It was a terrible idea.

Who in their right mind would offer their elderly neighbor the free labor of removing blackberries (which are an invasive species in Oregon) from her yard when they are supposed to be renovating their own property?

This guy.

We were having a fine chat over the fence of our properties during a hot spell in the spring. The evening brought her out of her home for some relief from the heat because a cool breeze had set in. I softballed my usual jokes as I do until she told me her air conditioning unit was being suffocated by aggressive blackberry bushes and she was worried about how hot her house was going to get in the summer because it didn’t work at all. 

“Well, I get up early every day and work on my yard. Why not every Friday morning I’ll start cutting back on your yard?”

“Oh, could you please? It’s going to get so hot!”

True to my word, I went into her backyard for the first time to locate the AC unit. I nearly fainted when I got back there. It wasn’t just A blackberry bush planted. Her oversized lot was completely overrun with them. The bush scaled the trees two stories. They boarded the entire property line. It was incredible.

No problem. A little work ethic will shape this up just fine. I got started. I worked the morning hours cutting and cutting and cutting. I filled the huge green bin she had. And mine. You still couldn’t even see the side of the house, or the ground, or the AC unit.

Ugh. I suddenly had no interest in keeping this promise. 

Doing what you say you are going to do is hard sometimes. Yet, in business, it’s one of the only things that matters when you’re building trust with your clients. It’s how we demonstrate that we are reliable, consistent and accountable.

Even when it hurts, and I can think of one trillion reasons why I’d rather not do something, I still show up every single time and do what I promised. Not unlike your name (reputation), your word (reliability) is the corner stone of how a person measures if they can trust you.

It took a month! A MONTH to remove the blackberries from the AC unit. I called my HVAC contractor and sent him in to get her sorted. She came to me one day with the kind of gratitude that was palpable. What I did mattered.

What do you think? Is it time to consciously decide to keep your word big or small? “I’ll call you tomorrow,” starting today, means you will! Leave me a comment below.  

Until then, chin up, keep your feet moving … and burn the white flag.

sz

Copyright 2019 - Shelley Zavitz Realty