"If you're human you make mistakes"

Our company made its biggest mistake in its 7 year history...we didn't turn up at a client to run their training workshop.
I called the client who, when she found out we weren't turning said "Are you aware , we have 29 lawyers waiting for you?"
What do you do? What do you say?
I could have come up with lots of lies, damn lies and half-lies but you know what? I told the truth and said we had got it wrong.
"You mean no-one is coming?" she said.
All I could do is apologise, say I will compensate her and talk tomorrow when emotions have settled down.
What are we going to do?
NO BLAME even though some mis-communication has gone wrong. We need to ensure we put it right with the client and find out why our so called robust sytem broke down.
More to follow.
What would you have done?

"It's my birthday every day. When's yours?" But.....

I love the work I do and tell people the above. But yesterday the question was posed 'How free are you?' Are you tied to your work? As a self-employed person how many hours a day do you work? I do lots of work related things all the time and love every ( well nearly every) minute of it. Am I free or a slave to my business?
Does it really matter? All I can say is listen to the words of Confucius..
"Give a person a job they love and they'll never have to work a day in their life"

"The boom is over, we're in recession..less business

You can do one of 2 things. Accept it and keep relying on referrals and introductions or you can go out and make things happen.
Up your marketing and networking activities and forget about the doom and gloomers.

Join more networking clubs , get up earlier and ensure you increase your share of, what could well be, a smaller pie over the next year or so