There are people in our community - and in any community - who seem to be offended by the slightest thing. I try to avoid being one of those people. The things that annoy me aren’t so much the outright attempts to offend me - it’s the things that people say that make me want to ask “really? Did you really think about that first?”

Such a thing happened to me this very morning. I attended a large business networking meeting sponsored by our metropoiltan chamber of commerce. The group was ably facilitated by a straight woman who specializes in business coaching and courses for small enterprises. Near the end of the event, she made an announcement about her upcoming seminar on permission-based sales techniques. The title of her course: “Ask. Don’t Tell.”

I am an advocate of permission-based selling and I would have a hard time coming up with a more clever title for a course on it. The problem? It’s a playful take on one of the more offensive and discriminatory policies ever enacted by our government: the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” code that requires gay and lesbian soldiers to basically “”play straight” while serving in the armed forces in any capacity.

What if I playfully entitled my course on how to qualify sales leads “Apartheid Sales Techniques” or “Applying Jim Crow To Your Business Networking?” At least those examples are historical policies. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is very much alive and in effect - and, well, quite offensive to a huge community of people.

I know that the woman who invented the name of her course means no harm (I can just tell those sorts of things. Don’t question it, k?) I would think, however, that a person who coaches people on how to market their businesses would put a little more thought into her course titles.

It may be a cute title, but it kinda annoys me.

What do you think? Does it bother you? Can you think of any other examples of ill-named courses?

Post Topics: Gay Business Portland, Lesbian Business Portland Oregon, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell

Comments RSS