I hope this message reaches you in good spirits, with you, your family and colleagues doing well and staying healthy.

Here’s a little scenario you might find familiar: As you look at your work or business, you routinely say to yourself or discuss with your team, “Yes, we need to do that.” It could be that you note the need to work on your website, updating/cleaning up your business contact database, filing the pile of papers, organizing the files on your computer/server, or perhaps that you need to have your employee handbook updated.

Since we’re always focused on our clients and their needs first (it’s our first nature!), our own companies’ projects become postponed. Starting today, I encourage you to take a few minutes to recall some of those “forgotten” projects and start the ball rolling to tackle some of them now. Here is a mini-list to help you start:

• Update your website verbiage/content. Have you added new products or services? Is your client or service portfolio current? Do you need to add video content? Do your testimonials reflect your great work and accomplishments?
• Have you added new services or products that need to be promoted on your website and via tangible marketing materials?
• Ask your team to update their bios or profiles, both on your website and on their social media platforms, like LinkedIn.
• Look at your internal operations. Have you needed written policy and procedure documents that you or your team could start crafting or updating?
• Does your office need organizing or do items need to be purged?

I am NOT implying that in our downturn you haven’t remained busy, perhaps much busier than usual. For some, workloads have increased significantly; for others (due to the nature of their usual work), it may have decreased. Creating a to-do list, like above, is the first step. Step two is asking for volunteers and support based on everyone’s abilities and current availability.

Accomplishing the task of “treating yourself as your number one client,” at least for some of your time, will strengthen your company and ultimately help in your endeavor to provide excellent service to clients you work with and attract new clients in the future.