Introducing the Fuck-Up Format

Speaker 1 0:00

so, chris, slightly different format this week. We've we've had no guests, but it seems a shame not to talk about fuck-ups and I don't believe you've actually shared your um fuck-up of your career so far, have you? So do you want to tell us a bit about that? Yeah, I mean, it was when I first met you actually, and I invited to to work together. I think that's the biggest fuck-up of my personal career. No, honestly, and it's a pleasure to work with you, as you know, my friend.

The Alcohol Brand Project

Speaker 1 0:24

Um, no, my biggest bug up has got to be um, yeah, I've worked in pr since I was well, I went to, I went to university, did public relations and then I got I'd got a job in london. I went to work for an international vr agency in london. Uh, did four or five years down there, worked in healthcare pr, came up to the north and got an account manager job in Leeds, which is where Prohibition's based, north of the UK. Bit cocky account manager, been travelling for a couple of months, was ready to take on my new job with my new Thailand Tam and, yeah, and I got the new job and it was a network agency the shell one in the list, but if you went on my LinkedIn profile, you'd be able to narrow it down. Uh and um, yeah, they were a networked agency. So I was in the leeds office and there was like seven or eight of us in the office and, um, there was a network. It was a network agency. So we had a leeds, london, edinburgh, um, manchester, glasgow, all over the uk basically and we had an account and it was for a alcohol brand and they were launching a new bar in the north east and, um, I was really excited about this. It was a great consumer brand, brilliant, I'll, I can do some, I can get stuck in here.

The Disastrous Press Release

Speaker 1 1:33

And and I had to write a story, um, based on a brief that I'd taken from the london office. And they said can you? Um write this release about this new bar that's opening, it's a new bar for our chain, the chain bar, and can you do it? I said okay. So I wrote the story, put all my effort into it, sent it down to the office for approval and about a couple of hours later, I get an email back from the account director in London this is great, good to go, brilliant, so enthusiastic, 25-year-old Chris. Thanks, ryan, I'm going to smash this. This is the first project that I could do and show these guys how good I am at media relations. So I start sending it out and get the couple of execs I'm working with and we're on the phones all day the next couple of days send it out everywhere. It's gone everywhere, like literally everywhere.

Speaker 1 2:22

Anyway, this was on Wednesday, on Friday lunch, everywhere. Um, anyway, at least it was on like wednesday, on friday lunchtime. I got email into the inbound into my outlook and it said uh, hi guys, just to let you know. Um, don't send that across to the client for approval. Um, there's a bit of a technical issue. So I was like client approval, is the email good? To go? Go doesn't mean to go out.

Weekend News and Aftermath

Speaker 1 2:46

Then, and it turned out that I hadn't been briefed properly. But it was my fuck up. So I did the only what I can do as being an honest, brave individual I stuck my head in the sand, hoped it all blew over, and so I went to my in-laws for the weekend with my wife my now wife at this time it was my girlfriend was sat in their house and on the 10 o'clock news this story is at this bar opening and there was a big hoo-ha because the locals were not happy about the rebranded name for the bar. It was a the fear of saying that. I literally thought in my first weekend I've done such a good job I was going to get fired. So to everybody out there I apologise for sending a release out too early. I was just keen to get going, but luckily I survived and I'm here to do this podcast with you today.