Erroneous! Erroneous on both counts!

This has little to do with this post--it just a picture of a building in the Old Market. Image via Wikipedia

I’ve already had an interesting morning. When I say “interesting”, what I mean–if you can follow the intricate language pathways to follow–is that it has been bad. In a meeting that has now taken the coveted #1 position as Worst Meeting I’ve Ever Had, not only was my own job ability mocked and ridiculed, but my publication–The Onion–as well.

Only a person of limited mental faculties would think that The Onion is, as the person with whom I met this morning put it, a “small and worthless operation”. In fact, I would go so far as to say that only a severely misinformed and moronic person would think that I am not particularly good at my job. Where then lies the hostility?

Despite my proclivity for writing about personal matters (in fact, I love writing about personal matters when they relate to books I’m reviewing or whatnot; anytime an anecdote can help my point or add interesting flavour, it’s fair game), this is not a post purely to vent. I have a lovely and amazing redhead-who-is-not-my-sister (amongst others, including my sister herself) to whom I can (and will, no doubt) exorcize my frustrations. This post, Dear Reader, is about ignorance. My inspiration for this topic came directly from my thinking about what went wrong at The Horrible Meeting.

A rather large part of my current position is client contact. You see, in order for a publication to make money, it must solicit advertisers (take notes; there will be an exam!). Much to the surprise of many, businesses typically do not seek out publications in which to run ads, mostly because–I find–business owners hate that they have to advertise.

Allow me a brief second to aside: There are very few businesses that do not, under any circumstances, have to advertise. It’s just a plain and simple fact that, after a certain point, a business of any kind needs to get their name out there. Examples of places in Omaha that don’t need to run ads, in my opinion: La Buvette, M’s Pub…and uh…that’s it. Maybe there’s one or two more, but aside from them, it’s a fact of life that one has to market.

In the interest of making contact with new potential clients, I am talking all day; every time I go anywhere, I could potentially be working. Going to bars and restaurants has the potential to turn from fun to work in .5 seconds if I see a business owner, or if someone recognizes me. I’m a pretty social guy to the outside world, but those folks on the inside pretty well know that there’s a nerdy, dorktastic homebody at my core. That said, talking to new people in social settings or in their own businesses is a fun, easy and natural-to-me way of making new client contacts. At the opposite end of the spectrum is just picking up the phone and cold calling a business. In doing this, not only is there a sort of art in getting to a decision-maker, but you oftentimes find yourself directed towards an independent agency.

Unpleasant or brisk interactions while doing this job are caused only by one of the following things:

• Being familiar with The Onion and disliking the content
• Knowing just enough about The Onion to know that we’re an alternative weekly publication, and going no further

Another brief aside: There are plenty of businesses whose marketing decision makers–agency or not–are aware of and even love The Onion, but their business simply doesn’t fit in the demographic. That is 100% fine with me. I understand if it’s not for everybody, and if you, as a marketer, are in possession of all of the facts and stats and demographic info and know it’s not a good fit, then godspeed. I have had extremely pleasant and rapport-building interactions with people and owners who get it and love it, but know it’s not for their audience.

The first bullet point there is one that’s almost impossible to overcome. If I speak to an easily offended or extremely conservative business owner who has no desire to overlook their personal objections to see how powerful the readership is, then that’s more a less an insurmountable brick wall. Despite the fact that I’ve been told that The Onion is “filth” and asked how I could “in good conscience publish this garbage”, I generally don’t hold any ill will, and in fact, I tend to set aside a little pity for the close minded. It’s interesting to note that one of a couple locations of a franchise as well known for their misogynistic approach towards wait-staff as they are for having an owl on their signage decided that we were too inappropriate a publication to distribute. How’s that for cognitive dissonance? But I digress.

The other bullet point is the one that most cheeses me, and is the one about which I write today–for it can be boiled down to ignorance. It’s been said that having no knowledge about something is bad, but having a little knowledge about something is dangerous, and that’s very true in this case. The person this morning, with whom I had interacted in the past a couple times, was not originally familiar with my product. However, the places which this person represents would be extremely (in my humble opinion) well served, marketing wise, by appearing in our pages. Their inability to look past any of their initial impressions is ignorance on the highest level. To this person, we are a fly-by-night, underground operation with papers printed on dad’s Office Depot Lasermax 5000, instead of what we really are, which is a nationally syndicated publication that also prints in New York, Chicago, Austin, Denver, Washington DC and Minneapolis–to name a few (and we also print in an extremely nice, modern facility).

Maybe we aren’t a good fit for their clients, I have to allow for that–but the fact of the matter is that, due to what must be stubbornness and what is surely ignorance, we’ll never know.

There are so many instances in modern life where people hold to steadfast, preconceived notions without so much as a nod towards the idea that those notions could be incorrect. For some, the act of being wrong or realizing they’re not as well informed as they could be is an invalidation of ones self as a professional and as a person. I’m definitely a person who likes to be right–I like to keep well informed, and I’m awfully stubborn if I think I know something that is challenged; I understand the mindset that causes such severe reactions as the one I suffered this morning. However, I’ve learned to see through that self-induced echo chamber thinking and realize that we can’t know everything. It’s why I love to learn, and it’s why I love to be taught. I long ago abandoned the idea that I know everything, and have embraced the truth that in the big scheme of things, none of us knows anything. It’s why I get so engrossed when the people in my life wax poetic about their passions and obsessions, and why I get all doe-eyed when I learn about genetic mutation.

Maybe it really struck home for me–dealing with that person this morning–because I saw for a second what I could have been on the track towards at one point: yelling at someone who was just trying desperately to allow for deeper understanding.

Despite how offended I was at some of the personal attacks on my own character and professional ability, I find myself in the position of hoping that that person simply learns how to learn.

(By the way: For whatever reason [probably because the movie is hilarious as hell] a lot of stuff from Wedding Crashers jumps into my head. For instance, the title of this post is brought to you by Vince Vaughn http://www.hark.com/clips/zbhjzpzqvm-erroneous )