Career Lessons: Overcoming Mistakes, Navigating Challenges, and Triumph

00:00:00.000 | You're listening to Let's Talk Jobs, where we give you practical insights into jobs and

00:00:12.420 | careers.

00:00:13.420 | Today, we're talking about horror stories from our careers and what we've learned from

00:00:17.480 | that.

00:00:18.480 | Joining us is Troy Peterson and Jesse Ratner.

00:00:20.160 | How are you guys doing?

00:00:21.160 | What's up, Tim?

00:00:22.160 | Hey, Tim.

00:00:23.160 | I'm good.

00:00:24.160 | Now, naturally, you guys have both had your own episodes, and make sure you guys click

00:00:29.660 | on the links to watch those.

00:00:31.400 | But between all of us, not to age us, we've got a fair amount of years of experience between

00:00:35.400 | us, right?

00:00:36.400 | I think I've been doing, I think, 24 years in industry.

00:00:38.560 | How about you guys?

00:00:40.040 | Yeah, I'm at 25 years in tech, and then before that, I was in media for about four years

00:00:46.880 | after college.

00:00:49.560 | And I'm in about the same space, actually, as you would know, when I first, almost, first

00:00:59.000 | jobs in tech were with Troy.

00:01:02.000 | Actually, that was one of my first jobs in tech, and I think you were my manager for

00:01:05.680 | a minute.

00:01:06.680 | And yes, I'm really excited to talk, and we certainly have decades of experience between

00:01:13.960 | us.

00:01:14.960 | Lots of horror stories, and looking forward to talking about it.

00:01:19.120 | Yeah, you know, the funny thing about horror stories is we've all got them, right?

00:01:22.760 | And it can range from small or big, and it's all relative to who we are as people and how

00:01:27.420 | we digest information and deal with it.

00:01:30.920 | I think what we do with it and how we respond to it is really important.

00:01:35.080 | And I think early in our careers, mid and late, there's always something to take away

00:01:39.680 | from it.

00:01:40.680 | And so our goal is to share that with you guys who's listening and watching this podcast,

00:01:44.040 | and hopefully you can get something out of that.

00:01:46.040 | So I'm going to kick us off, you guys, and you're probably going to laugh at me, because

00:01:49.280 | the first topic is dealing with mistakes.

00:01:52.960 | Have you guys ever sent a nasty email to someone and you forgot to take them off CC?

00:02:00.600 | I've never done that one, no, unfortunately, but I've definitely received mistake emails

00:02:06.040 | like that.

00:02:07.800 | It's the worst, you guys.

00:02:09.720 | When you hit submit, you see the participants in the email quickly, and you feel this rush

00:02:18.440 | of heat and blood coming up the back of your neck, and that freakout starts to happen,

00:02:24.120 | right?

00:02:25.120 | It happened to me twice in my career.

00:02:27.400 | The first one was younger, maybe like, I think, two or three years into my job experience.

00:02:32.720 | And then the other one happened like, I think, within the past three years.

00:02:35.700 | And I think how I dealt with it and how I process it was very different based on just

00:02:40.240 | how long I've been in the industry.

00:02:42.800 | The first one was really bad.

00:02:45.360 | I was on the agency side of the business.

00:02:47.160 | So I was an account manager, right?

00:02:49.240 | So my whole job is to build relationships with customers and hopefully build credibility,

00:02:53.960 | trust, and gain more business.

00:02:56.360 | I had this one particular client who was really, really difficult, both verbally abusive to

00:03:01.640 | my team and typically, you give an inch, take a mile type of stuff, right?

00:03:07.960 | That's interpretation from an agency side.

00:03:11.600 | And at that point, I really had it.

00:03:13.720 | I think I was maybe 27 years old.

00:03:17.680 | And so they had sent an email to the team, which was not a nice email.

00:03:23.400 | So I hit, so I did a reply all and I deleted them from the first draft of the email.

00:03:31.600 | But then I didn't like the email, I closed it and I came back to it.

00:03:34.520 | The problem is when I came back to it and I redrafted it, I didn't take them off the

00:03:38.000 | chain.

00:03:39.000 | No.

00:03:40.000 | And I was literally, my choice of verbiage was like, "They're terrible," like, "I can't

00:03:45.240 | believe I have clients like this," and it was really bad and I hit send on that.

00:03:51.280 | The blood rush happened.

00:03:53.840 | And my response to that besides, "Oh, crap," was sending an immediate follow-up email to

00:04:02.240 | just my internal team.

00:04:03.720 | I sent another email to the client and in some cases, almost overreacting on my part

00:04:10.600 | to the mistake.

00:04:11.600 | What I didn't do was pause, breathe, reread the email because I have more context around

00:04:22.400 | why I said that, but the reader does not and they may not read it the same way I read it.

00:04:28.000 | And what ended up happening was my manager told me, "Hey, look, if you didn't respond,

00:04:33.400 | I don't think they would have said anything.

00:04:35.820 | But because you overly focused on it, now it's a thing and you've drawn all this attention

00:04:41.220 | to it.

00:04:42.220 | You could just let it lie."

00:04:43.220 | And it ended up taking me off the account because it damaged reputation of our – with

00:04:48.920 | the client.

00:04:49.920 | It was really, really bad.

00:04:52.240 | Three years ago, I did another one and this one was about an individual.

00:04:57.440 | And similar things, we have gripes about people and they're annoying.

00:05:02.040 | And so I sent out an email and this time, similarly, accidentally CC'd them.

00:05:07.520 | My response this time around being older and having more gray hairs on my head was a lot

00:05:12.440 | different.

00:05:13.760 | I did the pause.

00:05:14.760 | I drafted an email and then I – actually, before I hit the email, first, I erased everyone

00:05:21.460 | from the send.

00:05:23.140 | So that's the new thing.

00:05:24.140 | And whenever I send emails like that, I first remove everybody so there's no chance of

00:05:28.620 | accidentally something out.

00:05:30.420 | So I remove them all and I allowed myself about an hour or two to go back and forth

00:05:34.460 | and read it, put in draft mode, come back, shorten it, right, shorten, shorten it.

00:05:41.740 | And then I sent the response back.

00:05:43.820 | And this time what I did was I went back to the individual and gave them context.

00:05:49.340 | Part of it was admitting my own mistakes.

00:05:51.460 | I was like, "Hey, man, that was embarrassing for me but here's what I meant to say."

00:05:58.420 | And I left it open-ended.

00:05:59.420 | I said, "Hey, look, if you don't have a conversation, here's what it is.

00:06:01.600 | Here's what I truly meant and some of the truth behind what I'm trying to say."

00:06:06.660 | That was a very different response.

00:06:08.160 | So they came back saying, "Oh," they kind of laughed and like, "Thank you for calling

00:06:12.420 | yourself out."

00:06:13.420 | But then we got right to the heart of the issue of the concern, right?

00:06:16.460 | And so that was that horror story.

00:06:19.100 | I'm glad I haven't had too many of those but I had another similar one through chat

00:06:25.060 | where I was talking about someone to somebody else and I was on the wrong window.

00:06:34.420 | And so the message I meant to send to someone else, I sent to them directly.

00:06:38.380 | It was literally, "So-and-so is so annoying.

00:06:43.120 | I can't believe they said that."

00:06:45.980 | And actually, that was the midpoint of my career.

00:06:48.300 | And the way I dealt with that one is kind of like the medium of the two.

00:06:51.720 | I said, "Hey," I did a white lie.

00:06:53.580 | I was like, "Hey, man," oh, actually, first of all, he responded, "WTF," right?

00:07:01.300 | And I said, "Hey, man, I just want to share with you what I sent to someone else because

00:07:06.660 | you know what?

00:07:07.660 | I don't think that was an appropriate thing.

00:07:08.780 | I want you to know what I said because I'm trying to hold myself accountable."

00:07:13.060 | Total lie.

00:07:14.060 | But ironically enough, I was able to build upon that and use make lemonade out of the

00:07:19.100 | lemons and allowed me to start having more frank conversations with this person.

00:07:24.500 | But I think they saw through it.

00:07:25.500 | I don't think they're that dumb, but that was my horrible mistake.

00:07:31.740 | I feel like if we were younger, Tim, you would respond with a meme this thin age, right?

00:07:36.700 | Or a GIF or something like that.

00:07:38.780 | Yeah.

00:07:39.780 | Yeah.

00:07:40.780 | I don't think us old fogeys have those skills to respond in that way today, but what about

00:07:46.700 | you, Jesse?

00:07:47.700 | Have you had a nightmare like that?

00:07:52.140 | I've had a few.

00:07:53.140 | And, you know, I was thinking when you were telling the story, the second one, Tim, that

00:08:00.740 | sometimes fear is such a funny thing.

00:08:05.180 | Some of it is sort of like a biological response.

00:08:10.420 | You hear a loud noise and you're on the street and there's a backfire or something, you jump

00:08:13.940 | and you're like, "What the hell is that?"

00:08:16.620 | And some fears are more learned.

00:08:19.660 | Like the fear of public speaking, I think is maybe it's a little bit of both, but you

00:08:23.220 | can unlearn it and become a good, confident public speaker, even though it's probably

00:08:28.900 | one of the scariest things for most people to do.

00:08:31.620 | And some things are cultural because of the culture you're in.

00:08:35.220 | And, you know, in some cases, I think I've been on team cultures and corporate cultures

00:08:40.380 | even where I might have said to somebody, you know, in error, "Oh, you're so annoying."

00:08:46.580 | But the culture is a culture of forgiveness, of kindness, of understanding, and you could

00:08:50.660 | just talk about things.

00:08:51.660 | And I actually was on the receiving end of one of those texts from a designer.

00:08:56.700 | He actually, I sat, I had a standing desk and I sat or I stood on one side and he stood

00:09:02.260 | on the other.

00:09:03.980 | And I think he didn't mean to send a text that basically said, "That guy, Jesse, is

00:09:07.660 | a real jerk."

00:09:08.660 | And I looked over at him and I'm like, "I don't think you meant that for me."

00:09:13.580 | And I didn't take it that badly, I just, he's a young guy.

00:09:17.940 | He was also a guy who had been, he was very junior, but sort of like this was his first

00:09:25.060 | job out of design school.

00:09:27.340 | And after about a year, he started asking to get promoted.

00:09:29.300 | He was a junior designer.

00:09:30.300 | He started getting asked to be promoted to creative director every week.

00:09:34.300 | Every week he'd come in and talk about how he needed to be, I was managing him and he

00:09:38.220 | said, "I need to be promoted or I'm going to leave."

00:09:40.620 | And then after a little while he left, so good for him, but I've been on a, not so much,

00:09:50.140 | I've sent a few nasty grams and had to clean up things afterwards.

00:09:55.420 | But I think in terms of biggest mistakes or big mistakes, certainly I have one that really

00:10:01.220 | stands out and I was working at an agency where I had been in a sort of a managerial

00:10:08.460 | role, a lead role, but I was sort of under somebody that I couldn't move up.

00:10:14.380 | And I was on this same account for a long time, it was a big account, we had Google

00:10:19.220 | as a client.

00:10:21.020 | And so we had, it had been years, right?

00:10:24.940 | I had done a two-year stint with one agency under the same manager and then another two-year

00:10:29.980 | stint with another agency under the same manager.

00:10:34.140 | And we were very successful together, we worked pretty well together, we ended up starting

00:10:37.620 | an agency later on together.

00:10:40.060 | But at some point, and the agency had grown from like a very small size to many hundreds

00:10:44.700 | of people, we had weekly happy hours at this restaurant in San Francisco on the Embarcadero

00:10:54.900 | right under the Bay Bridge, it was beautiful.

00:10:57.660 | And so we'd go over there with the Googlers and hang out and talk about business, talk

00:11:01.500 | about other stuff, it was very casual, we'd drink quite often, as you might imagine.

00:11:07.940 | And one night I was really chafing under this, there's a lot of things going on in my life,

00:11:12.820 | I was trying to buy a house, I had a young child, my wife and I have, still do, but our

00:11:18.100 | child was very young then.

00:11:20.060 | And I had a couple drinks, let's say three or four, dark and stormies, and I went up

00:11:28.220 | to the boss above my manager, oh, and by the way, I had been moonlighting for a client

00:11:38.340 | that the agency subsequently gained as their client, which I then dropped.

00:11:44.580 | But I felt like, well, once the agency gained this client and I learned that they had been

00:11:49.340 | struggling a bit with the creative, and I thought to myself, well, this is a great opportunity

00:11:53.660 | for me, I could say, hey, I actually know this brand, in and out, I can help you, blah,

00:11:57.580 | blah, blah.

00:11:58.580 | You know, and I've been thinking about it for months, like, how do I make my move, when's

00:12:02.260 | the right time, what's the right way to do it?

00:12:05.780 | Anyway, so this Friday happened, and like I said, I had a couple drinks, and I pulled

00:12:12.500 | the boss's boss aside, and I said, I can help you, here's why, I actually know this client

00:12:18.660 | and I've been working for them on the side, and he was like, wait a second, timeout, timeout,

00:12:23.180 | that's probably a conflict of interest, I need to talk to the partners, and soon after

00:12:27.700 | that I got pushed out of the agency.

00:12:30.780 | You know, I was on a really good path, I was on a good path, had a strong, well, at least,

00:12:36.900 | I would have probably continued in that sort of corporate agency path, and it completely

00:12:43.100 | changed the trajectory of my career, and I've been a consultant ever since, and in some

00:12:48.140 | ways it's been really good, you know, I took a risk, but it wasn't well thought out, and

00:12:54.260 | I think I was going to be stuck in a role that I didn't feel satisfied with, if I didn't

00:12:59.420 | somehow make a move, and I might have made the wrong move at the wrong time, but the

00:13:03.420 | result was it opened a bunch of doors, because I had to, then I had to hustle, I lost my

00:13:07.700 | job, I got another job right away, I had a good, you know, good resume, having worked

00:13:13.540 | at a big brand, or at an agency for a big brand, and some of the things, and, you know,

00:13:18.740 | other doors open, and I, you know, I can, some of the other things I think we'll talk

00:13:22.220 | about in terms of fear of, you know, fear of fear itself, fear of failure, those kind

00:13:27.060 | of things, came to the forefront as I then moved down the road in my journey, but yeah,

00:13:31.460 | it wasn't a mistake, probably, you know, the timing, not so good, the inebriation part

00:13:37.540 | probably not so helpful in my decision-making at the time, and I think I, you know, I held

00:13:44.140 | that inside for a long time, and I saw the guy at the boss's boss, I hadn't seen him,

00:13:50.020 | yeah, I hadn't talked to him, like, I was somewhat of a friend, I mean, he'd kind of

00:13:53.140 | been to my house, and I'd been to his house, and, you know, we knew each other quite well,

00:13:57.860 | worked close together, the boss's boss, that is, and then I didn't see him for like seven

00:14:03.220 | years, you know, I got pushed out, I remember that last day, he walked me to the door and

00:14:09.460 | like that was it, and I saw him like about six months ago, it had been like seven years,

00:14:17.940 | and I was getting a test for CPAP machine, I took a sleep disorder test, and I go to

00:14:25.100 | leave from the from picking up the instructions, and the elevator door opens, this is a hospital,

00:14:31.340 | you know, upstairs, and the door opens, and there he is, and he walks out, and we shake

00:14:36.540 | hands and sit, I sit down for him, with him for a few minutes, and it was weird, because

00:14:41.060 | I still was kind of looking for him to acknowledge what had happened, and he didn't, and he texted

00:14:48.460 | me or I texted him or something, we had like a very short text communication, and then

00:14:52.900 | nothing really, you know, we're not really friends anymore, but yeah, really, it really

00:14:57.820 | was a probably not such a good move on my part, sorry about that, but it happens, right,

00:15:05.300 | and then you move on, because you have to, and I'm gonna put myself on mute for a second,

00:15:11.780 | so Troy can maybe share about a couple of things, but that's probably the biggest mistake

00:15:16.320 | that wasn't a mistake, but was a mistake type experience.

00:15:20.220 | Yeah, I kind of actually wonder, you know, we always have stuff to bring to the table,

00:15:26.220 | and I wonder if you hadn't brought up the fact that you're moonlighting, and you're

00:15:31.700 | just like, hey, I have some insights, or maybe I know this company, and maybe this nugget

00:15:38.140 | would help you, do you think that would change it, because now you're, again, you're trying

00:15:42.220 | to position yourself in a company, and I think this happens all the time, right, like we

00:15:45.900 | have connections, relationships, and some stuff might better position us, right, is

00:15:50.340 | there a way that could have played out differently, do you think, or just in general, just having

00:15:53.940 | a relationship was gonna doom you by whatever information you're about to disclose?

00:15:59.540 | I think I definitely could have positioned it better, I didn't need to, you know, talk

00:16:03.900 | about how I came by that experience, I just could convey that I had a, you know, a deep

00:16:08.660 | appreciation, it actually was LinkedIn, oddly enough, that was the client that I knew about,

00:16:13.660 | that had worked for, on the side, and yeah, I could have positioned it as I had this experience,

00:16:18.660 | I understand the brand, I know their voice, I know their goals, I know their, you know,

00:16:23.820 | the core value props, and I think I could help, and leave it at that, I didn't necessarily

00:16:29.380 | need to go on how I came by that information, experience, and the problem was that I was

00:16:35.060 | a little bit drunk, and you don't think straight, and if there's any lesson I could take away

00:16:40.820 | from that is, you know, don't get drunk and ask questions that could change the trajectory

00:16:46.140 | of your career, you might not, you might not know where you're going the next day, and

00:16:51.100 | it's risky, it's highly risky, and it's probably one reason why, especially in agency life,

00:16:55.180 | and you're probably familiar with this, Tim, it's often the case that you're smoothing

00:16:58.540 | with clients, and there's alcohol involved, or other things, and you know, sometimes it

00:17:04.980 | doesn't always go in a straight line, and I think that's life, right, and in some ways

00:17:09.700 | fear is that accelerant, you know, it can accelerate us down a path that maybe we are

00:17:18.380 | trying not to face, and so maybe this was a point in my life where I was sort of admitted

00:17:23.180 | at crossroads for a long time, and I was sort of stuck in a role, I had all this experience,

00:17:27.900 | I had led large teams, like the designer who told me I was a jerk, and things like that,

00:17:33.940 | and had a bunch of success, and when then I was later able to go out on my own, just,

00:17:40.420 | just enumerating the things that I had done often got me into the door when I started

00:17:44.820 | my agency for conversations with potential clients, and even now I think, I still, you

00:17:50.140 | know, I didn't lose all that experience, it just, I don't necessarily lead with that story

00:17:54.420 | when I'm in an interview, but yeah, but to your point, I think, I think framing it certainly

00:18:01.860 | is important, when you're in a situation where you're about to make a mistake, maybe step

00:18:06.740 | back and write down a script for yourself, this is what I think I ought to communicate,

00:18:11.220 | you know, and maybe sleep on it, you know, or show it to a trusted person, your spouse

00:18:17.380 | or friend, colleague, yeah.

00:18:24.000 | That's interesting to hear you guys tell these stories, I feel like there's almost like two

00:18:30.580 | layers of learning, there's the sort of short-term, and I think it's really important to short-term

00:18:37.000 | sort of react in a way that is productive, but then there's also like the longer term,

00:18:44.220 | like in terms of, you know, how do you deal with mistakes, you, whether you realize it

00:18:49.480 | or not, when you make mistakes, you're learning, and even if you can't articulate what the

00:18:54.860 | learning is, the next time I think you're faced with a situation that rings familiar,

00:19:00.820 | I think you're going to be better suited to respond to it appropriately.

00:19:05.100 | So like, you know, my example is much more tactical, but it was an important thing for

00:19:15.980 | me to learn about how to take responsibility for it.

00:19:21.840 | In the short term, I had started working for a software as a service company, my first

00:19:27.180 | job that was like fully digital related is sort of around the 2000 time, 2010 timeframe,

00:19:35.740 | and I was in charge of the CRM or slash email marketing at the time, and in one of the first

00:19:42.460 | big email sends that we were, that I was responsible for, went out with the big call to action,

00:19:53.460 | we forgot to put the link in for it.

00:19:55.940 | So it was like, I don't remember exactly what it was, but it was like, you know, sign up

00:19:59.980 | here.

00:20:00.980 | And there was no, it went nowhere.

00:20:01.980 | It was dead.

00:20:02.980 | It was dead link.

00:20:03.980 | And dead for the context that it was kind of a nightmare job for me in a lot of ways.

00:20:08.780 | We might get into this later, but my boss was the temporary CEO because my other boss

00:20:19.060 | had been removed and he hated email.

00:20:24.060 | He like just didn't like the whole practice of it.

00:20:26.660 | But we also knew that email marketing and a lot of marketers know this, like it's one

00:20:29.980 | of the, to your own, owned lists are one of the most high ROI tactics going and that still

00:20:37.140 | stands today, I believe.

00:20:39.220 | So, you know, we weren't going to stop doing email, but the fact that this went out on

00:20:44.340 | my watch and I was reporting to a CEO that hated email.

00:20:49.300 | And I was, I was devastated because like, you know, the very concept that I could make

00:20:54.140 | a mistake in front of, you know, thousands of people, you know, it was, it was, it was

00:20:59.780 | kind of devastating to me.

00:21:00.780 | I took it really hard.

00:21:02.180 | But in the moment, I also, I was able to at least like quickly take responsibility.

00:21:08.900 | And I knew that this, the news, the acting CEO was sort of a very matter of fact guy.

00:21:15.980 | So like we quickly built sort of the mitigation plan, which was, you know, we're going to

00:21:20.340 | re we're going to send another email, apologize and, and include the link.

00:21:25.380 | Which it was very embarrassing, but you know, we, I approached him, I said, I'm really sorry

00:21:31.140 | we made this mistake and had a verbal conversation with him.

00:21:33.660 | I think it was the other thing that, you know, I think we've all had moments in our careers

00:21:38.820 | where we follow up with a, with an email, we maybe send another follow up email.

00:21:44.380 | It's like this is it swingers, the movie where the guy keeps, you know, leaving voicemails

00:21:48.340 | for the girl he likes, and it just makes makes things worse, right?

00:21:51.420 | It's like, it's better if you can just have like a quick conversation and attack the problem

00:21:57.260 | in the moment.

00:21:58.380 | Yeah, I think having a mitigation plan, or immediately building one as response to it

00:22:05.380 | is really, really important.

00:22:06.380 | You know, I think in that moment, especially with stakeholders who are watching your response

00:22:13.980 | to that, and how you're going to fix it in the plan, that's important to maintaining

00:22:19.180 | and building on credibility, because your point, mistakes happen.

00:22:23.060 | The difference is the person who is proactive and takes initiative.

00:22:28.580 | The brand you're building for yourself is one of responsibility, right?

00:22:32.720 | As opposed to, oh, you know what, I can't trust this person anymore, because they make

00:22:37.460 | a mistake, they just go off the rails, and they just lose their marbles.

00:22:41.860 | And I think you're, I've had a few emails go out as well, from like a nurture blast

00:22:48.180 | or whatnot that had broken links or a website, since that's my domain, and we published wrong

00:22:54.620 | information and analysts are seeing it right away.

00:22:58.300 | And there's varying degrees of how apologetic you should be, right?

00:23:03.260 | Because again, if you're too apologetic, sometimes you're going to blow something out of proportion.

00:23:08.640 | And so being like, as we think about this way, like we've also received stuff before

00:23:14.460 | as well, right?

00:23:16.220 | And under construction, or hey, here's an updated link or whatever, that doesn't scream,

00:23:22.460 | I made a mistake.

00:23:23.460 | It just tactically tells me as a consumer, oh, here's another link, I'll just do this

00:23:26.820 | one here.

00:23:27.980 | That feels less like a mistake.

00:23:30.540 | But then again, you're totally right.

00:23:31.540 | There's sometimes where you just need to call it out.

00:23:33.620 | And sometimes that actually helps build credibility and relationships with your customers.

00:23:37.180 | But yeah, that's a great story.

00:23:40.800 | I have a sort of related, I wasn't responsible necessarily for this, but I worked on a team

00:23:47.020 | that sent out an email that had a broken link.

00:23:50.640 | And we followed up with the email with just a very short subject line, oops, and it was

00:23:56.020 | the best performing email of the whole year, just an engaging subject line.

00:24:03.140 | I hate the fact that people actually, I think we've all received now purposeful mistakes

00:24:09.000 | for that reason, right?

00:24:11.740 | It's the digital marketing sometimes, marketing in general, I think we often end up doing

00:24:21.160 | some things that feels a little uncomfortable, right?

00:24:26.140 | It's a little cringy.

00:24:27.140 | I mean, I wouldn't necessarily call it clickbait because it was going to a friendly list, but

00:24:32.580 | a little bit odd.

00:24:35.580 | No, I mean, I'm saying that what's cringy to me is the people that do it on purpose

00:24:40.220 | to get clicks.

00:24:41.220 | Oops, we made a mistake and then draws attention to it.

00:24:45.300 | I think responding to a genuine mistake is authentic, right?

00:24:48.660 | And then there's a difference, although sometimes the reader can't tell the difference.

00:24:54.000 | Yeah.

00:24:55.000 | Yeah.

00:24:56.000 | But things like emails, your internal stakeholders, they think in terms of metrics, right?

00:25:03.000 | And so having a mitigation plan and then doing something like, "Hey, here are the total amount

00:25:07.800 | of sends and here's the amount of opens," because maybe the open rate, because you caught

00:25:14.160 | it so quickly, was really, really small.

00:25:16.440 | And so the impact of the mistake may not be that huge, right?

00:25:20.080 | If you don't provide context to people, then they just assume the worst.

00:25:23.160 | So I think control the narrative as often as you can, and data is your best friend.

00:25:29.880 | Yeah.

00:25:30.880 | Yeah.

00:25:31.880 | Our CEO at the time was huge into data, so I remember him showing him the, we showed

00:25:35.920 | him the open rate, the click rate, and also the, yeah, I think even more important, the

00:25:39.560 | unsubscribe rate.

00:25:40.560 | Yes.

00:25:41.560 | And it was definitely within the normal range for any email.

00:25:44.640 | It wasn't like a, yeah, it didn't, we didn't spur a huge loss in subscribers to the newsletter.

00:25:54.540 | And I think for digital, it's an easy, well, not easy, but you can clean up a mistake.

00:25:59.760 | If you put out something that has bad message, typo, whatever, missing link, you can update

00:26:05.560 | it, send out a note, or if it's a webpage, you just update it.

00:26:09.760 | I recently took a picture, this is a sort of a humorous aside, but I think it's relevant.

00:26:15.240 | So this is a, in downtown, in North Beach, in San Francisco, there's an area of town

00:26:21.280 | that has a number of strip clubs, and these strip clubs often have these big neon signs

00:26:26.880 | out front.

00:26:27.880 | And so there's two of them.

00:26:28.880 | I took a picture of next to each other that used the apostrophe, and one used it correctly,

00:26:34.040 | and one used it incorrectly.

00:26:35.800 | One was Big Al's, A-L apostrophe S. The other was Roaring 20's, two, zero, apostrophe S.

00:26:43.040 | The damn grocer's apostrophe.

00:26:44.600 | Well, you know which business went out of, which strip club went out of business, Roaring

00:26:50.140 | 20's.

00:26:51.140 | Now they met, I mean, it's sort of a humorous example, and they were around for decades,

00:26:57.160 | but you know, and they didn't feel the need to change it, I guess, or didn't know.

00:27:01.360 | They just made this giant sign with the grocer's apostrophe and left it up there for decades.

00:27:06.280 | And yeah, the beauty of digital, so quite different than brick and mortar.

00:27:13.040 | Hey guys, thanks again for watching and listening.

00:27:16.840 | Next week, we'll be talking about dealing with difficult managers.

00:27:19.980 | So make sure you hit like, subscribe and the notification bell so you don't miss an episode.

00:27:23.720 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Career Lessons: Overcoming Mistakes, Navigating Challenges, and Triumph

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