Posted by David Sherman on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 at 1:03PM :
In Reply to: Re: Thank you to the City and People of Williams AZ! posted by keithmerk on Monday, August 14, 2006 at 7:54PM :
because I wasn't part of the rally. However... maybe it's just me, but if I was one of the downtown merchants or city fathers that went way out of their way to have the whole business community welcome your rally, flowers and cards would go straight into the trash. I know flowers and cards are how the church ladies apologize to each other, but I want a man to visit me in person, look me in the eye, and both apologise and explain. It's not that hard, once you get the hang of it. An explanation without an apology is just an excuse, but a whole lot of grovelling without an explanation is just as bad. It makes me think the "apologizer" is begging for a hug or something. Everybody makes mistakes and everybody understands that, but you have to go to the guy you've wronged and apologize to his face. In the case of the whole town putting out for the rally, you would start with the mayor (face-to-face visit), then president of the Chamber of Commerce, leading businessmen, etc. Good apologies and owning up to one's mistakes are so rare these days that by doing so you'll make a great impression.
I'm a bit of a part of the downtown business community in a small town that gets a lot of its income from tourism. We are always being hit up for donations to this or that worthy cause, many of which are supposed to promote tourism, bring people in, get good press, etc. There's some kind of festival or event pretty much every other week throughout the summer. Some benefit the business community and some don't. Some only benefit a few people. Some are flat-out money losers but people still think they're fun. There's also a tendency, in a place where the economy is tough, to take a chance on every hare-brained scheme that some promoter comes up with. You do not want to end up on the hare-brained promoter list. Just my opinion, but unless you're wife's in charge of apologizing, skip the cards and flowers and spend a day walking around town talking to everybody who helped with your event, apologize for what went wrong, explain what went wrong, and explain why it won't happen again.
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