Houston, we have a problem!
It seems my chicken saga will run and run.
At the end of the last episode, I found my neighbour in the field behind our house, emerging from the brambles and bushes around the edge with a chicken in her arms having spent 20 mins pursuing it.
Off she went to take it home and I thought that was the end of that.
I was wrong.
A couple of days later, my neighbour called at my house to update me on the saga.
She‘d returned the hen to its enclosure and thought nothing further about it.
But, a while later her husband went up to settle the hens for the night and met a hen wandering around in the garden. So, he let her in the gate and went to check on their food and water. Looking around he realised something was wrong.
He counted the chickens 4 times and, after coming to the same number each time, he went back down to the house and asked his wife:
“How many hens do we have?”
“8”, she replied.
“Oh, we have a problem. We have 9!”
It turned out that the hen she had pursued through the undergrowth was not theirs.
It belonged to another neighbour and had been missing for 3 weeks. Our neighbour had assumed it was hers as she had one that was always escaping.
Luckily, the result of this assumption had a happy ending. Hen returned safely to its rightful owner, and all was well with the chickens.
But making an assumption in your business, and in particular, in your marketing and advertising could have a very different outcome.
Don’t assume anything.
Whether that’s a data list purchased from a reputable broker is compliant for an outbound email campaign without doing due diligence, or the terms and conditions for your product promotion are fine without getting them legally reviewed. This is a dangerous proposition and could lead to an embarrassing and costly encounter with a regulator.
Get expert help to ensure your marketing is legal and provides the right impression to your customer and prospects.