Suze Orman Teaches You How NOT To Handle Criticism

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In case you don’t follow business or personal finance news, financial “guru” Suze Orman recently announced the launch of her new prepaid debit card.

This article has nothing to do with the card itself.

No, instead, this is about how Ms. Orman reacted to criticism directed her way regarding this new product, and how she may have done some serious damage to her brand in doing so.

If you’re not careful, you can destroy a reputation in much less time than you can build one.

The issue stemmed from the large number of tweets criticizing the claims made about her new Approved PrePaid Debit Card.

The card was purported to help those who live a cash-only lifestyle build their credit profiles, which the credit bureaus themselves dispute since no debit card transactions are reported or collected.

The new card would supposedly help build credit by working with the credit-reporting agency TransUnion in creating a new reporting system.

That in itself drew the ire of many bloggers since debit transactions can only be an indication of spending habits, and not an ability to repay debts.

The second issue many bloggers took issue with was the fees associated with the card.

There is a $3 monthly fee which was one of the biggies here.

Then there were ATM fees, which could be avoided in certain instances, but still apply even to in-network partners.

Add to that, fees for speaking with a customer service representative more than one time a month, and significant fees associated with bill payments, and the bloggers had a field day.

[If you are interested in seeing the history of the tweet war, you can check out The Debt Princess and 20 And Engaged who did a great job documenting it as well as the man who set this whole thing off at PT Money]

Left at that point, the backlash would have been minimized.

That, however, is just where the story begins, and this is where you can learn a lesson on how not to react to criticism!

The Childish Name Calling

The first sign that things were going to get a little hairy was when she started referring to those who were questioning her new product as being idiots, ignorant, haters, saying they think they know everything yet know nothing, and telling a Twitter follower that they should be pitied.

Rather than stooping to such juvenile, name-calling tactics, Ms. Orman would have been better suited to responding with facts and real-world data supporting her claims while disputing the claims of others.

It seemed like this wasn’t even happening, and some even questioned whether or not this was actually Ms. Orman doing the tweeting or someone else doing so on her behalf.

Ignoring The “Little People”

At every turn, the bloggers were being shot down and belittled.

Ms. Orman at one point made a reference to “legit reporters” who are most likely her buddies writing glowing reviews as opposed to the bloggers who are the “haters.

At one point they were even reporting that they were being blocked by her Twitter account operator.

It may seem like the easy way to handle the criticism since many of the people doing the bashing weren’t nationally (and internationally) known personalities.

Unfortunately, when that happens, people tend to find other ways to get their thoughts out to the world, and when it comes to personal financial bloggers, they are able to reach a surprisingly large number of people.

That is when all of the blog posts repeating the Twitter comments, and really dissecting the Approved Card popped up.

Just because individually, the bloggers didn’t measure up (statistically) to Ms. Orman as far as Twitter followers or Facebook fans go, they shouldn’t be dismissed, since when taken as a collective, their reach extends much farther.

Plus, all it takes is one person to catch wind of a small movement on the internet and it can blow up to a phenomenon.

The Backtracking

At one point, famed New York Times author Ron Lieber confronted her on the issue of the insults, to both the bloggers and himself.

To that, Ms. Orman claimed to never insult him.

Of course, he called her bluff and was able to provide a direct insult coming from her Twitter account.

Then came Phil Villarreal to challenge her apology to Mr. Lieber (twice in fact) while ignoring all the others she insulted.

From there it was a bunch of blanket apologies to “anyone I called an idiot” and so on until she was called out for not apologizing to Mr. Phil Taylor (to whom her “idiot” remark was directed) because he wasn’t a writer for the Times (like Mr. Lieber).

Finally, she made a directed apology to Mr. Taylor…

Qualifying Every Comment

Unfortunately the most important of the apologies, directed at Mr. Taylor, was a bit half-hearted and prefaced by her saying “Even you PT…”.

She also stated among her apologies that she has a hard time taking “defending myself against things that are not true”.

This is where so many apologies go wrong.

You cannot be taken as being genuine if you slip in snide remarks that detract from an otherwise stand-up gesture.

Telling someone that even they are deserving of an apology after kissing the ass of a big shot is not cool.

Taking shots at the people you are supposed to be apologizing to by continuing to inject your “but they are still wrong” defense isn’t cool either.

She did earn some credit by admitting to not taking the high road, and taking responsibility for her comments, but it still didn’t make up for the slights she tried to inject into the apologies.

While I do not know Ms. Orman personally, I do know that situation was handled in a completely wrong manner.

Rather than taking offense at each negative comment, she should have taken a proactive approach to the matter.

She should have encouraged the dialogue between herself and her detractors, which would have shown a genuine interest in improving her product.

The way she ended up coming off, was as a little child who insists that their school project is accurate and the best in the world with no one being able to tell her otherwise.

She also could have taken the criticism as what it was: honest opinions from people that were completely independent and who could have provided her with some great insight and possibly some future publicity for her platform.

Unfortunately, like many other celebrities, athletes, and public figures, in the heat of the moment, she made a poor choice of words, which ended up spiraling out of control before anyone had a chance to contain it.

This should be a lesson to anyone who has a business or is on a public stage: be careful of how you react to those who do agree with you, as even the slightest mistake can lead to a firestorm of bad publicity and lost opportunities to improve.

Your Turn

How do you handle criticism? Do you immediately get defensive at any negative word? Do you take a beat and actually process the words? Or…do you simply ignore what others have to say no matter the intent?

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60 Comments

    1. I doubt that her fans will react negatively.  I saw some of them defending her on twitter with nonsensical comments.  Fans by nature are generally weird when it comes to the celebs they like.

  1. It is just crazy that she would sabotage her own success.  Too bad for her.  I used to watch her…. but that was a long time ago.

    1. I used to also.  That, however was basically just for entertainment value of the questions the  callers and writers would submit and for her responses.  Now, I wouldn’t be able to even look at her without thinking of this gaffe.

  2. I have never heard of this women before but she really doesn’t sound the brightest, either financially or in her PR.

    1. She’s a pretty big celebrity in the financial world.  Unfortunately for her, if this is anyone else’s first impression of her, they probably feel the same way as you do.

  3. Wow. Clearly she didn’t handle this very well! I think if you’re launching something like that you have to just follow the old maxim of “the customer is always right”, even if you don’t believe it. Made for great reading, though! Nice article. Twitter wars are always fun. Someone will no doubt bring a book out about it sooner or later.

  4. Living in Sydney, I’ve never heard of her before this big PR debacle. I’ve read her tweets though & have been following the whole thing on other PF blogs. She sounds like a nasty person. I wouldn’t trust her with my $$ that’s for sure!

  5. I did not see the value in this product when it was announced, but figured it’d be suitable for some people.  I do follow Suze’s show, but have never admired her people skills.  I also don’t care for her ventures in to the world of psychological counseling – telling callers their marriage stinks or that they should or shouldn’t marry their fiance, that type of thing.  Her ego is overbloated and she seems to think she’s more than she really is.