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Digital marketing guy {"Junior") put out a ProFinder ad almost a year ago.
I was on the hook; things looked promising. Then nothing. Internally
something was likely going on. I get that. I stayed in touch peridically
with the person.
A month ago he put out another feeler (I think it was just a post) on
LinkedIn. I immediately responded, "Hey, I'm still here... let's go!" Again
I sent credentials, offered to drive there to meet, talk by phone,
whatever. He replied, "Yeah, I hope this time we get to work together."
(Sounds good, right?)
While I was responding to him, Jeannie posted a Pro Finder ad.
Unbelievable, I thought. Anyway, I immediately tracked her down (learned
her identity via LI), responded to the PF ad, sent her an InMail, AND an
email to let her know that Junior and I had been down this same road months
prior.
Jeannie replied, "Great. I'll be traveling next week, let's get in touch
after I return." I got back in touchâjust as I was *instructed* to do so.
Somewhere in here she misses a few days, being out sick.
More time elapses. Jeannie decides she needs to see a sample user manual I
did for a PLC. I then had to get permission from that mfr. to share it with
Jeannie, which I got. Then *she* schedules a call for me to speak with PM a
few days hence. More time gone.
I speak with the PM...nice guy. He says, "Well, it certainly looks like you
have the chops. But it's up to Jeannie." He stated the deadline as end of
November...no problem.
Only now does Jeannie ask me for an estimate and, oh by the way, the
deadline is the end of October... for a motherboard I've never seen, a
company culture I know nothing about, etc. This is when I polled Techwr-l
asking how to estimate the impossible. I took that and responded with n
number of hoursâ"perhaps fewer. You'll have an hourly breakdown
nevertheless." And I cited a mid-November deadline based on the suggestions
of Techwr-l respondents.
Again almost a week goes by, and I ping her as appropriate. When she didn't
respond, I went ahead and sent my std. engagement contract, which is really
more of an NDA but with a fee schedule attached, etc. Finally I get her
consolation email.
Thenâsurprise, surpriseâshe finally views my LI profile and accepts my
invitation to connect there.
Now it could be that she had her preferred candidate already chosen. We all
know how that one goes, and I've been the beneficiary of that in the past.
But when that occurred, placing the advert was only a formality to appease
EEOC regs; no candidates were strung out like I was with Jeannie, asked to
have a phone interview, etc.
I maintain that Jeannie was sincere, but this is her first rodeo and she
likely wasn't given a decent budget with which to work. Nor does she know
what she doesn't know, e.g., her telling me that they use "open sans" as
their preferred typeface.
So do you still think the finger points at me? I maintain I was only
practicing polite, diligent salesmanship 101. I got a bite, it slipped the
hook. Months later I got another from the same fish and was oh-so-close to
reeling it in and taking it home. In fact it was in hand, but after a bit
of a struggle it squirmed out (operative phrase) and per chance fell in the
seat of a passing pleasure boater.
On Fri, Oct 13, 2017 at 2:28 PM, Wright, Lynne <Lynne -dot- Wright -at- kronos -dot- com>
wrote:
> Yeah i was confused by that part of the story... he seemed to be saying
> that he put everything else on hold and worked long hours on the project,
> even though he hadn't got the contract.
>
> I also thought that Ashley's perspective -- about how the project likely
> got delayed not because of incompetence on the marketing manager's part,
> but because scrambling to keep up with everything is often just the nature
> of smaller companies -- was a much more reasonable way to look at the whole
> situation. And if you're not prepared to deal with the last-minute demands
> that can be endemic to start-ups until you can help them get more
> organized, you probably shouldn't be courting them.
>
> Seemed like Chris made a lot of negative assumptions about Jeannie, even
> though he has no idea what circumstances she was dealing with; it may not
> even have been up to her to decide who got the contract. And if he was
> calling the project manager to talk about the project... who knows?
> ...maybe that worked against him.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: techwr-l-bounces+lynne -dot- wright=kronos -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com [mailto:
> techwr-l-bounces+lynne -dot- wright=kronos -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of
> Janoff, Steven
> Sent: Friday, October 13, 2017 1:57 PM
> To: salt -dot- morton -at- gmail -dot- com; techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> Subject: RE: Dealing with price resistance?
>
> Her rejection letter was certainly polite. She's leaving the door open to
> work together in the future. Perhaps you spent too much time up front
> before knowing whether it was a go. That's not her fault.
>
> All you really owed her was your estimate/evaluation. Would have been
> fine to stop there until she made a decision.
>
> Steve
>
> On Thursday, October 12, 2017 6:35 AM, Chris Morton wrote:
>
> ...
>
> Finally Jeannie sent me the inevitable email late yesterday:
>
> *Thank you so much for your interest in working with us and for your
> patience as we reviewed candidates. We have decided to go with another
> writer for this particular project due to timeline and budget. It was nice
> connecting with you and I am happy to keep you in mind for future projects
> if that is of interest to you.*
>
> ...
>
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