So, at a social media breakfast on Friday I made a special offer to attendees: if they bought a physical pass to my upcoming Agents of Change Digital Marketing Conference I would throw in a digital pass as well (virtual access to all the sessions both as a live stream and also the ability to watch the sessions after the conference for up to a year.)

Apparently I set up the discount wrong in EventBrite and the discount worked on all the physical passes, not just the bundled tickets. 

Long story short, people could buy the tickets for $25 less than the early bird! I have to pay for the hall rental, food & drinks, parking, etc., etc.

Six tickets were sold before I realized what happened. Two went to individuals, but another web designer in town bought 4 tickets for her team!

So, do I chalk it up to a mistake by me, or do I explain the situation to her and politely ask if I can invoice her for the additional $100 and upgrade her to the bundled package…the one I had promoted at the breakfast?

That is a tough one. Ethically, I think you’re absolutely fine asking for the extra registration fees.

At the same time, I think you run a very real risk of angering your customers over a fairly small amount of money. Your customers think they’ve paid their fess, and I suspect they would be upset if you asked them for additional payment now.

I feel for you – I have made mistakes like that in the past, and I chalk up the lost funds to ‘customer relations’.

you made the mistake, you swallow the cost. That might be mean to say but it’s not like you gave too much change back. You posted a price and people bought what you offered.

@rich-brooks   ditto with mac……. i would never ask….you  advertized it….just  think   how  bad you   would look to the  buyers…. …

.we have  been there too …..its  always  kind of  sickening……… 

While you’re at it, I would do a write up of this story, optimize it, and wheel it out to as many venues as possible, with the main goal to attract as many viewers/readers/hits on your site as possible. THAT way you’ll end up making more money from the faux pas as you would have had you been paid the correct amount.

Just make sure you use video and post it (always ups the SERPS and gives double exposure on Page One, if optimized)… and choose a title that asks a relevant question that gets lots of searches with low competition.

That way you can turn your misfortune into a ratings hit. I would do this as soon as possible… to attract MORE buyers to your seminars, if possible.

Cool, eh?

Robin Carlisle

Thanks, everyone! (I was afraid of that.) ;P

yep, everyone has already said what you thought was the path to take… Been listening to Seth Godin’s Linchpin book and generosity is what it’s all about! You were just unintentionally generous!, you LInchpin, you! :)  @rich-brooks

@eddysleiman

Frankly, just as Rich did here, I like to be the first one to point out my mistakes… then teach others how I made sweet southern lemonade out of any lemons thrown my way.

In fact, when I had a writing classroom of my own, I always had a special bulletin board to post scads of famous mistakes and failures… (notorious loser Abe Lincoln — who lost every previous election, declared bankruptcy, etc. being my favorite)… with the point being… everyone has 99 failures to check off their List of Learning on the way to each grand success!

The flip side? Well… that can be reeeeeeeeeally bad! The first and every time you try to hide a failure, a mistake, a screwup… well… we ALL know what happens in the end. Better to put the happy spin on it yourself than wait till it’s posted, pinned, spun, mashed, and smashed all over the online social scene.

Nah… I’d rather take those sour lemons and make Sweet Lemonade, fer sher!

I weigh in like the others – you have to pay (literally) for your error.

Could have been worse!

thats howi would  look at it   too @prestonodenbrett if you   make a big  deal of it  others might want it too…..  i  would  probably not  emphasize it at all….and  just  explain if  someone  notices…….