Recently I had a discussion with a friend on how I seem to be hearing a lot of reactionary comments in (not just) business situations:

1. Should we wait for their instructions?
2. Should we wait for the client to tell us their budget?
3. Should we wait for their next opportunity? This seems too soon.

There are some things you should wait on. For example:

1. If you just sent an email to a client, give them at least 48 hours to get back to you if it's a big decision or if multiple approving parties are involved. 
2. If you know the client won't have their board meeting to get things approved until next Wednesday, there's no use for you to chase them prior to that key date. 

So the conclusion is, use your common sense. Take control of situations where you can. Realize that a lot of people believe they are 'too busy' to get back to you. Everybody makes time for things they feel are important, so the questions becomes: HOW DO YOU MAKE YOURSELF AND WHAT YOU WANT BECOME IMPORTANT TO THEM?

For example, we run a marketing agency, but when a client falls behind in reviewing and approving our content, it means our performance is impacted, so how do we make it important to them? 

We should remind our client of the original marketing objectives and goals they set, and how we cannot reach the goal without being on schedule with the marketing content. Remind them of how we need the ingredients from them to deliver on the result. 

Long periods of time without new content means the brand image falters online and across the board, something that is (hopefully) important to the client as they care about how they appear to the public.

The point is, waiting is not the best strategy, because it is usually associated with being reactive to situations. What happens to companies who wait? They get filtered out of the game and overtaken by the competition. 

For those who want more out of their careers and life but are stuck utilizing a waiting strategy when it comes to both of these things, I'm sorry to be crude, but there's only one thing for certain that will come with waiting - death. As we grow older, we find ourselves making the following statement: "oh my god, it's already April / May / June / July?!" 

As they say, time flies, and you must grasp every opportunity before it passes you by. So, what are you waiting for?