Getting new business is good for the coffers. So is collecting the fees you’re owed for the services you’ve already delivered. If you’re like most service professionals, you have at least one client who consistently forestalls payment, turning you into a part-time debt collector. Perhaps you’ve sent a polite email reminding them that they owe you money. Perhaps you’ve had a passive-aggressive fantasy wherein you’ve sent a couple of heavies to break your delinquent client’s kneecaps. Personally I’ve tried both, and found them to be equally ineffective. In a soft economy, it takes a strong backbone to demand respect (or charge a late fee).

I recently interviewed collections attorney Robert Weinberg on this subject for my Practice Boomers program. He offered a great insight into why service professionals find themselves in this situation. Here’s a 2 ½ minute excerpt from his interview:

Excerpt from Robert Weinberg interview

I encourage you to take Robert’s advice to heart. Establish clear collections policies with your clients and stick to them. Charge them late fees if they break their payment agreement. Give them a termination warning if they abuse your policy. They may balk, at which point you can establish new payment terms both parties find agreeable. But don’t train them to treat you like a doormat. You do good work for them. Get what’s coming to you.

As memorable as you are, you and your fellow 21st century earthlings live in an era when the constant bombardment of information makes it impossible to keep anything “top of mind” for very long. Here’s an example: Assuming you read it, can you remember the subject of my last blog? How about the one before that? Let’s face it, our short term memory is overcrowded.

My business development strategy is a combination of blogging (obviously), public speaking, and networking (and luck). My least favorite of the mix is networking. It’s time-consuming, its results are unreliable, and it often feels like a bad blind date. I have, on several occasions, considered eliminating it from my life altogether. Certainly there have been days when, on my way to a networking lunch, I have thought to myself, “I wish I could just cancel.” Ironically, it’s usually those meetings that are the most productive. They remind me that 90% of success is just showing up. After all, I can’t expect to be in the right place at the right time if I don’t show up in the first place.

So, to those of you who are tired of networking; who miss the good old days when people didn’t constantly need to be reminded that you’re still open for business; who wish that being memorable meant being remembered—I urge you to consider that life is a contact sport. Get in front of the key people in your network and stay in front of them. Don’t expect them to find you on LinkedIn. Don’t expect them to keep you in mind. There’s a good chance they won’t. Keep showing up, in spite of the implied tedium, and expect to be pleasantly surprised.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know that I write a lot about what you can do to improve your business development. Do this. Do that. Get more clients. Grow your book of business.

But this week I’m recommending a course of inaction. Because I’m finding that all of this doing comes at a heavy price.

That’s not to say that a busy life has no value. I am fully dedicated to the progress and profit of my business, and to the fulfillment of a personal mission that includes helping people. But while that all sounds sensible and noble, it’s completely exhausting, and on some level, meaningless.

Yesterday, I experienced something extraordinary. After learning that my lunch meeting had been cancelled, I didn’t go back to my office and work; I didn’t take the extra hour to clear out my in-box; and I didn’t wedge in a blog-writing session. I went to a park and did nothing. I’m not sure why I did it. Perhaps it was because I had worked through the weekend and was yearning for downtime. Perhaps I was overwhelmed by the horrifying notion that my life was rushing by and I was missing it. Regardless, I left my phone in the car and sat in the grass for a while. I watched people eat their lunches. Joggers passed by. Some odd breed of bird squawked in the tree above me. I closed my eyes, and for a few minutes, I touched on a level of fulfillment that was far deeper than the satisfaction of an empty in-box or a shorter to-do list or a signed engagement letter. How ironic that an intangible experience could have so much more value than the tangible results I chase all day long.

I wish I could tell you that my business development was impacted in some meaningful way from this experience. It would be more thematically relevant to this blog if I could now segue into a clever strategy for client acquisition. But this week, all I can tell you is that I’m grateful that my lunch was cancelled and that I intend to spend more time in parks. And as strange as that sounds, I’m convinced that doing nothing every once in a while will make me much more effective at what I do.

Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

If you participate in any kind of social media, you have more “friends” now than the captain of the football team did when you were in high school. And yet, in spite of all our connections, most of us don’t harvest the many business opportunities that are available in our networks. This six-minute video will help you understand where those business opportunities originate and how to encourage more referrals from your relationships.

For more information, visit www.PracticeBoomers.com.

Last week’s edition of the Los Angeles Business Journal profiled my company and some of our business development training programs. They even put a picture of me on the front-page masthead.

When I first saw it, I had mixed feelings about the article, as it wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when I called the LABJ and made the pitch. My initial read gave me that same uneasy feeling I have whenever I see myself on a video or hear my voice recorded on a voicemail. Perhaps you know the feeling too. It’s surreal to catch a glimpse of ourselves through someone else’s point of view.

Fortunately, I had enough sense to turn to an expert for some perspective. I shared the article with Sharon Berman, whose PR firm (www.Berbay.com) specializes in service firms. She gave me a lot of great advice, including this gem: “You can control what you say, but you can’t control what appears in print.” That was a good lesson for me. I set aside my hubris and devised a follow-on strategy that turned the article into a calling card for new business. As a result, I secured meetings with several notable firms who are meeting with me next month to discuss a sales training program for their people.

I want to share Sharon’s expertise with you, as well as the follow-on strategy I just alluded to, so I’m hosting a webinar on the topic of “How to Garner Press.” Sharon and I will co-present and show you:

• How to position your services into a pitch that will appeal to the press
• How to craft your pitch
• How to manage your own expectations
• Follow-on strategies that leverage your article for new business

The webinar will take place on Friday, March 9, from 10-11am Pacific time. Thanks to a sponsorship from Berbay, the program is complimentary to you, but we can only accommodate 200 attendees, so sign up early to reserve your seat.

CLICK HERE to register and learn how you, too, can garner more press.