Laura Munson's article in the NY Times ("Those Aren't Fighting Words, Dear" - July 31, 2009) reminded me of a gut-wrenching experience of my own at Language Masters, the translation company I sold in 2005. One of our major clients, after years of absolute satisfaction with our services, decided to divvy up their hundreds of projects per year to three Vendors. They had no complaints about our services, but the higher ups did not want to be 'tied down' to one supplier. Or so they said. Thoughts racing through my mind during the meeting ("How will you manage three vendors in the midst of your workload?" for instance), my disappointment growing by the minute... All of a sudden, a calm feeling descended over me helping me keep a professional demeanor despite the obvious loss of revenue we were facing. The 'experiment' lasted a whole year, during which we often received questions about projects we were not handling, aggravated emails about missed deadlines of projects we did not know about, etc. In the meantime, we delivered impeccable work, beat all deadlines, and provided unparalleled customer service. Just as Munson did, we refused to suffer. After 12 long months, the client admitted to having increased their expenditures, and unending project management disasters, and returned their projects to us. As Laura said: "But I ducked. And I waited. And it worked."
Know when to duck
Laura Munson's article in the NY Times ("Those Aren't Fighting Words, Dear" - July 31, 2009) reminded me of a gut-wrenching experience of my own at Language Masters, the translation company I sold in 2005. One of our major clients, after years of absolute satisfaction with our services, decided to divvy up their hundreds of projects per year to three Vendors. They had no complaints about our services, but the higher ups did not want to be 'tied down' to one supplier. Or so they said. Thoughts racing through my mind during the meeting ("How will you manage three vendors in the midst of your workload?" for instance), my disappointment growing by the minute... All of a sudden, a calm feeling descended over me helping me keep a professional demeanor despite the obvious loss of revenue we were facing. The 'experiment' lasted a whole year, during which we often received questions about projects we were not handling, aggravated emails about missed deadlines of projects we did not know about, etc. In the meantime, we delivered impeccable work, beat all deadlines, and provided unparalleled customer service. Just as Munson did, we refused to suffer. After 12 long months, the client admitted to having increased their expenditures, and unending project management disasters, and returned their projects to us. As Laura said: "But I ducked. And I waited. And it worked."
