Tough Calls

I don’t know if all Virgos are having communication issues like me but something has definitely been in the air these past two weeks. I have had to make some tough calls lately and it sucks. For me, Mrs. “I-Want-Everyone-to-Like-Me”, making these tough calls have been…well, tough.

Just the other week I admitted to the entire Broncos coaching staff’s wives, players’ significant others, a few VP wives and execs that I am a great “ideas'“ person but I am absolutely horrible at executing any of them. Which is why I surround myself with people who know what they are doing and they are “doers”. I’m not ashamed to admit that execution is not my strength. Admitting that I need help is not embarrassing for me either. With that said, I have wonderful support and yet, here I am having to make some tough calls.

My first and toughest call was last week to the CEO and Founder of A Precious Child, Carina. I wish I could share information that led to this call but it wouldn’t be appropriate to share the details. Just know this, even with the help of my own personal PR advisor Tim, who has been in the business over 20+ years, this call could not be avoided. A call to Carina was necessary in order to tell her that a project that we had been collaborating on together had to come to a halt. Ugh! Carina has a team of people (all women by the way) who had been working on this for weeks. These women are amazing at taking the ball and running with it. I have been so impressed by their capabilities and I was excited to see this project come to fruition. As soon as I found out that we had a problem, I tried to reach Carina. My timing was awful. She had surgery that day and wasn’t able to talk. This meant I had to sleep with this on my mind. I thought about telling one of her top execs when I found out that Carina was out of commission but that would have been selfish of me; just wanting to relieve some pressure. Since this issue rested squarely on my shoulders, I felt it was important that Carina should hear this news from me first. Fortunately for me, I was met with understanding, open-mindedness and generosity. In other words, Carina let me off the hook. She immediately began to pivot and re-invent the concept that her crew worked on. I will forever be grateful for this grace.

Now bear with me as I give a little background to this next crossed wires situation. When my family was on vacation last summer, right before we moved to Denver, a contractor spotted water damage to our wood floors in our new house. The damage was not caught during the inspection. We had less than 10 days before we were moving in. Brevan, rolled up his sleeves and made the problem go away two days before the movers moved everything off the truck and into the house. Because of this, Brevan saved us money, time and effort. My loyalty for him was 100%. Fast forward to this summer, we wanted to change up the basement and our backyard landscape. Because I don’t know many vendors and our needs were time based, I hired a manager to oversee these two projects. Weeks ago, I asked Brevan to put in a bid for the basement. I sent it over to the manager and told him that Brevan was my guy. When the plans came thru to begin the project today, I noticed it was with another contractor so I asked my manager how Brevan took the news of not getting the job. The manager said that he didn’t tell him. So my second tough call was today. Even though I have a manager, I knew that this call was my responsibility. I wanted to hide behind the guise that someone else made the decisions but it didn’t matter because the relationship warranted the call from me. Brevan took the news like a total pro even though I know he was questioning our relationship. He builds homes so my projects are like drops in a bucket for him. Nonetheless, he has always put me top of his list and this news must have stung. Fortunately, he said he was busy and so the timing would have been hard but he would’ve done it. I know he would. He assured me that he was happy that the project could be done by this other contractor for a low budget and on time. I was relieved and I think he deserves to make more money on bigger projects.

This next mishap example, which also happened today, is a quick one. As a silent auction item for a school fundraiser, on behalf of the Broncos, we donated tickets to training camp and a tour of the facility with an expiration date of August 13, 2022. The winner of the prize wasn’t able to go to any of the practices in July because they were not in the country and she asked if she could go in August. At the beginning of August, I reached out to the winner to see which date she wanted to go to camp. It took awhile and some back and forth emails so by the time she gave us the dates that worked for her, only two dates lined up with openings for the Broncos and the dates were after the expiration date. The reason the date was so important is because after 8/13, all the practices are closed to the public and so is the facility. The winner is not able to redeem the tour portion of the package but the Broncos were still able to give them seats for camp. Making that call to the winner wasn’t as tough as the other calls but this family spent a lot of money for the prize and even though the winner knew the expiration date, I feel like the call wasn’t easy to make.

And tomorrow I will make another tough call. This time I will call Virginia, the house keeper. I met Virginia last week and instantly liked her a lot. She had a warm aura about her and I heard great things about the work she does. I was anxious to get started. When she said her price I thought there was a misunderstanding because it was so far off the mark. Later that day, she texted with an added extra cost and I just couldn’t believe it. I texted her back and repeated the first cost and used the plus sign (+) to indicate that this was an additional cost. She confirmed and I was in total denial. Today Virginia and crew came to the house and did an amazing job. I mean, really thorough and expectedly so. When the cleaners left, I took the dogs for a walk and it was raining. After the walk, as I was approaching the house, it hit me that my dogs’ paws were going to be wet and my floors were just cleaned. I freaked out, got a towel and wiped their paws. Then I went around the house wiping the floors after them. It was like I was a dog on all fours pushing towels around. I was stressing out because I just paid a BOAT LOAD of money for my house to be cleaned and it wasn’t even 30 minutes later that my floors needed wiping. I can’t do this. I just can’t. So in a text, I thanked her and asked to speak with her tomorrow. I will tell her that I can’t afford her awesome service. She has to know that I was too embarrassed to say something earlier and I thought that I could just live with it but my life style is not conducive to cleaning up after each dog walk. It defeats the purpose. Besides, I like spoiling those who help me keep my house clean. I constantly give thoughtful pinches and treat them special for their help. For the amount that Virginia charges, I would not do anything extra for her and her crew and that would bug me. Really. I love leaving little gifts or cards etc. Although I’m bummed that I have to move on, I just can’t pretend that we can afford her service. I was overly hopeful to have good help from good people. Virginia has clients that can afford her service and so I need to let her go in order for them to get what they need.

I wish we didn’t have to make tough calls. It would be much easier to move to another city and run from these situations. Since I want everyone to like me, it’s even tougher for me to tell people things they don’t want to hear. But in the end, if we do the right thing, have the integrity to admit mistakes or carry our fair share of the responsibility, people will have the grace to go thru it with us; not against us. I think in the first two situations I was so lucky in how things turned out. It gave me courage each time to make the next call. I know that tough calls don’t always go that way. Who knows what Virginia will say when I talk to her? She might be really upset or she may tell me that she lost a client because she thought she had an agreement with me. Having these conversations are tough and dicey and messy. But I will say, it’s just not worth living above my means if I’m doing a lot of work just to walk into my house with wet paws.

Pinches,

Barb