Category Archives: Thursday Night Flight

TNF #066: Bonus time

Welcome Professionals…

…Year end is bonus time. Hope you get a good one. Here is my favourite bonus joke:

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A top management consultant and an investment banker talk about their year end bonuses.

The investment banker boasts: “When I received my bonus pay check, I bought myself the newest Porsche 911 model, put my girlfriend into the car, drove her down to Milano, bought her some nice shoes and handbags and partied all night. On the way back I got myself new Rolex as we passed through Switzerland. What did you do with your bonus?”

The consultant replies: “Well, I got myself a tailor-made suit, for the first time in my life.”

“Ok – ”, goes the investment banker, “what about the rest?”

“The rest was chipped in by my Mom!”

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Wishing you a happy bonus season,

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 #065: Checklists rock!

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Welcome Professionals…

…I am a big fan of checklists. They are such a simple and yet a powerful tool. Every pilot, every maintenance engineer and every commissioning operator uses them. Not sure if every consultant has them in place.

In our company, we just finished a checklist for the initial briefing process with every client starting a new project. Since this is a regular process, you should expect us having a project startup procedure. Well, everybody had some bits and pieces somewhere, but we did not have a final consolidated version of a list. Until today.

It is quite useful, because no matter how much experience one has, it is always possible to forget about one or two items. It is a waste of time to go back and clarify those things after the event. On the contrary, it appears much more professional to have a well prepared checklist in front of you at every initial client briefing. These lists can even be used to be sent to the client upfront for preparation.

As I said, I am a big fan of checklists. I even have checklists for packing my suitcase for business trips. It adds to serenity and clears some brain capacity for more important usage.

Thursday Night Flight post written. Ticking the box!

Malte

TNF #064: Core values

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Welcome Professionals…

…today I turned down a client order. For the first time in my life. Ever. It feels a bit awkward, but I am convinced it is the right decision.

We had a contract on the table that the client was willing to sign. We were to do a retained search mandate for this client, looking to find and headhunt the Head of a Business Unit. It was a substantial contract value, certainly above average.

“Before we start” – the client said – “let me tell you about our company culture.” What then followed left me puzzled and a bit disgusted. I couldn’t believe they were really serious about what I heard: “We do not care for the individual. We only care for the company. We do not feel any sympathy for our employees, we do not have any patience with them, and we don’t give mercy. Feelings like this only weaken the organization”. That was the starting point to a 90 minutes lecture on their specific leadership style and so-called company values. What made it even worse – it was their Group Head of HR who conveyed these messages.

Usually, if I see some adversity, it makes me try even harder. Not this time. I felt a strong resistance to deal with this project. I tried to rationalize it. I made a list of pros and cons. Finally I decided not to work for this company. I would rather want to invest my dedication and energy into a company with values that I share.

Yours faithfully,

Malte

TNF #063: It’s all a matter of trust

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Welcome Professionals…

…trust is the essence of the trusted advisor that we all strive to be.

Building trust is typically a arduous long-term process. It requires high quality work, a good amount of generosity towards your client and at least one moment of truth. We need to put a real investment of work, time, money and attention into our client relationships in order to make them trustful. But is this all worth it? Aren’t we better off with a quick transaction where we receive the value right away? When is the time we get something in return?

The true value of trustful relationships usually shows under pressure. When the client has to make a high performance achievements under high time pressure. Then, there is definitely no time left for a benchmarking of different service providers, chasing the best offer, negogiating for the best price. Our client will turn to the trusted advisor. This is the time when we can benefit most from a trustful relationship. On the one hand there is less pushback on our premium fees. On the other hand it is a great time to learn and grow together with our client as we get jobs beyond our core expertise.

Although the usual checks and balances might get by-passed, we must not let it slip. We need to make sure that we deliver high quality work that complies with our professional standards also under these high pressure conditions. Otherwise we may loose the trust again. In fact, keeping our high standards under these circumstances is a chance to deepen the trust even further.

Now, as we approach the end of the year, it is a perfect timing to spot these opportunities. Our clients face their yearly targets. They may struggle to get there. And they count on you!

I trust you will help them!

Malte

TNF #062: Online presence

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Welcome Professionals…

…lately I have been talking with a friend about the use of networking platforms like LinkedIn. “Does it make sense to present myself on LinkedIn, even if I am not looking for a job?”, she was asking. “Are you kidding me?” was my reply.

Well, since you as readers of this blog are mostly members of our LinkedIn group “Trusted Advisor – Success for Consultants”, it might be obvious to you, why you would need some online presence. LinkedIn and some other networking tools are quite useful, not just for job seekers. But I am not advertising social media here.

My point is: If you are in a client serving business, you need an online presence. People that are about to meet you or that are even about to do business with you will look you up in the internet. They will enter your name to Google or LinkedIn or other search engines. And you want to be in control of what they see. You want to be the master of your online presence. You always want to have a professional appearance, also on the web.

Everything you put out there in the internet has to comply with professional standards. Not everything has to be about business, but your private stuff has to be posted sober-minded. Then, you want to make sure that your own crafted web image ranks high enough when someone looks you up. Since LinkedIn is the largest business network, it makes sense to use it since Google will display all LinkedIn hits for your name on the first search page. Maybe it is also useful to craft your own personal website.

Whatever you do, you want to do it the professional way. There are many tips & tricks out there on how to pimp your social media profile. Typing “optimize LinkedIn profile” into Google or YouTube will yield some quite helpful links. However, I see so many people getting the basics wrong. It all starts with correct spelling of the current position. Why do so many people misspell the word “management”? Typos in their own job title are the kind of sloppiness that is driving me crazy.

Stay professional,

Malte

TNF #061: Self-motivation

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Welcome Professionals…

…we have a little tradition in our company. Instead of Christmas cards, we send Santa Claus cards to our clients. And instead of printing a card which will only be signed, we have the ambition to send every client a personal, hand-written note. But nothing like the usual “Merry Christmas” message. It has to be something that is linked to an individual experience in our relationship. Nice, isn’t it?

The problem is: It is Thursday evening now and by Monday morning I have to finish 350 hand-written Santa Claus cards. This is really not my favourite kind of work! Looking at the huge pile of cards in front of me, it has the potential to set me close to despair.

Time to pull some tricks in self-motivation. I will set the most pleasant atmosphere for my card writing session. Sitting at home in front of the cosy open fireplace, turning on my favourite music. Then, I will imagine with every card that I write, how the receiver will open it, unfold it, and feel truly touched while reading the very personal message. Finally, I will not say that I have to write those cards. Instead, I get to do something special for my most important client relationships. I get to formulate a personal gift.

Call it silly or call it the method of positive reframing. It works for me. I already feel the self-motivation and can’t wait to start writing.

Malte

TNF #060: Praise and stand out

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Welcome Professionals…

…when is the last time you praised one of your team members? When is the last time that you have been praised for your work?

It has become quite common to use compliments and praise only to sugar-coat the assignment of additional work or constructive criticism. In fact, many people believe that criticism comes across as more constructive when wrapped in some compliments.

Try to stand out! Praise your team member for something that he or she did well. Does not have to be an extraordinarily heroic achievement. Just something that served well to make progress. Go to the person and hand over the praise with eye contact and a smile. Then walk away. Refrain the habit to pass on the next task.

This simple action is so unusual that it has a big motivational effect. It leaves the receiver with astonishment: “I can’t believe she walked over here just to tell me that!”

You will see, praising your team members like this will also be a lot of fun for you!

Try it!

Malte

TNF #059: Billability by referrals

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Welcome Professionals…

…This week I talked to a self-employed consultant. He works by himself, in his own one-man-company. He told me that he had sold and executed 800 full consulting days within 4 years. That’s quite an incredible billability for a consulant who does all by himself.

The average size of a project is about 30 days, so he cannot count on long running assignments. On the other hand, he cannot afford much time for acquisition because he has to deliver on his ongoing projects. So how did he do it?

He gets referrals to new clients by his core network. He says he knows about 10 clients really well. Meaning that he really knows what is on top of mind for each of the 10 people. He knows their job challenges as well as their personal and private matters. He supports them, whenever they need a quick helping hand, some advice, or an emotional bystander. What he gets in return is referrals to new clients. So many that he is fully booked. All the time.

Can you also count on ten strong relationships? People who would refer you to your next client? Hopefully so!

Malte

TNF #058: Looking intelligent

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Welcome Professionals…

…have you ever tried to look more intelligent than you actually are in front of a client? I fell guilty of this. Many times in the past and sometimes today.

It is tempting. As top management consultants we want to appear capable of solving our clients problems and intelligence is certainly an important trait in successful problem solving. We must demonstrate our intelligence in order to achieve credibility we may think.

The problem lies in the demonstration, not in the intelligence itself.

There is nothing wrong with applying intelligence in a client meeting. Laying out an approach that has been well thought through, sharing creative ideas, applying deep and structured thinking to understand the real issue – all of this is constructively adding to our credibility.

The moment we cross a fine line and try to show off our intelligence is when the trouble begins. When we use smart vocabulary, try not to be surprised because we knew it all before, jump to solutions, and generally try to look intelligent in front of our client, it hurts the relationship. It destroys trust!

Why? Because of a combination of two things. First, we seem to take ourselves more important than we should. But the attention should be centered on the client in order to build trust. Second, the client may feel uncomfortable by consciously or unconsciously sensing that we are faking something.

Instead, we should not be afraid of looking stupid sometimes.

Malte

TNF #057: Result = Activity x Competence

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Welcome Professionals…

…at the moment I am conducting a lot of interviews with senior sales executives. This is very insightful for me as I am trying to dissect their success factors and understand the main value levers.

One sales leader that I met this week said, he is operating on a very simple formula:

Result = Activity x Competence

My guess is that many of us hold empirical evidence that this simple formula is true for consulting projects. The more experience and thus competence you have in the assignment subject, the better you will manage your W/L-balance. Less experience can be compensated to a certain extent by more activity. Of course, to achieve the highest value that our clients deserve, we all strive to deliver highest compentence in combination with focused hard work.

I am personally very much in favour of simple and actionable frameworks. And I think you as top management consultants will join me in this preference. This formula is really pretty simple and certainly not enough to explain the world of sales to a rookie. However, it may serve as a good reminder on what really counts – and this well beyond the sales business.

Interesting enough, these two multipliers have different dimensions in time. Competence is a long term achievement, while activity can be allocated immediately through prioritization and effort.

Both competence and activity can accumulate over time, but only if we consciously steer the process. If we only dive into an urgent and important project by allocating lots of activity, it will not necessarily raise our competence. We must step back, revisit our actions and learn from them. The same with activity. If we follow unconnected projects, activity invested will never accumulate. We must have an overarching program, a broader goal to invest our activity in order to make it count.

Hopefully, I have not made things more complicated. Just remember:

Result = Activity x Competence

Happy frameworking,

Malte