The major red flag for me in this article was the line "He couldn’t really answer the questions, but I agreed to run a small trial. Based on our results, that marketing consultant is no longer with us." It really colored the rest of the article for me - making me incredibly skeptical of the manager and his instinct, opinions and judgement.
That's interesting. Here's an article by someone you don't know and, within the first paragraph, you are "incredibly skeptical". I think most people's normal reaction would be to give the guy the benefit of the doubt - after all, it's the first paragraph and that person knows a lot more details about their business than the first paragraph will give away. I think most of us would read that line in the beginning, file it away for verification/thinking as we read the article, then revisit that after we've been presented much more of the article. For you to color your view so easily and quickly is interesting - it's almost akin to someone walking around "looking for a fight".
That's interesting. Here's an article by someone you don't know and, within the first paragraph, you are "incredibly skeptical". I think most people's normal reaction would be to give the guy the benefit of the doubt - after all, it's the first paragraph and that person knows a lot more details about their business than the first paragraph will give away. I think most of us would read that line in the beginning, file it away for verification/thinking as we read the article, then revisit that after we've been presented much more of the article. For you to color your view so easily and quickly is interesting - it's almost akin to someone walking around "looking for a fight".