SENDING SIGNALS: Making It Right - Re-Opening Doors and Rebuilding Broken Bridges

DOUGLAS CASTLE - SENDING SIGNALS

Dear Readers (and non-readers who are having this read to them by helpful friends and family members, as well as those other people who mostly like to look at pictures):

I have just turned 55 years old, and I have discovered (with the help of some very aggressive Mexican resort promoters, some hotel managers, some salesmen and my very dear friend Gabriel [founder of the Westchester-Putnam Guitar Society]) something incredibly valuable. It concerns a blind spot inherent in my maladaptive approach toward life and business which has cost me a fortune.

Just as importantly, it has cost each and all of you a fortune, and will continue to deprive you of both profitability and peace if you do not address it immediately. I would suggest that you read what I have written here very carefully, and that you implement its mandate IMMEDIATELY to change your business, your relationships, your reputation and your innermost peace. Read the article all the way to the "Fine Print" section at the coda.

This is not trite or re-hashed advice about the Laws of Attraction, or staying in touch (Rick Itzkowich's area of expertise -- QuoteActions), or about energy, vibes, religion, parapsychology, wealth manifestation or any other conceptual, ethereal or effort-laden and time-consuming aspect of building up your Relationship Capital, an important socio-economic term popularized by Adam J. Kovitz, the Founder of The National Networker Newsletter. It is very, very simple.

In strategic terms, it is always best to have the largest number of powerful friends and the smallest number of weak or distracted enemies. Enemies can be made casually by the following natural tendencies and processes:

1. Buyer's remorse;

2. Non-communication;

3. A failure to take responsibility for one's own mistakes and oversights, and to humbly apologize, not only for your error, but for injuring the feelings of another...people are very sensitive and very delicate when it comes to their feelings about how they are treated;

4. A failure to treat less "successful - looking" or less-seemingly-useful (hyper-hyphenation, and my favorite lingovation) strangers with less respect and dignity;

5. Abandonment after a presentation, whether successful or not...and abandonment after a sale.

This last issue invariably gives customers or clients the impression that they are sales statistics instead of new friends, and that we merely befriended them for the moment to take advantage of the opportunity to pressure them into buying something, discarding them as soon as the next target was sighted.

People become terribly unhappy and increasingly uncomfortable when they are not treated with respect (as peers), when they are not pampered or reassured and sincerely spoken with a bit after a presentation or a sale, when their feelings (however warranted by the facts) are brushed aside, or when their doubts after the closing of the business are left unresolved.

How many doors have you closed or bridges have you burned by engaging in the type of conduct described above? How many referrals, references, exposure to opportunities and possible friends have you let deteriorate to enemy status by your failure to be appreciative of them as human beings?

I've always been too busy with quantitative scorekeeping to understand the crucial importance of the more subtle but equally important qualitative human factors. I have failed too often to avoid the five deadly sins set forth above. My eyes have been opened.

My wife and I recently were hustled into a fractional resort ownership share (in which we were actually quite interested) by some very aggressive salespeople. They applied so much fictional time pressure that my wife and I walked from the table more than once. They made concessions to bring us back by sweetening the deal. But the deal was no longer at issue -- the terms were only of limited consequence -- I started to resent being treated as a mullet or a target. Their pre-contractual promises failed to materialize after we had signed the contract. We felt used and abandoned. We grew increasingly angered and hurt, as if we had been insulted. It stopped being a matter of money and had become an issue of the relationship between us and the developer/promoter. It struck me, for the first time in my career, just how easily a "closed" deal can unravel because of perceptions, and failed communications.

After three days of fighting for all of the prerequisites and sign-on goodies that were promised us, we decided to walk over to the management office and exercise our right of rescission. We spoke with executives; persons in a decision-making capacity. They not only apologized and accepted responsibility, but they said that they wanted to "make it right," and that they understood that we could break the contract, but they would have considered our withdrawal to be a personal loss to the quality of their membership.

Being a recalcitrant and cantankerous newly-anointed 55-year old, I said to them that a relationship based upon fraud and distrust was incurable, and that the prognosis for our membership was terminal. Even as I said the words, I was walking away from something I actually wanted (a great membership in a great place for family get-togethers, meetings and just unwinding) because we were so disenchanted. We had felt as worn down trying to get their attention as if we had endured three hours locked in a room with the F and I guy at a car dealership, and had had oral surgery as well.

After my customary histrionic fit of indignation, they repeated the message: PLEASE GIVE US A CHANCE TO MAKE IT RIGHT. They added, apologetically:

"We are still working on getting our shop in order. We're just putting our management systems into place, and we have really hurt you because of our own internal failures -- please give us a chance to make it right. We like you, Mr. and Mrs. Castle, we want you with us. We know we can't make up for the time you've lost from your vacation, or for the damage we've done, but let's see what we can work out to make you believe in us again."

They had my attention. This was a personal appeal for redemption. I was feeling sincerity, attention, acceptance and friendship. I listened.

We were given reimbursement for our entire vacation at our previous hotel, reimbursement for our change in plane reservations, extended airport parking, a reduction in the price of our membership, increased vacation hours per year, and personal phone numbers and email addresses. We signed an amended agreement and enjoyed every minute that followed.

Later, when one of the developer's executives came by to visit with me, unsolicited, I told him that he could have negotiated a far better deal for himself which would have been just as acceptable to my wife and myself, and that he had actually solved the entire problem by spending several hours listening to us vent. He responded, "We did not want to lose your trust, and we did not want to lose your friendship...we made an investment in our future with you. We think that you were worth it."

Did they lose money on their new deal with us? Not at all. Their profit margin per membership unit was quite substantial by my reckoning. They just settled for a lower current profit in order to invest in a much more valuable future relationship. *(See Fine Print at the very end of this post)

Lesson: Avoid making those mistakes (the five deadly sins) with anybody. And, if you have in the past, call those folks and re-open those doors and rebuild those bridges. You might have an unforeseen chance at redemption. At best, you'll profit, or win back a good relationship.

And, at worst, you will have won some goodwill in consideration for attempting, in good faith, and with a modicum of humility, to make it right for someone who felt wronged.

Invest a piece of time every week renewing someone's faith in you. Take some of your precious time away from advancing, and clean up the litter in your wake.

I have endeavored to go back to my calendar and address book and to start this process person by person. I hope that I can do this great work while there is still time. I truly believe that negative energy can be transmuted into positive energy using our human sensibility as the catalyst in the reaction. If this is not an adequate inducement, how about the notion of turning your past failures into investments for current and future profitability?

With Respect,

Douglas Castle

The author would like to acknowledge the agents of inspiration for this article:  My friends Ann Sloan, Rick Itzkowich, Kensel Tracy, Yossi Feigenson, Adam J. Kovitz, Gabriel Siegel, and several aggressive, shadowy but inadvertently well-intentioned gentlemen from Mexico.

FINE PRINT: 

Incidentally, the deal offered to us ultimately turned out to be a "tad" fraudulent, and not quite as represented. Those promoter-type folks, as it turns out, were not fully on the up-and-up. That's right...they attempted to take unfair advantage of us. We will be vacationing many times in the future, but, lamentably, it will probably not be arranged through their offices. But;

THE IRONY IS THIS...IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE!  The experience was thoroughly positive.  These people, despite their underlying motivation (we can only guess... my wife and I suspect a "morally-unchecked" profit motive...), taught me a fabulous lesson. I have learned about how important it is to MAKE IT RIGHT. And I will work at MAKING IT RIGHT for the rest of my career. I would advise you (even if you are a fractional ownership or timeshare promoter) to do the same. We can learn wonderful, life-changing things from any set of circumstances.

For more information, please visit Douglas' TNNW Bio.

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SENDING SIGNALS: Making It Right - Re-Opening Doors and Rebuilding Broken Bridges