Honesty Can Be Costly
But telling the truth is always good business
In the fourth quarter, as if capping an already record year, our biggest client signed a new contract with us at three times our largest fee ever. I know, Business 101 warns not to let a single client be too big a piece of the pie. But there we were, one client, one signed contract, now a full third of our company's annual income.
Two weeks into the new contract year, my colleague and I put final touches on a comprehensive plan to lift our client to new levels of public awareness. The pieces of the plan fit and turned like interlocking gears: media relations, events, message points, collateral materials, and crisis management. We slid the documents into our briefcases and flew to meet with the client.
Picture, now, a small conference room and the long hand on my watch crawling to our three o'clock meeting. The one person missing was the vice president who had awarded us the ambitious contract. Running late, I mused, just about the time the communications director slid something across the table.
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