PacketVision

There’s a new kid in town. Stay tuned.

I caught this post on TechCrunch about Lois Whitman. Go read it real quick.

Back? OK cool… If my math is correct, she’s probably in her 60’s. I base this on the 1966 employment mentioned in her bio at the HWH founders page. If you figure she’s been in the job pool for forty two years and was approximately twenty years of age in 1966, then 60-something is probably about right. Over forty years in the job pool. That’s over twice the amount of time I’ve been gainfully employed, yet she makes a rookie mistake like this?! Why? How?

Something just doesn’t jive here. Don’t get me wrong, there is no age discrimination here. To the contrary, I’m all for people staying in the job market for as long as they possibly can. Even my own father started his own new business (two actually!) when he left the corporate world at the ripe young age of 62. I was behind him and cheering him on the the whole way. Why? Because I know he has what it takes. He has the entrepreneurial spirit and the knowledge needed to take a business, run with it, and be successful. He relies almost completely on word-of-mouth referral marketing (speaking of which, feel free to fire up a comment and let me know if you need an amazing home improvement, master gardener, or real estate guru).

When I think about what my father created, how long it took him to create it, and how he actually went about creating it, I see relationship building at its finest. Compared to Lois Whitman’s approach, there’s just so much that doesn’t make sense. Given Lois’ response, I find it amazing that her clients even continue to do business with her. Add to that the backwards line of thinking she displays on her blog and you’ll see some further insight into why she’s spamming: a) because she has to, and b) because it’s what she has always done.

Think about it: when she started in PR, it was all about phones, newspapers, letters, print media, and the like. The cost of the media was on the producer, and you blasted it out to as many places as you could! Contrast that with today’s permission-based marketing culture and it’s no wonder she’s leaving voicemail messages all day every day. I think Lois has some great information to communicate, but I’m afraid she will be stumbling over her own elitist attitude for quite some time unless she decides to change it now.

Personally, I’m glad Mr. Arrington brought this to the attention of TechCrunch’s readers. I think it can be used to teach a valuable lesson:

Know when to apologize

All of the negative press and bad feelings could have been avoided from the very start by not blasting thousands of email messages out, but this particular incident could have been completely avoided if Lois would have simply apologized. Think about the message she communicated. It sounded like something along the lines of, “I’m better than you. You suck. You’re lucky to even be considered email-worthy by me because your pitiful blog is nothing but pitiful. How dare you question my spam.” It could have easily said something more along the lines of:

“Let’s move on”

She had the perfect opportunity to start building a relationship, but what did she do? She sabatoged herself and ruined any chance of procuring a great opportunity to market her customers’ products. Imagine if her response had sounded like something more along the lines of, “You’re right. I’m sorry. I should have sent you information about Samsung’s new line of mobile phones. I would love to set up a conference call sometime or perhaps join you for dinner at the show this year. Let’s put this behind us and move forward.”

It’s not rocket surgery. It’s being a nice person.

The economy started tanking about a year ago, and the brunt of the downturn started a few months ago. I hear a lot of griping and complaining about this “new economy” and the impact. I hear it from the news, media outlets, and even people I know personally. Well, guess what… get over it. All of the media doom and gloom crap can be written off to sensationalism. Take, for example, the stock market. If you pulled out your money because it crashed, you’re an idiot. You’re buying high and selling low. Get your money back in the market, ride out the storm, and take advantage of next year’s rebound. History has shown that in the year or two following a crash, the market soars. Get back in now if you want to do what you’re supposed to do which is “buy low, sell high.”

As far as business and the job market are concerned, if you’re worth half your salt, you’ll do fine despite the recent economic woes. If you’ve been skating along, riding on the coattails of others, and can’t adapt to change, chances are you are going to feel quite a negative impact. When you do feel it, please try to keep your negativity to yourself. If you find yourself in a hole, financial or otherwise, you have several options available to you:

The “end of the world as we know it!” (props to R.E.M.) zealots paint current economic woes as permanent and ignore the fact that this isn’t the first time this has happened. Recessions, depressions, and other negative economic downturns happen regularly. I think one of the keys to surviving them is get out of them quickly, and that won’t happen if you sit idly by and watch. Pick a direction, set a course, and start rowing. The longer you sit and whine about it, the quicker you’ll go absolutely nowhere.

As for the U.S. auto industry and the sweeping economic impact it will have if it fails? I think the failure of the U.S. auto industry has been coming for quite some time. Paying union workers to sit in a room and watch TV, read books, and play cards all day is NOT a way to run a business. Right now you’re at option 1 in hopes of being able to do option 2. Screw that. Go with option 3. You should have told the UAW to shove it a long time ago (hey Atlas… time to shrug). Declare bankruptcy now and unload the UAW burden. Your business model needs to be restructured to be competitive and there’s no time like the present to actually get it done. The re-organization under bankruptcy protection is just a means of making that happen with or without the loans from Uncle Sam.