Now before you start running en masse for the exit signs, just hear me out. You might assume that I am trying to peer through some questionable new age aura lens at hardcore business practices, but really, it’s quite the opposite. No, I don’t come into my office wrapped in a sheet and spend half my day sitting cross-legged trying to meditate customers into my shop.

Instead, the point that I would like to share is the result of slow and painful observation of the feast or famine special that ends up as the main course for my own as well as so many other small businesses that I have observed over the years. One minute you are stomping on the day trying to squeeze an extra hour or two out of the tube so that you can meet ten deadlines and the next minute you feel like the last person left on the planet, other than your creditors, of course, who seem to be circling your shop with napkins tied around their necks.

If you are asking yourself “What is he talking about?” then you might as well move on to the next blog, but I think I see some of you out there nodding in self-recognition. If so, stay tuned.

It doesn’t take long, when the parking lot empties out, the phone stops ringing and the last incoming email was days ago, for rigor mortis to set in. It was not uncommon, at weekly meetings of a small business group I belonged to, for some white-faced member to walk in and announce in that small, weak voice, “Help! I need referrals.” How many times have I had clients come to me in total desperation, announcing that they were sure they would finally have to close their doors?

I’m being glib, but in fact, situations like these are very serious. When a friend or a client approaches me in such a state, they are usually in total paralysis, but their story triggers in me just the opposite—a call to action. Now I could tell them that the time to manufacture ammunition is NOT when the enemy is attacking, but somehow I suspect that would lead to total dysfunction.

Instead, we talk and I try to help them see what immediate practical steps they can take to turn things around, and as a result, here is what I’ve observed. With any luck, my cheerleading efforts will at least get them moving again, and in fact, it is the reengagement more than the game plan I’ve outlined that gets the phone ringing again. I’ve decided the actual practical measures being acted upon do produce long-term benefits, but that it is the immediate total engagement that turns the situation around.

Typical case in point. A client came to me recently suffering from low-or-no-client paralysis. After discussing the matter, I convinced her to embark on a simple website. That required her to put into words what she wanted to tell potential customers about her business. The process was not only engaging for her, but revelatory as well. Putting into words what her particular business was about turned into a kind of reinvention of that business. During and immediately following that process and well before the actual website went up, she was inundated with work. Wooo-wooo, you say? Well, maybe. Maybe just random coincidence. However, I’ve experienced the same myself and seen similar too many times.

I’m not going to try to explain it or attempt to convince anyone. I do feel comfortable putting the idea out there, though, and if anyone can make good use of it, then so much the better.

I’m all for the Phoenix principle, though going up in a ball of flames and then rising from the ashes can be a bit exhausting if done on a regular basis. I do think, though, that it is possible to be in our business without being engaged, for any number of legitimate reasons, and that it can lead to customer disappearances and then into paralysis—the transmitting equivalent of trying to use your cell phone from an underwater cave. Engagement and action seem to fix that transmission problem in ways that don’t always correlate to the actual steps taken.

Even if the enemy is at the door and we are caught unprepared, becoming engaged is a far better game plan than succumbing to fear. That said, the next time we have a little extra time, we might want to counsel ourselves and come up with some strategies to keep us engaged even when we are busy, so we can dive right in when things start to slow down.

We need to do everything we ever learned in marketing 101, but above all, we need to keep transmitting! Woo-wooo…