Fired.

Last night I had a call with a prospective client. I won't, yet, go into specifics here. But one of the people on the phone was a big deal celebrity whose name will be associated with the product they're asking me to work on.

The big deal celebrity wanted to know how I work.

This is a question every one of the couple of hundreds of clients I've entertained has asked.

I've gotten good at answering it.

Mainly because I spent a good amount of time figuring out how to answer it.

I'm always as blunt as a punch in the nose. 

I like to think, "if Joe Louis could type."

If the prospective client wants circumlocution and bs, we shouldn't be working together. That's not what I do in either my work or in how I deal with people. 

I'm not much good at "the ol' soft shoe." 

I am good at WYSIWYG: What you see is what you get.

So, when a client says to me "How do you work?" my answer is well-rehearsed, and well-thought-out.

I say:

When I was at Ogilvy, many clients would say to me, 'we love working with you. But hate working with Ogilvy.' 

I continue:

When Ogilvy fired me I said to myself, 'how can I make myself easy-to-buy? So I came up with an offerings list that's simple for you and simple for me. I can get you a scope in 20 minutes without wasting my day working on it and wasting your time waiting for it.

I always put an extra fillip on the word "fired."

That word almost always gets a reaction. People, especially in business, don't say 'fired,' because it's too honest. No one admits to being fired. They say things like "when I left Ogilvy." "When I moved on from _____."

We used to say shell-shock. Then battle-fatigue. Now we say post-traumatic stress disorder. 

I say I was fired. 
I was.
Not laid off.
Downsized.
Right-sized.

I was shit-canned.

Sugar-coating is for cereal and Hallmark.

It's off-brand for me.

Last night when I said the word "fired" the big deal celebrity I said it to got nervous. He laughed like he had been caught cheating on a test. I watched his reaction like a good police interrogator would watch a perp. The word "fired" made him sweat.

But I'm glad I didn't namby-pamby about.

Using the word "fired" might cost me the business. By the same token then, it might have saved me a giant celebrity-sized headache.

Because if you don't like plain-speaking, you don't like GeorgeCo.

And you'd probably fire me.