When a great phone call is not always great news..

Made Essential Reading on 29 November 2009 Lee Lomas

Yesterday our office received a fantastic phone call. One of the biggest companies in our market place wanted to do business with us – I think the words were “We’ve got a stack load of stuff we’d like to do”

Great! Fantastic! ……… er, actually no. You see, we already look after one of their major competitors and we have agreed not to operate with anyone else of the same stature (pan EMEA) in that market place, even though we don’t have anything signed to that effect. So sadly we have had to politely decline the opportunity.

So what do we take from this frustrating situation? Actually we take several plusses.

The company in question did pick up the phone and call us – unprompted. That surely speaks volumes for our reputation?

We feel in a position of strength with our current client, we enjoy working with them and more work keeps flowing in our direction.

I also feel a certain pride that we have done ‘the right thing’ in saying no ……….. but it still hurts a bit to walk away!