Okay, so maybe I’ve made more than one mistake, but this is the story of the first big one in my career.

It was a slap-the-forehead-how-could-I-be-so-stupid moment that taught me a lesson I follow to this day.

The year was 2006. Stephen Harper had just been elected Prime Minister. The iPhone was about a year away. The Canadian dollar had gained about 20 percent against the US dollar. And my employer was launching a luxury hardtop convertible.

I was about six years into my career and felt like I had a good handle on things. I had focused much of my efforts developing media relations and product communications skills to the point I was able to conduct interviews ad-hoc, had memorized reams of product attributes, and was extensively familiar with the competition.

What I didn’t realize then was that a pinch of overconfidence had set in and I began to neglect a key part of my job as a junior-to-mid-level practitioner: keeping up on industry trends.

As the Canadian dollar was appreciating against the US greenback, customers and journalists began to look closer at the products they were buying. Specifically, the retail price. 

A pricing conflict was emerging between Canadian and US consumer goods and it grew increasingly irreconcilable as the value of the two currencies approached parity. Canadians began asking why they were paying more than US customers for what was arguably the same product. The pricing conflict was also especially prevalent in luxury items…

...like convertibles.

At the time of our launch, Canadians were paying 15-30 percent more for vehicles than their US counterparts despite a ~12 percent difference in the two currencies.

Unfortunately for me, I missed this development.

Since I hadn’t been keeping up on trends in the industry, I was caught flat-footed when journalists asked me to justify the Canadian pricing at our press conference.

In the moment, I asked for some time, then pivoted. As soon as I could, I voraciously consumed every article I could find on the subject, updated management, and a response team was assembled. We examined the issue, looked deep at pricing strategies, and developed a comprehensive answer to the topic.

The Canadian dollar continued to appreciate after that launch event, so I ensured I had a whiteboard close by at every subsequent press conference so I could fully articulate our pricing strategy and how the disparity came to be.

Ultimately, the lesson I learned that day was there is always something more to learn. Being a subject matter expert is a discipline, not a designation. I now spend part of every week (sometimes every day) consuming articles, reports, blogs, and videos in the search for common themes. 

I’ve accepted that I don’t need to know everything, but I at least need to be aware of factors that may be impacting the organizations I support.

That means staying humble. Always humble.

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