The other day, I was at a friend’s house making pie. Well, actually, the husband was making pie and I was drinking wine. The Pie Guy makes good pies, so, as with most people who cook well, the idea of making a business of it came up.

“Can I make money making pies?” The Pie Guy asked.

“Do you want to make pies for a living? Do you love making pies that much? Enough to live the day-to-day, slim-profit slog that is a baking business?” I asked.

“I would if I could make money at it. Can I make a lot of money?”

"But I need to know how much you want to make pie in order to answer that question."

"As much as the amount of money I could make."

“Do you want me to answer your question, or do you want me to be excited and supportive about your pie-making idea, Pie Guy?”

I find that this is a very important question to ask most people who ask me what I think about their business. Because, well, I have a tendency to bluntly tell people what I think. And I have found, over time, that people don’t really want to know what I think, even though they ask.

People say they do. The chef who invites me in just after opening and wants my "honest feedback."  The restauratuer who calls after getting a mediocre review and wants some advice on "what to do."

I answer them, but mostly I find that people want me to tell them that they are brilliant. I have determined this because I have been fired and de-friended by people to whom I told the truth. 

And becuase I find that a lot of people seem to follow positive feedback with the idea that because I told them they are brilliant, they then magically are. They think this because it is the easiest way to resolve the situation they are in that led to them needing to ask me about what I think. Don’t solve the problem; just have someone tell you it doesn’t exist! Easy Peasy, right?

This sounds ridiculous. Actually, it is. But it is pretty much a situation many publicists find themselves in more often than they'd care to think without a long-term Xanax perscription. Because to most clients, publicists are some sort of extension of the media. So, to most clients, if the publicist can be convinced that the idea is brilliant, well, that means the media thinks so too, right?

And if that sounds ridiculous and you are a client, you now know how ridiculous you sound.

Many publicists, because they aren’t actually in charge of the bottom line (so losing a client always means an ass-whooping at the office), will find a way to make the client think they are, in fact, brilliant. Now, read that again — because I didn’t actually say they’d lie; I said they would make them think it. Publicists are generally very good at making that kind of distinction. Oh yeah, because that is their job.

I’ve never been able to do that, partly because I have always been in charge of the bottom line, but mostly because I know the future of pain I will live if I let a client gloss over a problem by simply hearing from me that they are brilliant. Instead, I generally tell clients what I think. And sometimes it ends up bad for my bottom line because occasionally, when I tell someone what I think, they decide they don’t like me and fire me.

Always, when that happens, I am happy.

Clients who ask publicists what they think when they don’t really want to know the answer are the worst clients to have, because those are the ones that end up trashing your reputation with their wackadoo ways.

They’ll ignore you when you tell them not to lie to the media about what day they are opening and then the media get pissed because you, the publicist, ended up telling them that lie (even if you didn’t know it was a lie).

They’ll argue that you’re wrong when the mediocre review comes out and you, the publicist, suggest that maybe the reviewer has a point that should be considered.

They’ll tell their friends you can’t do your job right when they don’t make the Hot List because, well, they botched their opening because they were impulsive and over-excited, ignored your suggestion that their concept was off-concept then strayed from the one you cobbled together in the hopes of developing something that at least made sense, and disregarded your many emails requesting a meeting so you, the publicist, could maybe get them on track and make them, well, Hot.

All of those scenarios end up in a frustrating waste of time. And basically just doing a frustrating waste of time all day, every day, is no way to make a living.

So, if you ask me what I think, know that you will get my honest and direct answer. It may not be right; I am certainly not the keeper of all the right ideas in the world. But it will be what I think.

But to the Pie Guy, I said, well, no, you won’t make money and really, unless you have some sort of crazy insane passion for making pies, you probably aren’t going to 1) do well or 2) even enjoy it.

And that tees up tomorrow’s post.