To cut the chase, just last week I had a horrendous experience with a start-up. What I hated most was they dis-respected ‘my time’.
Here’s an email Dan (Founder Clarity.fm) that proves India isn’t the only place it’s happening.
I stand corrected.
Btw: If you need advice from successful entrepreneurs, or you’re keen on advising start-ups check-out www.clarity.fm It’s the best way to reach successful entrepreneurs world over.
Dinesh,
I know I’m suppose to cover “How to Find Great Advisors on Clarity”, but if it’s ok with you, I’d like to tell you a story and get your thoughts.
Last week I had a call request from an entrepreneur … let’s call her Marie. When I first received Marie’s request she suggested times that were outside of my “normal” working hours (10pm on a weekday, 8AM on Saturday), so I messaged her for feedback on her “windows” of availability.
She said she had a “day job” and really needed to talk, so I made an exception and moved things around to allow for 8AM before she started work.
Everything was great, until the call.
At 8AM I called into the conference line waiting for Marie. After 3 minutes, she was connected (only because Clarity is smart enough to try and call the other person if they don’t connect in time, and patch them in). She quickly apologized and I accepted.
At this point I’m a bit frustrated as I went out of my way to make myself available. I assumed she would’ve been on time.
Argh. It only got worse.
She goes on to ask me if she can call back in 2 minutes, as she was almost at her desk and she didn’t want to lose me on her cell. Sounds fair, I said I would wait for her.
15 minutes later she calls in.
Now, normally I would’ve hung up after 5 minutes, but as the CEO/Founder of Clarity, I felt compelled to have a discussion about the situation and how she might want to approach things in the future.
I didn’t get upset, I just explained to her how I felt.
I reminded her that it had a huge impact, not only on this call (as I have the option to leave a review after the call) but also for future members that might experience this kind of situation.
It only takes one bad experience for a member to decide to stop offering their advice on Clarity. That means 1 person could cause hundreds of people to loose the ability to connect with an experts when they need them most. That’s a big deal in my book. She understood and apologized for the second time.
Then it got even worse.
As soon as she politely apologized and confirmed what I explained – I then ask her “So how can I help?”, to which she responds “ah, ummm, ah .. hmmm, ah, (whispering) I can’t really talk about it at work”. WTF?????
Now – I’m a somewhat patient person – but I was floored. I couldn’t understand how all of this just happened – it almost felt like someone was punk’n me.
I quickly explained to her that in the future she should be ready AND in a place where she could talk freely. I decided I couldn’t help and politely excused myself and finished the call. Realizing what had just happened, she followed up with an email apologizing and deleted her account. I didn’t tell her to .. she did it on her own.
Normally I would be frustrated with what just happened but then it hit me. It’s really all my fault.
We (Clarity) don’t do anything to set the expectations of our members. We don’t have a Rules of Engagement, Community Guidelines, or Do’s & Don’ts. I just assumed it was common courtesy to be on time and prepared, but then I remembered one of my Dads favorite quotes “common sense isn’t always that common”.
Since that experience we’ve sat down as a team to review all missed scheduled calls and worked hard to understand what went wrong. We’ve made a list of 20+ things we can do to set the expectations and reduce call issues. Some have been implemented, others are coming soon, but it’s now a core number we monitor – and it’s going down!
If you have any ideas to improve this – please reply to this email with your thoughts.
I know time is your most valuable asset and I don’t take it for granted that you choose to spend it with us – either by reading this email, or making calls on Clarity.
Thank you for your time.
P.S. I feel kind of bad for not sharing any tips on finding great advisors – so I’ll leave you with one of my favorites. I use the advance filters to find everyone who has reviews & a video sorted by price (no cost). Try it out: https://clarity.fm/#/search/*/near_me=false&video=true&reviews=true&sort=hourly_rate
—
Dan Martell
CEO & Founder, Clarity
https://blog.clarity.fm
Need business advice?
https://clarity.fm/danmartell
“People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care about them.”
~ John C. Maxwell
