One of my favorite phrases is “If I’m not making any mistakes, it means I’m not working hard enough.”

The reality is that communicators, managers and all workers are under incredible pressures today. The speed to market, rapid communication through blogs and twitter, and management’s expectations to meet the numbers means we are all working at the speed of light. And the fact is…. we’re going to make mistakes. I’ve made ’em before and I’ll make ’em again.

I got an email from Silverpop yesterday that opened with “Hello %%FIRST NAME%%,”. As a corporate communications and email marketing guy, I know what happened. And I kinda chuckled — been there, done that.

So this morning I had another smile as I got a follow-up email from Silverpop titled “Dear First Name”.

Brilliant!  Not only was this an opportunity to have another contact with me, but they redeemed themselves by owning up to the mistake.  It made me smile, dig through my deleted items folder and look at the email again.

So what’s the lesson learned?  Own up to your mistakes!!!

We all make them.  But when you “man up” and do the right thing and treat your audiences with respect, they’ll realize you made an honest mistake and will probably cut you some slack.

I hope everyone remembers that next time I mess up. 🙂