Thursday, April 17, 2008

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.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Don't Burn Bridges

We don't want to burn bridges behind us, so I would say pointing out a mistake depends on your intuition and your knowledge of the individual. If you know the person would be offended or if you do not know whether s/he would be offended, I would let it pass. If you feel the person would appreciate knowing of the mistake, go for it.

It seems all of us would want to improve our products and images, but I know from experience that if best intentions inadvertently offend someone, s/he never forgets it.