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A Simple, but Essential, Truth that can Save You Time and Money
Today’s episode is a unique one. It’s super practical and hopefully a bit humorous to drive home a very simple point that I think is applicable when it comes to money and time. It is applicable when it comes to your personal world, and it is certainly applicable to your professional world. It may go without saying and may be as obvious a statement as there ever was. But the reason I highlight it in today’s episode is that I don’t think we don’t do it consistently. At least, I don’t do it consistently. So, here it is…drumroll: confirm the important. That’s it. Confirm the important. Or another way to say it is don’t assume important things. Confirm important things. Or one more way to say it would be to verify high impact items. There are so many applications of this truism, and I’m going to share a handful of them today. So, I’ll start with a self-deprecating story. It’s Thursday the 12th, and I’m on my way to the Chamber of Commerce in Jackson to hear Kevin Adelsberger speak at Bites and Insights. This is a monthly lunch for small business owners that features a speaker addressing interesting topics for running your business. Kevin owns Adelsberger Marketing and does a great job helping small businesses. As I pull into the parking lot, it’s packed. As many cars as I’ve seen at the Chamber for a while. So, I think to myself, “Wow, Kevin sure can pull a crowd.” Now, I’m five minutes early, so that’s always good. But as I’m walking in, I don’t see anyone else walking in. “It’s really strange that everyone else was earlier than me,” I think to myself. As I get closer to the door of the seminar room, I have an eerie feeling that I might have put the time down wrong on my calendar. I open the door to find a woman in mid-presentation to a room full of people. A nice young lady to my right says, “What’s your name? I’ll make sure you are registered.” As the speaker continues her presentation, I’m frozen. My brain is thinking, “this is not the right place, and this is not the right event. What have I done?” I stammer to the nice young lady, “uh, uh…Bites and Insights?” Have you ever been in a situation where you can’t even form a cohesive sentence, where your brain is processing information so fast that your mouth just kind of shuts down? That’s where I am at this moment. She very politely responds: “You might want to go see the receptionist to see if they can help”. I stumbled out of the training room thinking that I must have assumed the event was at the Chamber, but it must be taking place somewhere else. No…it’s worse. As I looked at my calendar on the sidewalk, and as I found the email inviting me to come, I realized that I tapped on the hyperlink for “12” of the invitation telling me it was at 12:00, rather than the date itself, which was actually September 26th. Yep, I wasn’t 5 minutes early. I was two weeks early. All of this trouble could have been saved if I had just followed the important truth I began with in this episode and had confirmed the event the day before.
Here’s the thing though, we do confirm many things in our office. We confirm all of our client appointments the day before to make sure they don’t forget to come and to make sure that we have it on our calendar at the same time. But I realized I don’t have the same system to confirm events outside the office. This is a major hole. So, although one of our bank’s core values is proactive preparation, and although we are confirming the bulk of our appointments, I still missed this one. This brings us back to the truth – confirm the important. Was this important? Sure. Am I confirming a portion of the important? Sure. But not confirming everything that is important cost me 40 lost minutes of time and a nice embarrassing experience. Side Note: I did get to take my wife on a date lunch instead, so the Lord redeemed my bad planning.
Now, it’s critical to note what I did not suggest is to “confirm everything.” You can’t do that – there’s just not enough time. There’s just too much to follow up on. But you can identify the important, and then confirm it.
But our default, instead, is to assume. We assume that we are right, that all will go well and that everyone we depend upon will do their job. But the reality is that we are not always right, what can go wrong often does go wrong, and people we depend upon will sometimes drop the ball. Besides daily appointments, here are a few other instances in which you might want to confirm instead of assuming:
On the Business Side
• You’ve got a big project working with a vendor. The stakes are high. The ball is in their court, and you are waiting on them to move things forward. Don’t assume they are doing what they are supposed to be doing. Set a reminder to follow up with them a week later to see how they are coming. Better yet, if it’s a truly important project, consider weekly status calls to confirm things are moving forward as you expect.
• You’ve got a teammate in your organization doing a daily task that is really important. If it doesn’t get done, it could cost the company a ton of money. You can’t follow up with them every day – that defeats the purpose of delegation, right? But if you haven’t checked in with that teammate in a long time to make sure what you think is happening actually is happening, you might want to do that every now and then. Especially when there is turnover, and a new teammate takes on important tasks from another, there is often a responsibility leak. In other words, there are things that were getting done, but that somehow don’t make the transfer to the next teammate. It can be very valuable just to confirm that what you think is being done is being done.
• You’ve got a virtual meeting set. It’s a problem-solving meeting and you have multiple people from multiple departments from multiple companies attending. You assume that all of the people you need to be there will be present since you sent out a virtual invite. But confirming whether they have accepted the invite can save you from getting three fourths of a team together and solving half of the problems. For those who didn’t accept your virtual invitation, a quick email or phone call to just say, “Hey, just making sure you were going to be able to make the meeting”, can save lots of time on the back end.
On the Personal Side
• You’ve got a big bill that’s due. You think it’s due on the 15th of the month. If you don’t pay, the late charges are pretty steep, and it could hurt your credit. Set a reminder maybe even in multiple locations well before the 15th of the month, just to make sure you get it paid and it has time to clear. Sometimes unforeseen delays can get you. Confirming that the payment went through as you thought it would be huge.
• You have an early morning appointment and need to get up earlier than usual. You are lying in bed thinking, “Did I set my alarm for earlier than usual? I think I did. I sure don’t want to get out of bed. I’m pretty sure I did, so I’m just going to go on to sleep.” It’s worth rolling out of bed and just confirming that you did what you thought you did. It might even be worth setting a second alarm if it’s really important. The next day’s appointment might be counting on it.
• If you book a vacation, checking the confirmation that comes to your email is a really good practice. You don’t want to be geared up for a vacation, only to find that the dates are incorrect, or that it booked the wrong kind of room. I’m speaking totally theoretically here and have no experience whatsoever in this happening to me. Okay maybe it has.
Now, this doesn’t mean you have to become a cynic. It doesn’t mean that you assume that no one ever follows through with their job. It just means that you’re going to make absolutely sure of your assumptions for the things that are high stakes, because all of us make mistakes. The great Ronald Reagan called this mindset, “Trust but verify.” That’s a good way to think about it. Give yourself and others the benefit of the doubt. But spot check and confirm the most important things just to validate that trust. Or as the old saying goes, measure twice, cut once. It takes more time on the front end, but it can save tons of time and money on the back end.
At Foundation Bank and MBC, we’ve been working hard to earn our client’s trust for over 90 years. Every interaction with our clients is an opportunity for us to confirm that trust and earn our client’s financial loyalty. Maybe you are looking for a values-based culture that can give you peace of mind when it comes to your finances. We could be a great fit. Contact us by visiting foundationbank.org. We also hope you’ll subscribe to this podcast to it in your favorite podcast app and share it on social media. These episodes are not recommendations specific to your own unique circumstances. Please consult your own advisors. Foundation Bank and MBC are a member FDIC and an equal housing lender, and until our next episode, God bless you.
-President Chad P. Wilson, CFP
Today’s episode of “Money Matters” was written and recorded by President Chad P. Wilson of Foundation Bank/McKenzie Banking Company on September 17, 2024. This episode does not constitute financial advice. Please consult a financial professional to discuss your specific needs. Any rates mentioned are subject to change and are accurate as of the recording date. MBC/Foundation Bank is an Equal Housing Lender, Member FDIC.