Kevin Willett explains why it’s best to know the whole story.

I had an interesting experience on Monday morning. I was supposed to meet a guy for coffee at 11am. I tried to confirm the appointment on Friday and received no response. On Monday morning I sent him a message saying that ‘I never heard back from you, so I am guessing we are not meeting today’. Now I have to be honest, I was mad that he couldn’t find two minutes to send me a message. Well a few hours later, I received a reply. He sent me a message saying that he had been admitted to the hospital. Here I was upset that he wouldn’t answer me and the poor guy was ill! That is why I always try to send someone a “friendly” message when they miss an appointment.

Our tendency is to send something sarcastic or angry when we think someone blows us off.  If you send someone an angry message, and something legitimate happened to them, then you look like a bad person. The better approach is to say something like ‘Hi, I think we crossed signals. I thought we were meeting today at 10am. I hope everything is ok. Please give me a call to reschedule.’ In the end, no matter what the reason, it’s best to not yell at someone for missing a meeting. Accepting, remaining polite and moving on makes you a better person and better businessman.

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Kevin Willett is the Author of One Connection How you can grow your business  (and change the world) one connection at a time. The business networking book is available on Amazon. Purchase One Connection on Amazon

Kevin is also the CEO of the Friends of Kevin Networking Group  and the New England B2B Networking Group. Please connect with him on social media to hear about his upcoming business networking events.