Client Was Dissatisfied With Me
by Steve Stewart

I got a call from a bureau asking if I could speak for a new client in a new industry in 10 days. The date was available and I happily agreed. On the phone with the client, we talked about his industry and challenges for about 45 minutes. I asked for names and numbers of his major distributors around the country and called them to do the same thing. For more research, I personally visited four stores in my area to interview the managers about the industry and about this one company in particular. All that went into my 90 minute talk.

Immediately after the presentation, the client seemed happy and asked me to stay for their luncheon following. I couldn’t make that, but 7-8 of the distributors attending stayed in the meeting room with me to talk further about the presentation until I had to leave. However, several attempts to reach the client in the weeks that followed brought no call backs.

Finally, eight months after the presentation, the speaker’s bureau reached the client on the phone and was told, "(Steve) was terrible. He didn’t customize anything. We will not ask him back." Whew! Clearly the client and I had very different perceptions of what I’d done, how much customizing was included and how well the audience had responded. The bureau apologized (the customer is always right) and asked how to make things right, but he didn’t want to do anything. So I wrote them to apologize on my own. I asked if they were upset with anyone, please make it me and not the bureau. I also offered to do any program for them, anywhere, any time at no charge — and guaranteed that 75% of the new talk would be new material, customized and grounded fully in the reach that I would do for the program. And if he did it anywhere in Southern California, Las Vegas or Phoenix, I would not charge for travel expenses.

The upshot? So far, there is still no response from him. He is apparently still upset enough that I have not been used again and we are not getting any return calls.

Lesson: You can’t win them all. On occasion, doing your very best and keeping your commitments isn’t enough. But you just keep getting up to bat and wait for another pitch.