“Community Columnist” Michael Schrader

(About ignoring citizens)

Written 19 October 2016

When I had my consulting firm in Texas back in the early part of the century, I would spend one day a week making cold calls to generate new business. I would pick a direction, leave my house in the morning, and stop at every engineering office, city hall, county courthouse, and attorney I passed along the way until the evening. On a typical cold call day, I would make thirty or so cold calls, typically lasting no more than five minutes. I found cold calling to be quite effective, as the majority of my clients were the result of these weekly cold calls.

I mention this in response to a certain city official’s written response to one of my recent columns. Before I go any further, let me say that I am delighted you read my column; a columnist’s worst fear is that no one is reading. But I digress. The feedback I got from clients that I cold called is that the reason they decided to do business with me is because I cold called, as the personal interaction, as short as it was, stood out. In the era of mobile phones and email, it was refreshingly different to see someone put in an effort to actually go door-to-door to network and be willing to engage in conversations with total strangers, knowing that the chance of success is slim.

If you have never cold called, let me tell you – it is hard. It is hard walking around in a small Texas town dressed in a nice suit on a hot summer day without attracting the attention of the locals who stare at you with suspicious eyes. It is hard when you know that the person you want to speak with is in the office but is just too darned busy to spare just five minutes to meet you and hear your pitch. Five minutes was all that I required, and yet many could not spare five measly minutes. Think about how many five minute periods in the day wasted doing nothing, and yet spare five lousy minutes could not be spared to talk to someone. Some days would be great and I would get twenty-five or so hits, making the time and money spent worth it. Other days, I might be lucky to get five. Often, I would hear about how I had to make an appointment, but given that at the end of the day I would often be more than one hundred miles from home, appointments were useless, as it might be a few months, if ever, that I would pass that way again.

I bring this up as part of my response to that certain city official’s written response. This official pointed out that after a thorough check of the city’s email, telephone, and appointment logs, I was not to be found, so thus and therefore we never met. But did we? Suppose, just suppose, it was a cold call. Suppose, just suppose, your first week on the job I shook your hand, introduced myself to you, and welcomed you to Port Huron, as a citizen eager to welcome the new management to the city with expectations of bigger and better things. Your hiring caused some controversy due to your youth and inexperience, and as someone who had been in a similar situation twenty years ago, I thought it would be a nice gesture to show that not everyone was opposed to your hiring; just because one is young does not mean one is stupid. What did I get? A glance at a watch and nothing; you were just too busy to talk to a citizen for even a minute.

I only speak for myself, but my time is valuable. I do not have the fifteen minutes to waste to make an appointment for a five minute conversation, and between jobs, family, school, and, oh yeah, life, I frankly do not know when I will have time for an appointment. You want to know why people are angry and hate the government? This aloofness is a big reason why.

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