Test your own front door

A colleague told me recently about something that seemed minor: missed calls and messages. He checks them regularly and stays on top of communication. Yet people he trusted kept telling him, “I called at our scheduled time,” or “I left you a message,” and he had nothing.

When we dug in, we found a published phone number that was effectively disappearing into thin air. It wasn’t even clear who controlled it.

The questions came quickly. How many deals were lost? How many relationships were strained? How many first impressions never had a chance?

You can’t rewind that, so the conversation turned to what to do now: fix the email signatures, update the website, correct the marketing materials, and revisit leads that went cold for reasons nobody understood. When you’ve already paid the price in lost revenue, the least you can do is keep the lesson.

The lesson is that the most expensive problems are often the ones nobody is looking for. Leaders inside the day-to-day stop seeing them. Someone outside the business asks the question you didn’t think to ask. That’s the job of a good council, and it’s why the best meetings often turn on a question rather than an answer.

A quick test you can run this week:

• Call your own main number.
• Fill out your own website form.
• Email your own info address.
• Write down how long it takes to hear back.