Not Going to LA Today
Last week I booked a business trip to LA for today. The plan was I'd fly down to LAX this morning, attend a few meetings nearby, and fly back home this evening. With my Covid bounce and positive test yesterday I decided to pull the plug on that trip out of caution and respect for the people around me.
I am both happy and sad about canceling today's trip. ...Happy, because I enjoyed not having to get up until 7am today. If I had to catch my 7am flight I'd have set my alarm for 4:45a and been up by 5 and out the door by 5:30. ...But also sad, because meeting people in person is one of the things I enjoy about sales. And part of the reason I enjoy it is it's so much more effective than meeting virtually.
I proposed to my account-exec counterpart that we reschedule today's meeting to the first week of January. Yeah, that's 3 weeks away, but what I see across so many of my customers is that most business projects are being paused for the next two weeks. So many people are taking time off around the holidays that only truly critical projects are being worked- that early January is effectively only a delay of 1 week.
But in sales, of course, everything is the #1 absolute most important problem ever. Like, Christmas will be canceled if we don't meet today. So the account exec frantically called my manager for help, and they tapped one of my colleagues to fly down to LA last-minute. The poor guy didn't even know what he was supposed to do- or how to to it. WTF? Really?! It's better to send a warm body today than to wait one virtual week and send the right person? And no, this is not an or-Christmas-is-canceled emergency. In fact it's fairly low priority. So maybe I'll travel to LA in a few weeks anyway to fix what doesn't get done right today. 🙄
I am both happy and sad about canceling today's trip. ...Happy, because I enjoyed not having to get up until 7am today. If I had to catch my 7am flight I'd have set my alarm for 4:45a and been up by 5 and out the door by 5:30. ...But also sad, because meeting people in person is one of the things I enjoy about sales. And part of the reason I enjoy it is it's so much more effective than meeting virtually.
I proposed to my account-exec counterpart that we reschedule today's meeting to the first week of January. Yeah, that's 3 weeks away, but what I see across so many of my customers is that most business projects are being paused for the next two weeks. So many people are taking time off around the holidays that only truly critical projects are being worked- that early January is effectively only a delay of 1 week.
But in sales, of course, everything is the #1 absolute most important problem ever. Like, Christmas will be canceled if we don't meet today. So the account exec frantically called my manager for help, and they tapped one of my colleagues to fly down to LA last-minute. The poor guy didn't even know what he was supposed to do- or how to to it. WTF? Really?! It's better to send a warm body today than to wait one virtual week and send the right person? And no, this is not an or-Christmas-is-canceled emergency. In fact it's fairly low priority. So maybe I'll travel to LA in a few weeks anyway to fix what doesn't get done right today. 🙄