If you are like us and are fanatical about customer service, then almost all of your energy and resources is focused on clients and customers. When focusing on others, you tend to let yourself go. We all figure our coworkers and employees will understand because the firm is focused on the clients. We always hurt the ones we love.

We suggest stopping the pain, or at least mitigating it, because ultimately the pain your employees and coworkers feel will affect their interactions with clients and customers. Employees frustrated with an unstable network or feel neglected because their software questions go unanswered will not and cannot focus on the client and work most productively.

This is our mea culpa. The SAGE Web site is—in a sense—busted. We are in the middle of a redesign and it was important to update the home page quickly, but client commitments have delayed completing the site. We are just now getting around to completing it, but what was supposed to be a couple of weeks has stretched to a few months. Not only are customers and prospects probably wondering what is going on, but a few employees have been waited for their pages to go live.

Try to find a balance between superior customer service and a little “me” time, because ultimately they are all connected.