Tell us your new business horror story

We all have one.  That painful, horrifying moment when you were trying to sound/look your best in front of a potential new client and instead POW! fate smacked you right in the kisser with a faux pas that will haunt you for the rest of your days.

Come on…tell us all about it.  It will feel good to get it out.

Me first?  Fair enough.

Several years ago, a McLellan Marketing Group colleague and I were in an initial meeting with the CMO of a nursing home system.  We’d done some research and one of the facts we’d gleaned about this potential client is that they were known for taking care of the most severely affected Alzheimer’s patients. 

What made their work even more remarkable and reassuring to the families of their patients was that they very rarely sedated the residents.  They were just that skilled in dealing with the behaviors and health issues of these residents.

So I am trying to demonstrate how smart we are and that we’ve really done our homework.  So I say to the CMO (a woman in her 50’s who wasn’t so sure about us already)  "one of the things that really impressed us about your facilities is the fact that you don’t sedate your patients."

Unfortunately — that was what I meant to say.  But somehow, for some twisted and unknown reason, my mouth decided instead to say…"one of the things that really impressed us about your facilities is the fact that you don’t seduce your patients." 

To this day, I have no idea why that came out of my mouth.  But to make matters worse, I could not locate the word sedate in my brain. Instead, I stammered and stuttered until finally, what seemed like 20 minutes later, my brain synapes finally fired up, I corrected myself and limped through the rest of the conversation.

Needless to say, we did not get the business.  My team, however, got a funny story that they love to pull out at company parties, and other  public venues.

Okay, I’ve shown you mine…your turn!