the meeting - can speed up the whole process of
making a deal.
In short you need to man up, reign in your schedule, and start being more open with your business contacts.