You never know where something good is going to come from

In the chaos of our daily lives it's easy to avoid others and close opportunities because we are "too busy" to deal with them. I had one of those moments this week where I almost pulled a "I don't have time for them" but luckily I caught myself in time to cultivate a great new business relationship.

To promote iPrioritize, I write freelance SEO articles for several popular online newsletters (some of which I also share here when applicable). Every time an article gets published, my inbox gets flooded with emails - some compliments, some criticism, and some people looking for my help. I make sure that I respond to each and every one of them no matter how long it takes. I thank them for reading the article and offer advice when they ask for it. Many times we exchange several emails and a new relationship is formed. I've even had a few who requested to hire me for some consulting work.

Usually this is where I draw the line - I thank them again for reading the article and then I refer them to people that can help them. Unfortunately I don't have the time to be a consultant AND run my businesses. It's a field that I have consciously made a decision not to get into. But a few weeks ago I had the pleasure of exchanging emails with John Edelson of Time4Learning - a service for home-schooled kids that offers online games to enhance the learning experience. John needed some help with several blogs that he uses to promote Time4Learning and he requested my assistance. We had a lengthy phone conversation in which I learned a few interesting things from John (most notably that Google gives you a free refrigerator when you purchase your 1,000,000th AdWords click, how nice of them) so I decided that I would take on the project. I ended up enjoying the work and my conversations with an experienced business owner like John.

In the end I made few bucks and more importantly developed a new relationship. Moral of the story - always be open to opportunities.