Mislead or Misunderstood

If you take my money without me knowing you did, as in stealing my identity and using my credit, you are defrauding me. That's obvious. If you make me an offer and I think I am getting X but as the buying process moves along (or is completed) I wind up with Y, I have been mislead - perhaps you have defrauded me.

I am able to keep my cool in many situations. This is a story of the fact that it sometimes pays to just take is easy, relax and don't assume the worst, first.

I recently received an unsolicited email from a teleconferencing company. The subject line read, Call for Speakers. The email said that, "XYZ tele-conferencing company is looking for dynamic speakers to participate in our upcoming Business Webinar Series." The email also provided a link where I could sign up and submit my topic.

In the speaking biz, a Call For Speakers means that a company or organization is putting the call out to get submissions for speakers, to speak at their event. As a speaker, you usually don't want to miss this calling. It's a bit exciting, especially if you get one in the email specifically sent to you. Typically you would fill out their extensive form or provide information about yourself, your credentials, your topic, etc.

Anyhoo, when I clicked on the hyperlink, I was taken to a page where I would've expected to see information about the webinar (date, time, general content, audience, etc.). But I did not see that. It was an offer to sign up for their conferencing services - a free trial. There was only one box/field and that was a space to enter my speaking topic. I was convinced at this point, that I was being misled.

I called XYZ company to let them know how I felt. I got the director of sales and not the marketing director (she was out). I asked when the webinar series was going to take place. The director of sales did not know the details of the webinar series - but she did tell me all about the "free-trial." In her defense, she was an incredibly nice, receptive and professional woman. She was also not the marketing director. She took my number and offered to have the marketing person call me back (I did receive the email from the marketing person).

I told her that it wasn't imperative that the marketing person return my call, I'd heard enough. At the end of the call, the director of sales commented that this particular campaign was quite effective. I bet that it was!

Well I did get a call back from the marketing director.

Here's the deal - and why there wasn't info on the webinar series. They were obviously trying to sell conferencing services - nothing wrong with that; we are all trying to sell something. And they, in fact, ARE going to have a Business Webinar Series.

At the start of this campaign they did not know what kind of response they were going to have so, they did not know what kinds of topics (speakers) they were going to be able to choose from. Nor did they know what the speaker's schedules were going to be - this is why there was no date.

Based on the response they were getting, they will probably have several webinars. I hope so. That's what a "series" is.

In the end, the way in which they dealt with my concern was very commendable. It was those two women, the marketing and sales director, that calmed me down. It reminded me that we do business with PEOPLE and not business entities.

I believe I was mislead, but they taught me to "just take it easy." Maybe sometimes, it is just a MIS-understanding.