Has a CFD Experience Cost You Business?

November 28, 2011 by Liz Leave a Comment

In 2007, I proposed an adventure on my blog. I invited bloggers to submit five bits of information that would promote their blogs:

the name of the blog
the blog url
the tagline
what makes the blog worth visiting
one bit of advice for new bloggers

and I gave them 2 days to submit the information, clearly stating that the deadline was Friday noon Central and pointing out the clock in the sidebar of my blog.

How hard could it be to gather and email me those five bits of information?

Yet …
82% of the entries came in with information missing.

Which led Small Biz Survival Owner, Becky McCray, and I to describe a new syndrome — CFD: Can’t Follow Directions.

Is CFD Hurting Your Business?

In the case of that blog promotion, perhaps no one was hurt by the fact that if enough information was missing, I didn’t bother to hunt down the sender. That the entry wasn’t included might not have made a difference to their potential blog traffic. We’ll never know.

But I can tell you that it happens regularly that when I’m looking for help on a paying project, the presence of CFD makes a huge difference. Let me explain why …

CFD means that I can’t trust the work. I’m telling you what I need and how I need it delivered, if the business can’t follow directions, then I’m going to get back something other than I requested.
CFD means that things will take more time. When I have to repeat what I need, that second iteration means it takes twice as long to get the work done.
CFD means more cost. Guidelines and directions are meant to make the work easier, faster, and less costly. Whether something was missed because it wasn’t read or because it wasn’t understood, it adds up to corrections or adjustments. Corrections and adjustments cost time and money.
CFD means missed opportunities. What I might have been doing with the time it took to do things over is a huge hidden impact of CFD.

So I’m hugely biased toward people who listen, read directions, and ask questions if they don’t understand for certain what we’re trying to do together. They get my loyalty and my repeat business.

I run from people who show signs of CFD.
CFD not only hurts your business, but it hurts mine too.