My Fatal Business Flaw

As is normal for my non-stop brain, I was lost in thought…. In particular, I was thinking about the number of prematurely ended communications I’ve had over writing projects, specifically with business owners; online or otherwise. Even with my deep understanding of business and my vast real-world experience in conducting transactions with business owners – I just, today, realized a potentially fatal flaw on my end; I’m wordy.

When I am writing on a topic that I am familiar with or just spurting out what’s on my mind; my fingers flow. This, of course, spills over into my email communications with business owners when they are looking for website content writing; whether it be an article, a press release or even just proofreading. Over the last month or two I’ve had probably 5 or 6 promising contacts simply stop communication with me abruptly, contacts that sought me out for work, not the other way around. Now that I’ve thought about this for a moment – it might be because I overwhelm them; too much information for them to even consider responding to.

I am, by most measures, a prolific writer. On any given day I would have to estimate that I pound out 5,000 words or more, which is a significant amount over the course of a week. Come to think of it, I’ve always had a predilection for “wordiness”; even back in high school.

However, while my “wordiness” may be an asset to my vocation of choice, it can also be a liability regarding my transactions with people that are far too busy to read a 400 word email, let alone respond to it.

Now, while my epiphany is great and all, the point of this piece isn’t to share with you my personal shortcomings; it’s to challenge you, as the reader, to take a look at your interactions with others and identify what might be considered a pitfall in your business transactions.

For me, my wordiness is an asset and a liability; in order for me to grow in success, I need to manage that part of my personality and put it to work in the proper places while keeping it out of other parts of my day to day transactions. For you, it could be your lack of social skills, your disorganization or even the way that you present yourself; only you can identify the personality traits in you that may be keeping you from being more successful in your business.

Obviously I have more flaws than the one mentioned, but it’s something that just popped into my head today – and thought to share it with the rest of you in hopes that somebody takes something from it.