Solicitations

Today must be solicitation day. We received a curious phone call earlier in the day from a firm that – as far as I can tell – helps strategically market creative service businesses. A very large designerly such business (former client) was name-checked several times. I was buttered up with references to someone in the media who said great things about me, while the second time this came up I was told that they can’t tell me who it is because they never reveal their sources (I hadn’t asked). Sources?! When I explained to them that we were probably too small for them (going by the size of firms they had worked for) they told me that their fees were “up there.”

Later our HR alias got an email from a recruiting firm wanting to help out. The first line of the email reads
Hello Prtugal Consulting
and then of course goes on to talk about excellent and commitment and all that! But they managed to get TWO spelling errors in my name! So much for attention to detail. And they are contacting me to solicit my business? So much for good communication.

I’ve received any number of calls over the last few months from large Indian operations wanting to see if I can outsource some of my work to them. Hmm. Not yet, anyway.

Business development is hard, and very hard to do well. That’s clear from either side of the conversation!

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