By: Shari Dalton
If any of you spend time on social media, namely Twitter, you’ve seen or heard the notorious war of words between some of the country’s largest fast food chains. They are hilarious!
I about fell out of my chair when I saw a recent Burger King post, but not because of its humorous anecdotes about the competition’s meal deals. This one really threw me for a loop. You see, in Argentina, for one day a year, McDonald’s donates proceeds from every Big Mac sold to help children with cancer. The folks over at Burger King loved this idea so much that they dubbed the day, “A Day Without Whopper” and would not sell a Whopper to its customers that entire day. They encouraged their customers looking for a quick juicy burger to head on over to the competitors to help support a great cause.
Fall-out-of your-chair-worthy, right? I Googled forever trying to figure out if this story was legit. I mean really, you’re going to tell your customers to go to a competitor? What the actual?
This really got me thinking. Early on in my career, pre-VMS days, I recalled times when I would work with candidates who needed to be in a certain area where I knew I couldn’t find them work. And, I had friends who worked at competitors, so I’d make a few calls to see if they could help out. We had the right mentality – the right end-game in mind – to serve the customer, even if it meant passing them off to the competition. I’ve seen it on a few Facebook groups recently, as well: “Trying to help ‘x’ nurse and coming up empty-handed. Can anyone help?” It gives me all the feels.
I get that we are in an ultra-competitive industry, but there are A LOT of companies out there doing some extraordinary things. And not just for their travelers, but for their communities. This should be celebrated!
I challenge each of you, the next time you see a competitor doing something cool, give them a shout out (publicly or privately) and appreciate that we are all in this together. When one recruiter or agency looks good to a traveler or hospital, we all look good! Our job is hard enough without trying to tear one another down. We are better together!
