I’m a Shameless Liar

Friday, April 29, 2011

Or something. “Liar” is the first word that came to mind. “Fraud” or “Fake” or “Shyster” now start to drift across my forebrain.

Here’s why.

Last night at supper with a friend I was bemoaning the number of prospects, contacts and clients who do not return phone calls or emails. The number is not alarmingly high, but high enough that it makes me think “rudeness”.

I made the point that, amazingly, I’d rather do business with the people who respond “Thanks for you interest but I think we have nothing in common”, than with those who postpone a lunch meeting three times without the guts to say “Thanks for you interest but I think we have nothing in common”.

This morning my Inbox held a message from Carole St. Laurent of fluidIT solutions “I missed you at AIC last night. How’s it going?” which straight away reminded me that she had sent me two extremely helpful emails a month ago, after we had met for lunch, and I had not replied to them.

“Boy!”, as we say in the trade, “Was my face red!”.

I sat down, dashed off a reply to this morning’s email from Carole, then went and re-read the emails from a month ago. Both valid.

The good news is that Carole and I have since exchanged another email.

The gooder news is that Carole has brought home to me the value of staying-in-touch with an unsolicited nudge every now and then.

The even gooder news is that I have set aside this afternoon to clean out my Inbox entirely.

And as Carole says “Being on both sides of the client and consultant fence is a good reminder that good news may still be percolating when people aren’t calling you back. “

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