Training Talk: Hard-Hitting Articles on Computer Training, Management, and IT-related Issues.

Sooner or later, you’re bound to have a glitch in your scheduling routine; you can’t foresee everything, right? True, but you certainly can head off the most pesky and sneaky problems.

What you are about to read is the result of my many years as a consultant, and scheduling activities with many a mishap. I was arrogant. Or lazy. Or, take your pick, but somehow I thought the standard rules didn’t apply to me. I thought if someone asked me to teach a computer class for them, on a given day and time, I could show up and get paid, end of story.

Well not only has that NOT been the end of the story, but sometimes I didn’t even GET paid! So let’s look at 5 simple strategies you can use to prevent common problems when you schedule yourself or others.

I could have titled this “Scheduling 101,” but then many of you smarty pantses wouldn’t have read the article. And SOME of you, who shall remain nameless (because I don’t actually KNOW who you are…YET!), some of you ARE making this shameless mistake. And I will stand up first to be counted, for I have made this error myself.

It goes like this: someone asks you to perform a service for them, in my case teaching. I put it on my calendar, show up, and nobody is there! You scratch your head, try to call your contact, but nobody answers. Well into the time frame in which you are supposed to be working, still nobody is there, or you are informed that so and so is out that day. What’s going on here!

When you finally do regain contact with your contact, he says, “we had to move the date, sorry.” Or, worse, “I mentioned that we were going to cancel that engagement; you must have forgotten.”

Now you’re out in the cold! It becomes a financially painful “he says/she says” game, and whether or not you recover even a fraction of that money, you end up losing in the eyes of the client, or worse, even losing the client. Yet there is this really neato technique you can use to ensure that this may not happen! It’s called confirmation.

I know you’re too busy to take 3 minutes out of your busy schedule to call your contact the day or week before the engagement, because this won’t happen to you.

Oh, but it will! It's the law of averages. So take the extra 3 minutes and confirm your appointments so you don’t waste time, money, gas, frustration, and anxiety on a simple issue.

But even this is not sufficient. Nope. Not only do you need to make verbal confirmation of your appointments, but you also need…

Now this is overkill, right! Nope. Without at least an email requesting your services to hang onto, you can’t even prove you were ever asked in the first place. And how long does it take to write such an email? Oh, less than 45 seconds! So get in the habit of also emailing your clients a confirmation of your appointments.

But that’s still not good enough!

You think I’m going too far, right? Nope. Let’s discuss the fundamentals of communication. Communication means sending and receiving information. That means you talk to someone, and they indicate, whether through body language, verbal response, or some other method, that they understood you. You, in effect, receive back communication from them that they heard/understood you.

This is exactly what is missing with an email confirmation. If you send your client an email confirmation, that doesn’t mean they got it! Emails hardly ever get “lost” these days, but, it does happen. And all your client has to claim is that they never got your email or phone message, and again you are out in the wind. So you need…

That’s right, as overkill as this may sound, you need to have your client respond back to you that they are expecting you. Otherwise, you don’t know that they received your message, right?

After all of that confirming, you’re probably exhausted! That’s enough, right? Sure, if you don’t mind the client or contractor possibly forgetting the engagement, going on vacation, etc. Don’t think it will happen? It happens.

So, pick up the phone and confirm with your client the day before. Never hurts to be thorough and things do slip through the cracks despite best efforts.

Read on to page 2 to discover just how easy confirmation can be in practice...