I wanted to share with you an important lesson I learnt this week.
I was covering for a colleague on what I thought was a run of the mill site visit with a bride. I met with her and her mother and showed the event space to her once again, whilst also finding myself engaging in enthusiastic conversation and making suggestions as I went as to how the flow of the event may run. The next day, I am called in to a meeting and informed that a complaint had been received about how I had conducted the meeting the day prior.
At first things didn’t add up and I had to take a half step back and see things from the brides perspective. Whilst in my head I was doing nothing wrong, in fact what I was doing was almost implying that those details already discussed were not worth much, and that I knew how to do things better. Of course, in the midst of the conversation itself I could not see that, and really some basic questions may well have allowed for my words to run parallel to already agreed ideas rather than come across as if I was trampling all over them.
Sometimes as event managers our heads and mouths run at top speed, and there is something to be said for slowing down, and ensuring that whilst we think we always have the best intention of the client at heart – and no doubt we do – how they perceive our enthusiasm can sometimes differ.
Lesson Learned.
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