I think for a lot of people there’s a tendency to “check out” from work at 5:01, or when you set foot in the parking lot to go to your car each evening.
You’ve been staring at a computer all day, or in meetings all day, or running around pulling stuff together. You want to go home and just forget.
And that’s reasonable. But occasionally there are some things from work that can help us after work.
What someone brought up the other day here is making a “call plan” before calling a client (potential or existing). It’s simple, it’s quick, and it instills some confidence. I know for me when I pick up the phone to call someone, I have a pretty vague idea of what I’m going to say. Sometimes I’ll have the first question or two in my mind, but nothing beyond that. And then I’ll be talking to this person and start stuttering, and then forget what I wanted to say. And then I have to call again. Not good at all.
So what goes into the call plan? Let’s say I want to call a local company here and ask about my satellite dish options. So I’d just write down, “Your name? Your hours? Eurosport? Packages? Monthly cost? How to pay? Install time? Your location?”
Notice I didn’t write down entire sentences or questions. The last thing I need to be doing is staring at questions with words I know I’m going to stutter on. All I want are concepts (reminders). Basically a list.
I know if I don’t make a list, I’ll be left stumbling and stuttering for words. Will I stutter on questions I make from my list? Of course I will. That’s fine. But at least I don’t have to do it over multiple phone calls. If I mess up the first one enough, I’ll likely not bother calling back (which may cause other problems).
Hello. I stutter. 