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Unclean! Unclean! Or is that Drive Clean?

It only takes one bad apple to spoil the barrel. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. From tiny acorns grown mighty oaks. For every situation there is some quote that seems to support it...

It doesn't seem that a day goes by without someone writing something bad about the automotive industry. I just don't get it. Do we have some kind of sticker on our proverbial back that says "kick me" ?

This month as I was completing my writing, I was given an article from a newspaper all about how a few unscrupulous people (here in Ontario, Canada) who had been 'scamming' the Drive Clean system by selling 'fake pass' certificates.

--- If It Bleeds, It Leads!

I could almost hear the groans of all the honest, hard working facilities that carefully and professionally implement the governments Drive Clean tests. But no, the newspaper had focused on a handful of rotten apples and not only did they do that, they spent pages and pages going over, and over these incidents.

In any system there will always be a small percentage of people who find ways to abuse the order of things. We all know that "if it bleeds, it leads" on the news, but constantly picking on an entire group of people because of a few others is simply unfair.

--- Poor Sportsmanship

Sure, those that break the rules should be punished – no contest there. But to lump them all together and 'suggest' and insinuate using some rather questionable English language skills, as to the real severity of the problem, is just poor sportsmanship.

--- The Up Side?

Let's take a positive look at this for a moment, the expose article claimed to have analyzed over 12,000,000 (yes that's million) Drive Clean records which covered a period of a few years. And with all that energy, power and resources directed towards that special task they uncovered how many alleged 'offenders'?

--- A One-In-A-Million Long Shot

They reported somewhere in the order of a dozen incidents - maybe a few more. If you focused a few pages of 'prime time ink' on that number of issues, sure it looks like a lot, but lets keep this is perspective for a moment. That's roughly one incident for every 1 Million tests, in other words we are talking about a "one in a million" long shot. One in a million - those are slim odds in anyone's book.

--- A Brighter Future

So what are 'we' supposed to do about this kind of negative press? Well you could always do nothing, after all the late great P.T Barnum believed that any publicity was good publicity because of something they eventually called the Barnum effect.

It goes a little like this:

A negative incident happens. The press has a field day and quite possibly the impact on your business is negative and sales may drop. The good news is that 'this too shall pass' and this negativity is temporary because people forget. Over time people will recall less of what you did and only remember you – and the really good news is that they often forget the details too.

So as weird as it may seem, all this recent 'bad press' surrounding the Drive Clean will eventually help you - just so long as the negative press stops long enough for people to start forgetting.

--- Drive Clean

And for those of you who think a response is in order, well why not figure out a way to work this 'event' into your client mailings. Discuss the subject with your clients – include it in your newsletters.

Remember, those facilities that openly share information are seen as trust worthy – not the kind of people who would 'clean pipe' a test or sell a fake pass.

Author: http://www.JamesBurchill.com - James is a freelance writer and consultant

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