We do this thing with Affiliate Summit that really upsets some people – when we set deadlines and rules, we abide by them.
The majority of people we come in contact with behave with grace and dignity when they realize they have missed a deadline or a policy is not ideal for them.
But then there are others that lash out, and sometimes even make threats.
Recently, we gave away 60 networking passes to Affiliate Summit East 2014 through a contest. In our contests, we always state that the passes are not transferable.
One winner was not pleased. He said he is not available to attend the conference, and he’d like to give it to somebody else.
When we stated our policy is that the pass could not be transferred, he said he’d post about his awful experience with us on social media.
This did not persuade us to bend the rules for him.
Another character failed to purchase his pass by the end of the early bird period.
We explained that we were sticking by our deadline, which had been announced months in advance, and we had posted reminders about it on our blog, newsletter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
Anyhow, our unwillingness to make an exception for him resulted in him stating in email that he would just sneak into the conference.
For anybody who is not aware, that is considered criminal trespass – another rule we take seriously.
Are we the crazy outliers for believing that selectively enforcing rules is bad?
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