At M Communications and M Com Publishing, we have author public relations campaigns as well as fashion, COVID (cannot wait this to pass), health, business, etc. and the list goes on. There is one common denominator though and it is if you exhibit any of this bad potential client behavior you will most likely not end up with a campaign or a publicist. The following is a perfect example of what not to do and this really should go without saying.
- Do not schedule a call with someone and be rude. The term “rude” is actually quite nice for the person in reference here. Here is the deal: we all have bad days, and recently due to our pandemic some are more stressful than others. If you are having a bad day – you might want to cancel any and all people interaction instead of keeping your phone calls. During this call, in which the potential client asked if we could chat earlier, and was not a problem, but acted from the onset like I was wasting his time. Last time I checked, he wanted to schedule a call and chat with me. I also must add that my time is valuable and would rather be spending it with nice people.
- Do not add a sliver of insulting to your rudeness. To expand on number one, the call just kept getting better and better from this perspective, to a point I almost thought was a situation where I was possibly getting “punked” by Ashton Kutcher. This was unfortunately not the case. Anyway, so Mr. Rude decided to continue with a firing squad of questions, which I easily fired back in response, but the most insulting was when he asked, “Where have I seen your clients, if ANYWHERE?” Granted this special person may have had a bad experience with PR, but if the response is everything from FOX National News – to Tamron Hall to everything in between, you would think that would at least warrant any response – to this I welcomed pin dropping silence. And, not of the “Wow” that’s great coverage variety.
- After acting absolutely ridiculous, asking about revenue sharing is not timely. At this point, I thought this almost had to be a joke, after putting up with a barrage of insults and an attitude problem worthy of your worst day of PMS, this guy had the audacity to ask if I did revenue sharing. At this point, I was shocked to point I was temporarily speechless when he started to say we were not a fit after I said “no” ( Who doesn’t want to revenue sharing with someone like this?) to which I quickly interrupted his latest rude spew with, “I could not agree more, have a great weekend.” Click. I never hang up on people and am fortunate enough to work with some pretty amazing people to say the least. And, I must lastly point out that publicists talk to their publicist friends especially if a potential project comes with a warning button. I guess in that sense he got some free PR after all.
