Well, I guess you can’t win them all, can you? After 247.6 hours waiting – excluding weekends, public holidays and some time off to nurse a broken body clock – I learned yesterday that a highly anticipated trophy account would not be seen on my mantle after all.
As is my practice, I spoke to the client to understand where we disconnected. I won’t go into all of the details – the loss of this opportunity is altogether too depressing – but one of the areas of concern to them was the supporting data I provided in the business plan, under the heading of “Executive Salaries and Compensation.” I should mention that the client was emphatic during the intake calls that they wanted to pay the “going rate and some” to attract a top HR thought-leader-come-rain-maker who would not only would bring “gravitas” to the position, but would also put a capital “C” in human capital.
To cut a long story short, the client looked at the copy of Human Resource Executive’s ranking The HR Elite – a shortlist of potential hires I thought, along with the salary indicators – and decided, rather than put the capital “C” in human capital, they would instead put a lower case “f” in Fortune 500.
As I said, you can’t win them all.
That hurts. Keep fighting the good fight. Eric
Can’t always bag the white elephant. That is why it pays to have a whole lot of help when you go on Safari, oh, and a good looking woman to take your mind off missed shots. ;0)
Keep on keepin on Ami - they will be back when it all goes Pete Tong!