Did You Really Want to Say That?

Granddad always said, “Be careful what you do.” If he were alive today, I'm sure he might also occasional have added “electronically” as the last word in his advice.

Thinking something or saying something negative is sometimes easily retracted. But when you click on the “Send” button, hit “Enter” or “Submit,” you are committed to your actions which include whatever thoughts you just let loose onto the keyboard. You're never going to get the chance to say “oops, I didn't mean that”, “let me take that back” or, “pardon me for thinking out loud.”

This becomes even more important when you're not speaking solely for yourself. If you are an artist's representative in any fashion - PR, Booking, Label, Management, etc. - your personal feelings about anything and everything can easily spill over to the artists you care for. Even if you're just handling some minor duty for the band you play in, your actions can have long-lasting ramifications for the future of the entire band.

Every single one of us can get annoyed by some of the most mundane things and if we had the time to really think about them, we'd probably be more annoyed with ourselves for the amount of time wasted worrying about the mundaneness of them.

But in the busy, hectic, and often chaotic world of business deadlines and time-lines we often don't take the time to realize how far our actions really reach.

Crowded in-boxes filled with Email you don't remember asking to receive can often be a trigger for the beginning of a bad day or bad week. E-Blasts seem to come from everywhere, and true, some of them are absolutely pointless. Or at least the point they're attempting to make is lost on you. Maybe the message was intended for a primary audience and you were included in the peripheral or secondary target on the off chance that you might need to know or would otherwise be offended if you were left off the list.

Therein lies the risk we all take when we attempt NOT to offend but indeed DO offend unintentionally. It then compounds when it is too repetitive - either too much from the same source, or too much from multiple sources.

Just recently our E-Blast host sent us a notice of a complaint. Research showed the complaint came from the representative of a nationally recognized and award winning artist - an artist we play on the radio quite often. “Complaint” meaning that they didn't appreciate receiving this newsletter each week and that somehow just the fact that they received it was offensive. Now what are we to think of the artist who is represented by this person? Sure, it wasn't the artist who made the complaint, but they're certainly in the shadow of the person who did.

A while ago, we got a message from a label representative who indicated they'd moved on in their career and no longer worked for that label. Therefore they no longer needed to have the information we send out and requested that we remove them from our mailing list. Perfect! That's the way a professional business person takes care of business.

Remember that even when we are annoyed, courtesy and professionalism go a long way in getting what we want. It may take just a few seconds longer to dash off a short note than to click the unsubscribe or complaint links. After all, in the long run don't we need to make more friends than foes?