It doesn't take much....

It's great to know where you stand.

Recently I've been pitching for work; fielding opportunities to other people and also waiting for the results of a tendering process on one of my magazines that was bound to have implications for me. In the first and third cases, the biggest frustration has been the lack of communication from the parties involved.

When someone contacts me, to ask if I need any support or have any jobs going or whatever, I always try and answer them - even if it's just to say 'no thanks' or 'not at the moment'. It's just polite - and I know how frustrating it is to be on the other end waiting for a response.

I'll draw the line at non-solicited and irrelevant emails or sales calls, but if it's someone in and around my field - another writer or a photographer, I'll always try and respond. I'm sure I don't always do it - sometimes the pressure of the task in hand overtakes the moment, but the will and intent is there.

It doesn't always seem to be reciprocated though. I pitched for a day's training, with some follow-up workshops recently - I know I didn't get it, because that initial day was yesterday! Initially, the guy I pitched costs and ideas to seemed interested, but he never go back to me after our first email exchanges. Had he not followed up my initial response to the invitation to tender, I wouldn't have minded, but he did - and the failure to complete the loop is just bad manners.

Yesterday, through my own prodding, I found out that it looks like I've lost the feature writing for a magazine I've written for the last two years. It wasn't entirely unexpected - I knew the design and production of the publication had been retendered and there was always a good chance that whichever agency took it on would have their own writers.

Yet the client was keen to keep me on board and had asked the new agency to talk to me. What really sticks in my throat is that the agency had gone back to the client saying they had talked to me. They haven't. Do I now even want to work with an agency that lies to its clients right at the start of the relationship?

It looks like I'll be working for the client on another project anyway, so all's not lost - but I'm saddened by the way things have turned out.

Honesty for me is the necessity of building business relationships. I still have a good relationship with that client because we talk openly and honestly, and they have kept me up to date as the tendering process has progressed. I understand that it makes best business sense for them to have one company producing their publications, and have no problem with that.

I also appreciated a note from the client yesterday which said:

Seriously, I would hope they could find some way of using you but I suspect it will be little. I'm sorry for that and you do know it has zero to do with your quality of work. You helped us create a great magazine

I'll always try and keep an open approach - even if it's just taking the few seconds to type a couple of line email and hit the send button. It's not that hard, is it?

La mere, la mere

I know when I need a holiday: it's when I start waking up in the night with work on my mind. And it has been happening all week - generally, I've been able to turn over and go straight back to sleep, but on Monday night I just couldn't drift off again. i ended up answering a few emails and editing 34 pages of tender document that a client was about to send out to suppliers.......Funny enough, 34 pages of small print did the trick.

It's great to be really busy but I'm looking forward to hitting the beach in France in not too many days.

While I'm currently enjoying the mix of a change project, writing content for a consultant's new website, a job editing a benefits web package, writing profiles for a careers web site, writing the next issue of my law firm mag and editing a new bartender guide, I'm equally looking forward to putting them all to one side for a fortnight. I'm determined not to be logging on to my laptop all holiday to see how things are progressing without me - I know they'll all do perfectly well without me, and I need to clear my mind.

I won't be clearing it entirely though. if you want something done, ask a busy man, and I'm now in the process of putting a book proposal together covering a small but significant period on one of Britain's historic houses. The National Trust are very interested and we've got a meeting set for early September. But if that comes off, it'll be a labour of love and won't feel like work at all.

Anyway, I'm not in France yet, so it's back to editing benefits.