Mean What You Say

Helloo0O Ladies and Gentlemen!

Welcome back to Graceland Ontario, your one stop blog for success lessons from the greats! Today we’re going to talk about being clear in business and life.

Now, I don’t know about you but seeing sports teams and shows live are expensive in Canada (besides I’m generally busy) so I don’t go for things like that too often. That being said, when I get an opportunity offered to me next to the beans and gravy, I’m not too quick to turn it down (providing I can fit it into my schedule).

So, not too long ago, the Harlem Globetrotters were visiting Toronto, a city not too far from where I live. I’d heard of them, not too much at the time, but it was still pretty cool. And to add, I, being a Scout Leader, was offered discounted tickets for moi and famille. Too good to be true, huh?

But, I still wasn’t sure about going so I waited (I’ll write about this later) until the last minute. The final day on the form had approached. Finally, I went hell, let’s go, faxed it in to the sports centre where the Trotters were playing and waited for email confirmation.

Only thing was it never came.

So, I emailed the major sports centre the next day. An hour or so later they got back to me (prompt service) saying that as far as they were concerned, because we’d faxed them in after their box office had closed (even though we’d gotten them in on the final day they’d specified), they weren’t going to honour the deal. Of course, we could still buy tickets from the regular box office.

So we missed the show and they lost out on tickets and a potential customer who would never see a show on his own choosing unless being offered a deal.

And it’s not because I’m cheap − I have better things to do with that money. If you’re going to make it worth my while, sure I’ll buy from you. But if I’m typically not interested, I’m certainly not going to buy on a regular day.

Here’s the message of the story: sure, I should’ve got the tickets in earlier, BUT if the sports centre had said on the form “Don’t even bother sending this after 5pm, when our box office closes on Friday” I would’ve either sent them earlier or made other plans. But when it says send by this date and you do, then you expect some tickets.

Otherwise, you feel like you’ve been cheated.

Be upfront with your customers, business associates, family members and friends. When you say a date, mean THAT date. Don’t mean when the box office closes, don’t mean if it’s a good day, mean what you say. Because I sure as hell thought I had till 11:59pm and their lack of writing otherwise on the form made me feel like I was tricked.

And unsurprisingly, me and others alike don’t like buying things again from people they feel tricked them.

You never know − they might be bloggers who'll tell the world about it afterwards!

Talk to you next week!

Alex H.

 

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