Should I Tell Her or
Not Tell Her

Okay, so this whole mistake thing has brought up a new subject. Late last week I picked up a handout from a VERY successful marketing speaker who was the keynote at an event I was attending. There on the first line under her products for sale was “Marketing Plan Manuel.” Unless someone named Manuel had received a nickname for his skills at producing marketing plans, then we could assume it was supposed to be “manual.”

Here’s the big question. Should I let her know about the error? Would you want to be told? How would you like it handled if you were on the receiving end? Does the level of success of the business, or in this case the speaker, make a difference?

I have had my mistakes pointed out. I appreciate it, because I don’t want to look foolish any longer than I have to. For some people, however, bringing light on the mistake is resented and taken very personally. There’s that ego again.

I believe tact and grace are important, but even then, sometimes the information is not welcomed. We’ve seen hundreds of mistakes on websites that are so easily corrected but typically we don’t volunteer to point it out for fear of offending the site owner. The mistakes on the sites continue to make the business lack professionalism.

Any ideas, I’d like to hear your comments. Also, cast your vote in our poll in the sidebar and we’ll see what the majority thinks.

Don’t tolerate mistakes

There seems to be a common philosophy floating around these days relating to business communications. That philosophy basically is, “I’m never going to get it perfect, so I might as well get it out there as it is and forget about it.” On one hand, I totally agree. If we spend all of our time futzing to get a communications piece out that could be okayed by a higher power, chances are, it may never get out. Because, hard as we all try, errors do happen. No one is perfect.

On the other hand, in our business we continue to see basic, basic mistakes that really do make a difference in how others perceive us based on what they see and read. So, it really becomes more about being lazy and not taking the time to educate ourselves on getting things right. The key here is, take the time to ask for help, ask for opinions, ask for critiques. We all have our areas of expertise. And then when something is pointed out to be out of whack, fix it. Don’t fight it. Get the ego out of the way for the betterment of the whole.

Make sure your business collateral is not producing collateral damage. Fix your mistakes.