I’m writing this from a hotel room in the bustling burg of Henrietta, Texas. Henrietta, for those of you without access to Google Maps, is just SE of Wichita Falls, which is an hour or so NW of Dallas. I’m on a combination Spring Break trip and business trip for my Guitar Furniture venture. I’d be in Dallas tonight, but for what appears to be a broken fuel pump. Inconvenient, but it’s not a show-stopper. However it did throw a sizable monkey wrench into the works, at least for a day.

The reason I mention this, is that I realized that a lot of what happened today makes for some pretty good fodder for marketing discussions.

First of all, I can’t tell you how many times my best-laid plans have been derailed by something completely unexpected. Having my car crap out was both unexpected and unwelcome, as it forced me to spend additional bucks for a hotel stay and car repairs. When something like this happens, you can cry and kvetch about it, or cowboy up and improvise. I chose to improvise. Good marketing plans allow for both extenuating circumstances and a degree of improvisation.

Second, I realized that it’s important to keep a stiff upper lip. My daughter is at an age where she looks to me for cues as to how she should respond and interpret events. If I get upset, she learns that it’s okay to freak out about things like this. If I deal with it in a calm, cool, and collected manner, she learns how to deal with things without getting upset. Your clients are a lot like my daughter – keep your cool in the face of adversity, and your client will deal with things far better than if you lose it.

Lastly, I think the takeaway here is that we all need to expect the unexpected. If things work out as planned – bonus. If they don’t, anticipating challenges can help you deal with things as efficiently as possible.

Now excuse my whilst I go try and figure out how to pay for a fuel pump I hadn’t put in my budget.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 17th, 2009 at 9:24 pm and is filed under marketing.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.