Monthly Archives: June 2016

TNF #040: The Power of Introductions

Welcome Professionals…

…as top management consultants we meet a lot of people. Multiple project assignments lead to a large and diversified network of contacts. Have you ever felt the power of introductions?

Connecting people through introductions can be perceived as a great value when done appropriately. In fact, it let’s you stand out as someone who generously shares a precious and scarce resource. Precious, because personal relationship make the juice of business and private life. Scarce, because it is not easy to meet and approach people. It requires a good filtering platform to find appropriate persons and it requires some courage for a cold contact.

What a value lies in good introductions! Bringing two people together that share a common interest, a common problem, maybe a similar background, values, style. Maybe for business or for leisure. It might be for an exchange of experience or just for a good conversation at an event.

If an introduction is well placed and therefore perceived as precious, the value links back to the connector. It is a good way to deepen client relationships.

Of course, it is important not to just randomly connect two strangers. They need to share a common interest in some way. Another highly recommended procedure is the double-opt-in method. You would ask both persons if they agree to the connection before you share their contact details.

Try it and add value!

Malte

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TNF #039: Customer Experience

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Welcome Professionals…

…what is a premium professional service? Well, we would expect a superior solution to a problem with a high quality delivery. But this is not enough.

Another dimension that strongly influences the price realization and the overall satisfaction is customer experience. It is very obvious in many ways when we look at consumer goods. Not the products with the superior functionality or the highest quality finish sell for the highest prices. It is very much about customer experience.

What are you doing to provide a special customer experience with your service? Do you offer special events for your clients? Do they get access to special material or special people? How do you stage-manage the whole value creation process?

Let us know and share your wisdom!

Malte

TNF #038: Happy Birthday

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Welcome Professionals…

…today is the 11th birthday of my son. In the past, I have been absent on many of his birthdays. All for good reasons, having important client meetings and postponing the birthday party to the weekend.

Today is different. I am scheduled for his birthday party when he returns from school at 4 pm. Means I have to leave the office at 3 pm. Both party and traveling time are booked to my calendar, like any client appointment would also be. I already shifted a meeting with my boss because this would have meant for me to be 30 minutes late to the birthday party.

I know I have to be punctually on time. I want to be there to look into his eyes when he tears off the wrapping paper from the presents. From experience I know that the window of attention I will get from my son is quite small. Right after 2 pieces of birthday cake he will prefer to test out his presents and maybe show them to his friends. That’s alright. Then I have plenty of time to do some calls, answer emails and prepare for meetings.

As consultants we enjoy a high degree of freedom where we can do our work. And just because we can work anywhere, anytime, does not have to mean that we work all the time. Why not book a private event into the calendar and treat it with the same importance as a business meeting?

Giving it another try,
Malte

TNF #037: Let the client lead the talk!

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Welcome Professionals…

…today I had a great client meeting with a surprising outcome. I met the CEO of an outsourcing provider that offered me in the end to promote my service to his clients. On my way back to the office, I was thinking why it went so well. From my point of view the main driver was that I let the client lead the talk.

I must confess that the temptation was very high to lead the conversation by myself. We met for the first time, until then we had only emailed and talked on the phone. I had initiated the meeting in order to sell my services to this company. I was pretty sure that I had a very compelling story, I had prepared thoroughly and I had great references to boast with.

When we started the conversation, he asked me: “So you are an engineer?” – “Yes, indeed”, I replied, then he already jumped in “Me too. You know, we have that in common!” And on he went. For the next 45 minutes I was only able to throw in a few words which were picked up by him as key words for his following elaborations.

It was fun listening, I learned a lot about him, the company, the strategy, his competitors, and so on. I think I managed to demonstrate by my body language and my few drop-ins on his topics that I was listening closely. Maybe he even heard about one of my references that I was squeezing in. Maybe not.

In the end, he thanked me for taking the time to come around. He concluded that it was a great and interesting conversation. Then he said: “You know, I get asked frequently by my clients if I can recommend somebody for these specific projects. I will refer to you next time now that I know that you have the expertise!” I was stunned.

This meeting served as a good reminder for me: Let the client lead the talk!

Wishing you fruitful conversations

Malte

TNF #036: Focus on the core

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Welcome Professionals…

…it is hard for me to say “no”. Especially to clients. We all work hard to build our reputation, to generate trust and credentials. Receiving client inquiries is what we are all fighting for. When a potential client approaches me to place an assignment, I am automatically in acceptance mode. This can turn into a problem if it is out of my core.

Last week I was contacted by a branch manager of a bank. He wanted to place an executive search project. Like always, I was tempted to dive right into an assignment even though I hardly know anything about financial services. Luckily I was too busy with other work. Then I thought about passing the project on to a team member with a lower billability. But it was also not in her core area of expertise and would have kept her from building her reputation in areas she wanted to focus on.

I finally went to the potential client, told him that my team and I were very sorry, but could not provide the required service by ourselves. Instead, I recommended another external consultant for the job. The client thanked me for the connection, but in the next second turned down the external consultant. I felt miserable. I had missed on an opportunity and I had failed to solve a problem for a potential client.

Today I think, it was just another episode of the FoMO-syndrome. The typical fear of missing out (FoMO) on opportunities. I decided to establish two checkpoints for future opportunities:

Is this opportunity within the core of my target business (defined by industry, location, topic, profitability, etc.)?
Do I want to invest extra time, money, and hard work to make this opportunity part of my core business?

If the answer is “no” to both questions, I will turn it down. As simple as that. Makes it easier for me to say “no” and miss out without any fear!