I Missed My Meeting – AND I Was the Host

Growth challenges are many but one key indicator that you are growing is you can’t always handle all the ‘hats’ that you have been wearing.

This month I’m revving up to a 2-day event with 4 speakers in Vaughan. It is a lot of work, but nothing like the amount of work it takes to market the event. Networking, speaking, calls, emails, free events, etc. are all ways I use to ‘fill the room’. These are still all my hats, and likely will always be. I love the person-to-person interaction these marketing channels provide me.

During this time I still have two programs I’m delivering, paid engagements, and my free monthly expert call that I have been airing monthly for just shy of 3 years. In that time I have never missed a call, but yesterday it happened. I was not on a call that I was hosting. The expert showed up and was confused, the people showed up and… nothing.

So what do you do when you drop the ball? I started by calling my expert right away to apologize and ensure her that her time was valuable to me. It sounds lame, but it was genuine and that is all you can be. The second step was to think of ways to make it right and still give the expert the opportunity to share her brilliance. I offered her an opportunity to record the call so we could deliver it via ezine to you (check the ezine next week for that link).

There were circumstances that kept me away, but still, I know I need a fail-safe way to ensure it never happens again, so my final step is to review my process and determine what I might have done or can do next time. I’m going to use one of my favourite tools (brainstorming with a group) to come up with ideas to help me with this possible business failure.

Business growth is exciting and scary, it is energizing and exhausting, it is successes and it is failures – you have to accept the entire package and work on ways to make it the best experience and outcome possible.