It’s a beautiful sunny Monday morning in Prince Edward Island.

My day started very early – I was scraping ice off my windshield at 5am getting ready to go to the gym to meet my trainer. One of the reasons I love going there so ungodly early in the day is because of the man who works the reception area in the mornings. He’s just a great human being and I have yet to see him without a huge smile on his face.

He genuinely loves what he does and I know he does because it shows. I could recognize his laugh from a mile away because I hear it so often in the mornings. I think he sets a different tone for the gym than you find at other times of the day. He used to tell me (back when I was a bride-to-be gym rat six years ago) that the morning people were different…making it a better time of day to workout. But I kind of think it has a lot to do with him being so cheerful and friendly there behind the desk.

I remember when I was a waitress, one man I worked for stressed that people can get great food anywhere, but he wanted his restaurant to stand out for customer service. I remember him making a big deal about staff smiling because you never know what’s going on in someone’s life and a simple smile could really lift a person up.

I never forgot that, and to this day, when I’m walking down the street and meet someone I make a point of looking up and smiling. I think it’s important to acknowledge a fellow human being, and I like to think that maybe my smile will be contagious and eventually become a bright spot in someone’s day.

If you work in a home office and don’t see many flesh and blood people in the run of a day, put a smile on your face when you’re on the phone (that was a rule we had when I was a Subway Sandwich Artist but that’s a story for another day) because it really does make a difference in how you’re perceived on the other end of that phone.

If you’re a business owner, do you sound happy or stressed out when you interact with your customers? If you have a staff, do they know how important it is that they appear happy to be at work? And no matter who you are…remember that a smile doesn’t only make you look more attractive as soon as  you put it on your face, but you could make someone’s day by sharing it with them.

(Nothing to smile about? Check out this YouTube video and try NOT to smile. I double-dog-dare-ya!)

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As I write this, I can not believe it’s April 15th – I’d like to know what happened to the first half of my month.

Do you ever wish you could pause everything happening around you so that you could get everything done in a day that you wanted to?

I wish I had a pause button, I’ll tell you that much.

On Wednesday night (one loooong week ago) an unwanted stomach virus made it’s way into our home through our eldest daughter. This normally would be a bad thing, of course it would, but this was bad timing at it’s very best…or worst. I’ve just started working hard with a personal trainer at 6:30 every morning, am still dealing with a toddler that won’t sleep through the night, have a home freshly listed on the real estate market which needed a deep spring cleaning for its first showing, had two Easter dinners (we had to skip out on) and…what am I forgetting?….oh yes. That thriving business I’m running!

The flu quickly spread to my husband and then our youngest daughter and it did not leave until yesterday. What a wild week! I have to say, I have no idea how parents who work outside of the home deal with these situations when they arise. I feel very lucky to be a freelancer at a time like this because my schedule is so flexible. However, I was totally thrown for a loop when all this started happening.

I’d planned to take a long weekend away from my work but having lost a significant amount of time thanks to the flu a couple days before my break, I lost a lot of ground.

I’ve read tons of articles and blog posts, books and whatnot about contingency planning and having a back up in place for when disaster strikes and I do have a plan. Sort of.

I know what to do if I lose my power, get sick or have a *eek* hard drive crash. But nowhere in my list of procedures do I have a plan for what to do when the arse goes right out from under my life for a week.

Luckily I have amazing clients and even though I had to miss a couple of deadlines they were understanding and nothing caught fire or anything because I was late.

There’s one thing that saved me, having to be away from my work for so many days at a time without planning to, and that’s the buffer I build into the time estimates I give for projects.

I used to be a “I’ll have it done for you on Friday” kind of person and I said that to everyone. But the problem was, I would literally have a dozen things to have done each Friday and by the time Thursday would come around I’d be going nuts trying to get caught up.

The thing is, it’s not smooth sailing in my life 24/7. When you’re a working parent, whether you work from home or outside in the “corporate world”, things are never going to go according to plan ALL the time.

I am so happy that I saw the light a few months back and started giving more reasonable time lines for project completion because…well…you just never know.

If you’re a service provider constantly overextending yourself, I hope you’ll be able to take something away from this.

Give yourself some breathing room – build in a buffer because sometimes life just gets in the way.

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A few weeks ago, my husband and I started working with a service provider I won’t mention, but I will mention the relationship ended a few days ago.

Every time I called this person, I heard about how busy they were and at the same time, it felt like there was always confusion about our file and it kept being pushed aside. It almost felt like we were an annoyance more than a client and I’m sure that wasn’t the intention. But when you’re always telling your clients about how busy you are, and then can’t remember details about them, well you should consider how that looks.

As another example of this, I was just chatting on Skype with my awesome friend and client, Sally Kuhlman. Sally’s excited about a new endeavor, but she mentioned she was having trouble with a vendor she hired. She said she had to track this business owner down because of a lack of communication, and when she finally reached her, was told she was really busy and it would be another couple weeks before she could get the job done.

Sally said she felt like this person was doing her a favor instead of providing a service she was paid for.

I’m busy – most of us are. But I sure don’t make a habit of telling my clients every time I talk to them (if ever) how busy I am…unless they ask if I’m busy. I don’t lie about it, but I don’t feel it’s appropriate to always be telling my valued clients that I’m swamped.

Now, my husband and I have decided to sell our home and this morning our real estate agent came by to measure our house. He’s probably one of the busiest agents on PEI, but I’d never know it if I didn’t know the local market and industry so well. Even though I know this guy’s beyond busy, he always has time to chat with me on the phone. When he’s meeting with us, he ignores his telephone or profusely apologizes if he needs to take a call. He basically just makes us feel like we’re important. If I make mention of how busy he must be, he tells me stories about just how busy he is and that’s fine. He’s doing his job and it really feels like he is providing a service and taking pride in that.

You know what happens now, don’t you? My husband and I will be telling everyone we know about how great an agent Ian Walker is which will hopefully lead to lots of referral business for him.

The other service providers I mentioned that we Manns and Sally worked with…well…they probably won’t get many referrals from us.

You really have to treat your clients and customers like they’re the only person that matters while you’re interacting with them. That’s how you become successful.

I’m sure you have a story or two about a time you were made to feel like you were being a pain to someone you were paying money to. I’d love to hear about it!

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