Originally published in May 2007, this "Throwback Thursday" piece from Mike Schenker, MAS, is the third in a series of weekly installments of his most popular contributions to Identity Marketing from the past 20 years.
I recently had the pleasure of being violently ill. Magazine Column Writing 101 teaches that you have to hook the reader right from the start. If that opening sentence didn’t get you people, I don’t know what will.
The heart of the matter is that I returned from a trip recently with a remarkably nasty bug. Many business travelers can tell a similar story. I know I've returned from trips with the typical cold or local-climate related allergy situation going on. This recent episode was nothing like that. In an effort to maintain your interest in reading this column, I will spare you the details. Let's just say that it was not pleasant for me or anyone around me.
I rarely take "sick days." Let's face it: I work at home and, if I need to, I just "close up shop," shut the office door, and "go home." Not in this case. I woke up on the morning in question and knew, immediately, this was not going to be a good day. With pounding head and extraordinarily achy stomach, I managed to crawl down two flights of stairs (a bit of an exaggeration… I crawled down one and stumbled down the other) in order to change the message on my answering machine.
You people know me: I'm meticulous, precise… anal-retentive to the core. Even through the dizzying haze of my illness, I left a very specific message, stating that I was out sick and would, hopefully, be back amongst the living the next day. Should anyone need immediate assistance, they could call HQ and find a (not-as) warm body there.
In the interest of full disclosure, I need to report that I did not make it back the following day, nor did I bother to correct my outgoing message. The thought of going down those two flights of stairs again didn’t bother me (gravity is a wonderful thing)… it was getting back up those two flights that kept me in bed!
Not that much would have awakened me from my sleep of the dead, but I did have the sense to shut the ringer on the phone in the bedroom (partial disclosure here: that idea might need to be credited to the Trophy Wife). From that moment on, I quite likely slept for nearly 20 of the following 24 hours.
During a brief moment of lucidity (always hard to recognize with me), the Trophy Wife mentioned that there was a message on the house answering machine from a Mister X (Editor’s note: the gentleman named in the original version of this column is a long-time subscriber to this magazine. In that we are presently celebrating our tenth anniversary and would like to continue to do so, we need all the readers we can get and have opted to not use this person’s real name), a promotional products distributor, asking me to call as soon as possible in order to assist him. I asked her, kindly, to delete the message (this is MY column… she may tell you a slightly different version, but she is SUCH a liar) and went back to viewing quality daytime television programming (there’s a whole other column for the future!).
What possessed Mr. X to call my home number is beyond me. In the 14-plus years that I've worked from home, not once has a customer called me on my home phone number. I can assure you that I've never given it out. Nevertheless…
Days/weeks/months passed, and I was able to dress myself again. I found my way back to my office to find oh-so-many hang-ups on my answering machine. Oh yes… and three messages from Mr. X. Despite the fact that my outgoing message clearly stated that I was ill and out of the office, his messages to me were all clearly expecting immediate return.
You could hear in the messages that he hadn't bothered to listen to my outgoing message at all. The first message was something to the effect that he needed help with something, please call right away. The second message (same day) asked why I hadn't called back. The third message was more of same.
Not that I've ever made it a point in these columns of sticking to subject, but I'll sidebar here for a moment and mention the reason for these calls. He needed pricing help. Information readily available on our website, or via customer service (see paragraph five). While I wanted to question his sanity at that moment, I gritted my teeth, forced a smile in my voice, and gave him the information for which he'd waited two days.
Perhaps not in these columns, but I have long railed about people’s communication skills. Sure, I know I can be wordy, writing long memos and e-mails detailing lists of information I need, only to get responses reading "yes" or "seven."
We should know to spell out our needs and goals, either in writing or in spoken word, in order to make clear our objectives. To me, that seems obvious. Communication goes two ways, however. The recipient of the communiqué has to be receptive to what’s been stated. Unlike Mr. X, who only heard that he’d reached my answering machine and stopped listening at that point, missing the fact that I was out.
I'll be vague and evasive at this point, and tell a tale of an unnamed former co-worker of mine. At a trade show, I witnessed him giving a presentation to a customer. For the sake of discussion, the customer wanted to know if a particular item came in persimmon. My co-worker, who was in his sales mode, went on and on about the inner workings of the item in question, explaining how it would benefit mankind, the inner workings of the technology created specifically required for the manufacture of this item, and so forth. I can see the customer’s annoyance, especially as she tried to interrupt this rap. Does it come in persimmon? That’s all she wanted to know, but my co-worker wouldn’t hear that. That was a lost opportunity and lost sale.
What’s my lesson for today? Try to "pay attention."
Hearing is one thing; listening is another. You might just learn something.
Mike Schenker, MAS, is a promotional industry veteran and member of the Specialty Advertising Association of Greater New York (SAAGNY) Hall of Fame. He can be reached at mike@mikeschenker.com.