Halloween Mailer Blunder

So what do you do when one of your fun, fantastic ideas turns into an embarrassing mishap?

For any of you who actually received my recent Halloween mailer....let me explain and apologize.

For those of you who didn't receive it, learn this valuable lesson instead....

Last week of course I was in Chicago and while I was gone I had delegated the coordination and mailing of my fun Halloween mailing to one of my assistants/VAs. It was supposed to be a simple thing, stuffing into big envelopes, candy and a flyer and mailing out to a small, targeted list of folks.

Well, my VA, doing her due diligence, got a quote from a local Post Office on how much each piece should be to mail, she put the mailers together and sent them out. Whoalla!

Then the following day, there was a voice mail on my home office phone from the PO where she mailed them from (a different PO mind you than where she got the quote) saying to call them right away because two of the three bins of packages were short postage of $.17 each! They asked if we wanted to fix them or send postage due.....

The unfortunate thing is that since I was out of town, I did NOT check my voice mail every day and I did NOT delegate that (which I will now!!!), I didn't get the message from the PO until the following day and the mailers had already gone out POSTAGE DUE $.17!!!

So, needless to say, this fun, fantastic, surprise mailer that went out to a select group of clients and contacts for Halloween - went to them owing money to receive it....YUCKY I KNOW!

So, if you received the package, that's what happened and I'm sorry. Know that you will be receiving an EXTRA SPECIAL GIFT from me now in late November to make up for it (although for most of you, I know that you don't really mind and don't expect anything to make up for it)! Thanks for understanding....

For all of you, here's the lesson:

When you go out of town or even when you delegate a task in the first place, remember to:

• Put your phone and message retrieval on auto pilot just as you would your email replies by either delegating this task to an assistant who can respond in your place at least or use a service such as Front Office Staff or whatever to answer your phones and place an auto reply on your email (which most of you probably do). But the phone thing is crucial. I've only delegated checking my messages one time and thought I'd have time to check them myself during this trip but there was so much going on and I didn't want to take myself out of the 'action' so to speak to check in. (Don't be the type of person you see at a conference who goes out to the hallway during all breaks checking their messages and calling clients when you should spend your time 'in the moment' soaking in all the resources, information and making as many contacts as you can while you're there!)
• Explain thoroughly what needs to be done, giving specific examples, instances and giving clear instructions on when and how to contact you. For example, if you're not checking email and one of your assistants is checking your email (or even if they're not), make sure any other assistants or vendors know that if they need to reach you email will NOT work during that time, they will need to pick up the phone. Another example: I've now trained one of my assistants to do such a good job at being the gatekeeper and handling things while I'm gone that I actually missed out on a connection while I was in Chicago because my assistant didn't want to bother me until she knew for sure it was going to be ok....not good. However it's ok, all is good; and everything happens for a reason but that doesn't mean we can't learn from it.
• Know that you are in integrity with yourself if something does go wrong; it's not always in your hands and most of the time you can make up for it if you get a little creative. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't delegate - you still need to delegate in order to really become and live and run your business like the CEO; you just have to let things fall where they may and let it go....

I hope you find this helpful in knowing I don't always get things perfect either - ;0)

-- Kat Out

P.S. Don't forget - so if you did receive one of these Halloween mailers - watch your mailbox late November for another SPECIAL SURPRISE (and I promise I won't make you pay any postage!).