Marketing and bad news.

A few days back I told the story of the CEO who was rude in front of a receptionist and how that resulted in a lost business opportunity. Ironically, the same thing happened to me lately and it is amazing how marketing and PR can have direct impacts on business opportunities that are not in a linear direct line.

My own story is that a few years ago I met with people at an agency about a job and during the first round of interviews things went fine. Nothing unusual and nothing out of the ordinary. Apparently the direct hiring manager was out of the office that day so the HR person told me that I would need to meet with her which again is not anything I thought unusual. I was told that the meeting would take place the next week and we set a time and date.

On the following Monday, I receive an automatic email from the company thanking me for my application but that they had decided to pursue other candidates based on the hiring managers needs. I thought this was odd as I had already coming in for an interview later in the week so I called? I never received a call back and I found that to be both very rude and very unprofessional.

So a few years pass and I am helping on a charity event on its publicity committee. We are told by the charity running the event that they have money for PR and would like to hire an agency. I look at the list and see the same agency on the list and I go to the contact from the charity and explain what had happened and she asks me if I can remain impartial and judge them on the merits of their presentation to which I respond, "of course."

Well they come in and to be honest all the presentations were about the same. No stars, but no one really was terrible either. But this agency's presentation was all about how they care and that with them you will be dealing with human beings and people whose caring for one another was at the heart of what they did. Needless to say that was quite the opposite of what I experienced and they did not get the job for that and several other reasons.

The message here is that unpleasant things happen in business. People get laid off or don't get a job or whatever. It is always better to deliver the bad news in person or at least by a personal method. To be cold and mechanical about it says you don't care and in the karmic universe, what goes around, comes around! Remember to let down any source, customer, potential job candidate or whom ever you need to share bad news with lightly, because today's reject may be tomorrow's opportunity.

There is the classic adage about not burning bridges. Sadly, the market for bridge burning tools is a robust one and many organizations seem to be on a mad quest to see how many bridges they can burn in the least amount of time!