I got a couple of reminders today about what's important:
- The chief executive at a client told me he thought we'd saved them about £100k ($160k) and 18 months. First thought: how nice to be told. Second thought: wish they'd paid us £100k! Next thought: what's vital is that the client gets value for money and feels that the relationship is worthwhile.
What matters is not what I think but what the client thinks and wants, even if in some situations we think they're 'wrong' or could get even better results by tweaking their approach - we should still do it their way, at their pace!
- Then, I responded to a LinkedIn request and saw one of my contacts had written, "People don't buy from websites or emails, people buy from people." Absolutely right! In the emphasis on e-everything that we get from the Twitter people I follow, the blogs I read - and the stuff I write - it's really easy to be bamboozled into forgetting the personal touch, and that electronic media is simply a way to try to scale one's reach. That won't matter a jot unless what's behind the reach is a genuine concern to benefit the other's interests.
And, this week captivated like the rest of Britain with the unfolding media drama about corrupt practices and cynical phone hacking, I'm resisting the temptation to bang on about integrity. Just to observe how lacking it is; and how often those who have it get accused of not.
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