Represent
I got a terrific email to start my morning. I’d just written an article for a magazine wherein I had to interview one of their advertisers and present a profile of the company and what they do. They do highly technical mathematics and analytics, which is not my strong suit. So I was nervous about misrepresenting, etc. It’s the magazine’s policy to let the advertiser look over the article for accuracy prior to publication.

The vendor loved it; so much so, he wrote to the magazine’s owner/publisher to tell him what a terrific reporter I am. The publisher in turn sent the note to me, thanking me, and telling me that these guys are major advertisers and he loves getting this kind of feedback. What a way to start my day! :))

The point I’m trying to get at is this – even when we least expect it, we’re making impressions on folks. In this case, I was lucky enough to make a good one. It was easy – the interviewees were great to talk with. But what if I’d had a bad day? What if I’d thrown that article together without caring about the topic (high-level analytical mathematics)? What if I’d allowed a grumpy customer to infiltrate my own mood/job? Things could’ve been much different. Not only might I not have had a nice letter sent from a publisher, but also I might have been told that the major advertiser didn’t like my style. That, my friends, would have been mighty tough to overcome. Fact is I had no idea they were a major advertiser.

So I guess it’s always critical (yea, I’m saying critical) that we treat the interviewees or the clients as though they hung the moon. That’s not to say we have to roll over for a lousy client – there are some times when you just can’t work with someone, and that’s okay. Yet when we’re working for someone else and we’re putting their reputation out there along with our own, behavior and communication matters big time.

Lesson learned the easy way for me this time, amen. I hope you all take this to heart, too. It’s amazing just how connected our reputations can be to our work and our future work, isn’t it?