business as (un)usual

I’ve been thinking a lot about the business environment these days; particularly on the client side. I’ve been in the publishing industry for 18 years now, and I’ve seen some incredible shifts in the industry: printing & mailing costs going through the roof, the transition from print media to digital media, the economy bottoms out, cutting employees (which means your workload increases); it’s been one crazy ride. But something else has changed – attitudes of clients’, specifically with agencies. And there’s nothing I loathe more than using the economy as an excuse. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the “E” word. And you know what, it’s getting old. How are we going to change when we keep looking back? Yes, it’s our reality, but what ever happened to changing our perspective and working with what we DO have. Ever since I took over for the VP in Digital Network Sales (selling across our 130+ websites) I’ve experienced some thoughtless behavior. It makes me sad. A recent example: the former VP lost one of our biggest clients – Verizon Wireless. I made it my goal to win the business back, and after several phone calls and network updates, they contacted me to submit a proposal for Q2. I was so excited!  I worked on it for a solid day and took it home to have it finished before their deadline. Unfortunately, my ambition went unnoticed. The next morning I received an email from the media planner on the account, saying: “thank you for submitting the proposal, we will send a formal RFP (request for proposal) tomorrow morning.” I know, that’s what I thought. Why did she have me submit a proposal – which included 38 sites -  when she knew RFP’s were going out the very next morning? My scorpion tale came out a little with my reply to the RFP: “thank you for the RFP. It looks like we’re dealing with the same target audience as the first proposal I submitted, so I’ll just go ahead and copy that information to this new RFP template. Thank you.” DOH! Yes, I still believe the old adage: “the customer is always right,” but this has been going on for far too long, and across the board. It’s the mentality of; well, things are bad right now and they should be grateful for the business. Of course I’m grateful, but that doesn’t give us license to treat each other unfairly. Does it? And believe me, I know it’s “just business”, but perhaps if we change that perspective we’ll see a bigger change overall. We spend a majority of our lives working, why not do it with a little more awareness?  It’s about respect. So, I ask you; When it comes to business, does respect really have to take a back seat?