Many people think that Money is their most valuable resource. But is it really? The counter to this is that Time is the most valuable resource. You can always earn money but once Time is gone, it’s gone forever.
In one of my friend Niall’s (1) weekly newsletters, he mentioned a surprising email that a new company owner had sent to potential clients. Instead of asking them to make time for him to present his offering, he said something along the lines of “I respect your time and therefore I am willing to pay you your usual rate or more for an hour of your time to present my proposal”.
Smart guy. It certainly caught my attention. It seems some people took him up on the offer and didn’t ask him to pay after all. By him showing that he was respecting their time, it gave a good impression.
On a slightly different note, I know business owners that give more time than they specify, so for example, if they have an hour coaching session, they may run over giving more. In their mind, they are providing more value, however, it’s important to respect the coachee’s time as well. The coachee may have reserved an hour and any extra time would be an encroachment on their Time resource.
It’s good to become aware of how we use our own and other’s time.
Footnotes
- www.ndoherty.com
- https://www.ndoherty.com/ebiz-weekly-31/ – it’s the Jason Cohen’s cold email under Kanye story.