Tag Archives: top management consulting

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

Thursday Night Flight is brought to you by Malte Müller Professionals. Sharing best practices for top management consultants on topics like communication, client handling, problem solving, appearance, and fitness. Check out www.mm-professionals.com for more material and free resources!

TNF #039: Customer Experience

Leave a reply

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

1 Reply

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!

Leave a reply

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

Leave a reply

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!

TNF #035: Gentlemen of style

Leave a reply

Welcome Professionals…

…appearance and style are of high importance for the top management consultant. Since our services are generally hard to measure by objective and accessible performance indicators, the law of analogy applies. Our clients will build simple analogies. A sloppy outfit is linked to a sloppy analysis. A clumsy dress style is linked to a confused working style. We do not want this to get into our way.

There is not that one wardrobe that works for all consultants. In fact, dressing patterns vary heavily by region and by client industry and even company size. Whether you work in Milano or Detroit, whether you work in banking or fast moving consumer goods, the proper style will be relative to the one of your clients. In relation to the client, the top management consultant will always dress:

a bit more formal
a bit more smart
a bit more classic / conservative

Furthermore, our wardrobe should be fitting well, be in a good state and good shape, and project rather humble understatement than pretentious status symbols.

While these principles apply equally to men it women, it is usually the male species that is looking for a bit more practical advice and guidance. Here are some links to experts for you.

Aaron Marino is the pioneer of men style blogs and one of the most successful contributors in this areas. His videos cover everything from casual and formal clothing across fitness and grooming to even communication. Blessed with a good sense of humour, he is also quite entertaining. (http://www.iamalpham.com)

Sven Raphael Schneider from the Gentleman’s Gazette promotes a very elegant style that is in most cases much too dapper and dandy for any top management consultant. However, he has the best collection of background information on how to judge quality of garments, how to bind a proper necktie with a dimple, how to even tie your shoelaces and much more. Some fashion advice is clearly over the top, but some is quite practical. (http://www.gentlemansgazette.com)

A good entertaining and inspiring blog can also be found by Brian Sacawa, a professional musician and former elite-level bicycle racer. His page “he spoke style” is a playful explanation of core principles in menswear. (http://hespokestyle.com)

Of course, there are many more addresses for tips and tricks. Hope you like that one and curious to learn your additions to this topic.

Malte

TNF #034: Do you have a prescription?

Leave a reply

Welcome Professionals…

…as top management consultants, we are selling cures to management problems. We are literally selling a project or mandate and in a figurative sense, we are selling our ideas, concepts, approaches and so on. Our client needs to buy into it. Our client needs to apply our product to make a change.

Someone made me aware of an interesting analogy. A physician is someone curing health problems. Just like a consultant, this professional also needs clients (called patients) to buy into his/her concepts and to apply solutions (called medicine) in order to make a change. The difference is, that in most cases, the medical practitioner does not even make the attempt to sell something.

Think of your own experience when consulting a physician. In most cases, he/she will listen to the problem, make a diagnosis and write a prescription. And – in most cases – the patient will accept it and thankfully apply it. Why is this the case? I came to the following observation:

The physician addresses a very important if not existential problem of the client which came to see him/her for this
The physician suggest’s in most cases only one solution
The physician acts with a natural authority

Wouldn’t it be great if we could move our clients by writing a prescription to them? What in our process do we have to change if we wanted to act with the same persuasiveness as a physician? The problem that we address? The argumentation on the solution? Our communication style?

Let’s think about this for a week!

Malte

TNF #033: What’s your USP?

Leave a reply

Welcome Professionals…

…such a simple question, isn’t it? What’s your USP? Do you have an answer for it?

I sat with the founder and CEO of a consulting company today. He has been running the company for 7 years now and they are quite successful. They have a cooperation with one of the Big 4 accounting firms and have clients among Fortune 500 companies.

When I asked him: “What’s your USP?”, I received a lengthy answer that sounded rather like the company’s history. “We started with…, then we did that project…, then we discovered that…, and I think we are pretty good at…”

It is of utmost importance that every one of us has a crisp and convincing answer to this elementary question! Right after the meeting I went to stand in front of the mirror and said loudly to myself: What’s your USP?

To be honest: It was worth practicing. I thought I would have had a better spontaneous answer. Finally, I wrote it down in my notebook. Not to forget my personal USP and to review it from time to time.

Try it by yourself: What’s your USP?

TNF #032: Easy like Sunday morning

Leave a reply

Welcome Professionals…

…our job as top management consultants is to solve problems for our clients. We do that usually by applying rigorous analytics. However, sometimes I get stuck on a problem. I am ruminating about a certain task and actually turning in circles. With a bit of distance, I can see that I am out of balance.

What helps then is when I go home and pick up my guitar. I play around and sing along which is bringing me back to balance. My interpretation is that I am sometimes getting a bit too left brained, focusing almost all my brain power on analytics. Playing guitar and singing is activating the right side of the brain. It stimulates the creativity.

And yes, it works. A few moments later, I usually find a creative solution to the analytical problem I was thinking of before.

What are your ways of getting into analytical/creative balance? I see more and more people around me drawing, for instance while they are sitting in a plane. What are your Thursday Night Flight activies?

Anyways, next thing in our office kitchen I found myself singing: easy like Sunday morning…

Malte

TNF #031: Did you bring some cookies?

2 Replies

Welcome Professionals…

…yesterday, I have been a judge in the jury of Business@School. This is a pro-bono initiative from the Boston Consulting Group, teaching highschool kids at the age of 14 about business. Three groups of students presented their business business plan for a new commercial idea they had worked out. An interesting and fun event. The striking experience I want to share with you relates to the cookies.

One group had the idea of founding a cookie gift service. They would prepare a jar with all cookie ingredients and a recipe that can be purchased as a gift and will be delivered to the recipient. Now comes the interesting element: At the end of the presentation they presented one jar with the ingredients and one jar with the freshly made cookies. They offered a cookie to each of the jury members. What a difference this made!

Up to this point, it had just been a usual business case presentation. The moment we tasted the cookies, the relationship between the jury and the presenting team was taken to a new level. The presentation received a new dimension, a sensual attachment.

The same was true earlier this week, when I met the partner of an IT consultancy. Instead of describing his product portfolio, he pulled out a little booklet that was so small, he was carrying it in his suit pocket all the time. I immediately had a deeper connection to his offering than before.

We usually present our concepts and talk about them the consulting-way. We shall think of means to add a bit more flavour and sensual product experience to it. It will make a great difference!

Enjoy your cookies!

Malte