Trust your gut. If it feels uncomfortable to you, there's something 
'off' about the gentleman. Do you think his interest in breastfeeding is 
more an interest in breasts? Or does he seem well meaning but clumsy?

The techniques he's using are not unusual in business, though coming 
without his wife when it's a joint business is odd when he's always 
careful to use her facebook account to contact you. Many interactions 
between people occur on multiple levels, you can always probe for the 
hidden intention if you feel there is something subrosa going on. "So, 
what can I do for you today? What are you hoping to achieve with this 
meeting?" That way you make the obligation he is trying to engender by 
bringing gifts explicit, so you can accept or reject it.

Now that you've had more time to think, you want to explicitly reject 
his bargain. So sending everything back will certainly do that. You 
could tell him that our professional ethics do not allow us to take 
gifts in return for referrals, to safeguard our clients from marketing 
referrals that are not in their best interests. You can explain that 
moms with bf problems are very vulnerable and that you can't burden them 
with marketing materials of any kind. You can then say that the visit 
felt uncomfortable to you and that you would not feel comfortable 
referring moms to him. Be cautious with this approach if you think he 
might have a personality disorder, people with personality disorders can 
become belligerent when rejected.

Good luck!

Catherine Watson Genna BS, IBCLC  NYC  cwgenna.com

On 12/23/2013 12:49 PM, Brandy Hansen wrote:
> I have a question for the group with regard to ethics, businesses, and
> advocacy that I encountered in the last week.
>
> This photographer was a vendor at our annual WBW event last year, and he
> came into my clinic by himself unannounced last week to talk with me about
> 'breastfeeding stuff.'  [History: This guy and his wife own the biz, but he
> has habitually only used her FB page to try to get hold of me (weird) and
> supposedly moved to our state abruptly when their church disagreed with
> them doing BF advocacy--or so the story goes.  I have colleagues who
> blocked him out of their events because they feel he's a bit of a creeper.)
>   SO anyway, he's here without his wife, brings me a dessert from a local
> bakery, a $25 gift certificate to said bakery, then starts asking me about
> advocacy in the area.  The further along we get, the more I feel like he's
> trying to worm into my personal information and make pitches about his bu
> gives me some of his photography brochures, asking me about my due date, if
> I'm getting maternity pictures taken.  I had to make him leave because I
> had a client (and he wasn't taking the hint that I was leaving--he would
> have waited until I came back if I hadn't said I would talk with him some
> other time outside of work) and took the 'gifts' back to my desk just so I
> could get the heck out of there.  To make is short, the whole visit struck
> me as a ploy to get in the door, try and worm info out of me about why our
> local task force blocked him from the vendor list, and to promote his
> business rather than breastfeeding.  Afterward, he made some remark on FB
> about seeing "our favorite cutie preggo" without permission, and I just
> felt a little violated by it.
>
> My question to you all is this:  I ditched the dessert, and I'm going to
> send the gift card and a letter (as well as his promotional materials) back
> to him and tell him how uncomfortable the whole visit felt.  Any tactful
> way let this guy know that I think he needs to employ better tactics if he
> and his wife really are interested in breastfeeding advocacy, as well as
> tell him that I'm personally uncomfortable with him?  Whole thing just left
> me with a really creeped out feeling afterward.
>
> -BJH, IBCLC
>
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