Industry Insights: How To Avoid The Deadline Domino Effect

Happy Saturday!

We’ve all had those days where we are waiting all day on a service appointment or a delivery and they don’t show up, or show up well outside the planned delivery window. We’ve also all had those days that we show up for a scheduled call or meeting and the person doesn’t answer the phone — or is an hour late for the the meeting. Or those days when we’re expecting a time-sensitive email or file or package at a specific time and it just isn’t there….

And while these can exist in many capacities, this happening in my universe in various respects this week inspired me to discuss the importance of meeting deadlines.

We all have them.

Writers have them, editors have them, publicists have them, your clients have them. Along that chain, anyone missing a deadline can ultimately have a sort of domino effect to everyone else's deadlines.

Much like with dominos -- then cause everything to pile down. (We see that every time we go to a doctor's office, right? Or an airport. As soon as the schedule is a little behind, everything behind it just piles on and becomes more backed up as the day goes on.)

Years ago, I remember I was working with a publicist I was semi-friendly with on getting interview questions answered by her dermatologist client for a  time-sensitive story I was doing for a major women's outlet. It was the sort of story where I got the assignment in the afternoon and had to turn around the story by the next AM (which, I know, is not THAT time sensitive being I have hour-turnaround food news stories most mornings, but due to the subject matter and time of day, it was). 

Anyway, the publicist committed that her client absolutely positively could participate and answer those questions by the deadline I gave her -- EOD, so I could write that story that night and publish in the morning. By midnight, I had never heard from her. So, I reached out and asked if all was OK. 

"Oh, I forgot to tell you. She couldn't do it."

I ended up having to scramble -- AT MIDNIGHT -- to find someone who could turn around questions at that hour, so I could still meet my deadline and publish in the morning. (I actually did, I turned to a west coast contact, where it was 9 pm there - still late, but not ungodly late) - and met my deadline. Crisis averted.

I'm not telling this story to shame that publicist for flaking, because obviously I've moved on and have actually used her clients in a bunch of stories since (though obviously nothing time sensitive!), but to make this a helpful teaching moment and offer this guidance.