Client Relationships

Do You Call Yourself a “Trusted Advisor?”

May 26, 2011 By Michael W. McLaughlin 1 Comment

In their bestseller, The Trusted Advisor, David Maister, Charles Green, and Rob Galford made the case that professionals need more than just technical expertise to succeed. They must also have the ability to earn the trust and confidence of clients.

As the term Trusted Advisor became part of the language of the services business, a funny thing happened. Some firms started using the term as a marketing slogan. Here are some examples:

“Like you, we are much more than ‘just’ service providers to our clients. We are trusted advisors.”

“___________ provides these solutions by being a trusted advisor to our clients. “

“Before we become your trusted advisor, we discuss your values; goals; personal, professional and institutional relationships; assets; and interests.”

Even HP got into the act with a splashy press release:

“The HP Trusted Advisor service offers HP consulting experts who work closely with clients to consider all aspects of business operations, IT infrastructure and facilities, as well as the enablement of technologies, such as cloud and green computing.”

Becoming a Trusted Advisor marks a stage in the development of your relationship with a client. It’s a state you aspire to achieve, not something to assert as your marketing catchphrase. That’s like calling yourself world-renowned; someone else needs to give you the label.

Adopting Trusted Advisor as your slogan masks a real problem: You are basing your marketing strategy on an unsupported claim, and that’s likely to fall flat in the market. Just because you declare yourself to be a Trusted Advisor doesn’t mean prospective clients will see you as such.

Your marketing goal must be to find highly credible points of differentiation for your business. And there are many options to do that, from marketing your ideas to touting your people. Making unsubstantiated assertions could be the weakest marketing strategy of all.

So why continue to use it?

If you want to learn more about the authors of The Trusted Advisor, you might be interested in my interviews with them on various subjects:

David Maister on Strategy and the Fat Smoker

Charles Green on Who and Why Clients Trust

Robert Galford and Regina Maruca on How Legacy Thinking Makes Better Leaders Today

Filed Under: Client Relationships, Marketing Tagged With: Client Relationships, Client trust, communication, differentiation, Marketing, Marketing Professional Services

Blogs I Like: Andrew Sobel

May 23, 2011 By Michael W. McLaughlin 2 Comments

From time to time, I pass along my thoughts on blogs or web sites that I read on a regular basis. Hopefully, you can gain as much benefit from them as I have.

Consultant Andrew Sobel publishes an insightful blog at www.AndrewSobel.com that focuses on the business of client relationships. You don’t have to be a management consultant to find this blog helpful. If you’re in a relationship-intensive business, you’ll find something of value on Sobel’s site.

The Voice of Authority

Sobel has worked for more than 25 years as a strategy advisor, executive educator, and coach. He’s written three books on building business relationships, including Clients for Life and All for One: 10 Strategies for Building Trusted Client Partnerships. And he’s written articles for most of the world’s major publications.

He uses his blog and web site to extend the concepts in his books and articles and to bring his latest thinking on developing client loyalty to his readers.

Comprehensive Content

This site offers a range of content from big thinking ideas to specific tactics, like how to have a perfect client meeting. If you read Sobel’s recent series of 10 posts called Things Clients Hate, you’ll have a great check list of things to avoid at your next client meeting.

You’ll also find dozens of articles, archived newsletters, and short video clips on the site.

I think Sobel does insightful work, and he shares his ideas freely. I’ve had an opportunity to interview him several times for Management Consulting News. Here’s a link to our most recent discussion on building client partnerships.

If you haven’t seen his blog, take a look. It’s worth having in your newsreader.

What blogs are you reading regularly?

Filed Under: Client Relationships Tagged With: client issues, Client Relationships, Sales Meetings, selling professional services

What’s Your Ideal?

May 11, 2011 By Michael W. McLaughlin Leave a Comment

If you are looking to grow a services business, the effort can seem akin to pushing a two-ton boulder up a mountain with one arm. The market is crowded, strong competitors lurk around every corner, and price competition seems relentless.

You can sidestep those obstacles by defining precisely who you want to work for and what you’ll do for your clients. You might be saying to yourself, “well, that’s obvious.” But I’m not suggesting that you define your business by the clients you have and the work you can do. I’m saying to define your business—and your marketing strategy—by the work you want to do.

Marketing your business takes drive, determination, and passion. You need a ton of motivation to get up early and work late to get and keep your business on track. Long term, you’ll only put out that level of energy for clients and issues that you’re truly passionate about. Once you’re pursuing your passion, crowded markets, tough competitors, and price pressure become secondary concerns.

Who Is Your Ideal Client?

One thing you can do to ease your path to profit is to make good decisions about how you’ll go to market. Your first step: define your ideal client. Once you figure out who those clients are, then you can design marketing strategies to reach them.

Your ideal clients might be executives with specific titles, like CEOs, CFOs, or CIOs. Or maybe your ideal client leads a particular business function in sales, marketing, or manufacturing. For some, reaching the ideal client means directing marketing efforts toward specific companies.

What Do You Want to Do

But you shouldn’t stop with identifying your ideal client. Step two is to define your ideal project too. What issues or problems do you want to help with, what impact do you want to make, and how will you structure the way you work with your ideal client?

Granted, you won’t always get to work with the clients you really want. But you should market your business as though you can. It’s the prospect of working with those ideal clients that will keep you focused on building your business, even after the toughest day.

No service provider must give in to the notion that the market is saturated. Focus on your ideal client and project and you’ll get a boost in your innovation, marketing energy, and results.

Filed Under: Client Relationships, Marketing Tagged With: Client Relationships, differentiation, Marketing, Marketing Professional Services

What Happens When You Leave?

May 9, 2011 By Michael W. McLaughlin Leave a Comment

You may know how this feels. You’ve got a good track record with a client, but the client doesn’t clue you in when a suitable new project arises. In spite of your great work, you learn about the new project right before it’s about to go to someone else.

Of course, you can scramble and possibly get back on your client’s radar. For clients you already know, it doesn’t have to be like that.

How Quickly They Forget

You need more than trust and a record of delivering value to remain relevant with your past clients. You also need a champion (or two). Most of what clients remember about you and your work stems from the conversations they have when you are no longer around. You’ll rarely hear those conversations–or have the chance to directly influence them.

That’s where a champion comes in. I’m not just talking about a satisfied client who is willing to act as a reference for you. I’m referring to someone who will be an advocate for your work, defend you against inevitable critics, and help shape the story about your work that you need to stay in the game.

Every consultant faces an invisible barrier to landing new work: client indifference. If you want to become more than just another consultant who did good work, identify and nurture champions along the way. These people can keep your history alive when you’re not there to speak for yourself.

Champions Where You Least Expect

You won’t have more than a few champions in any client organization. Nor will you need more than that. In many cases, one well-placed champion can be enough. I know a consultant who’s been booked solid for two years on a range of projects due to a champion relationship with one executive in a large client organization.

Like many champion relationships, this one emerged slowly and unexpectedly. The client executive didn’t initially hire the consultant, and he didn’t have management responsibility for the project. But the consultant and the executive worked side by side on specific project tasks, faced some tough project issues together, and connected on a personal level.

Once that project ended, the consultant had a champion. And he didn’t have to force it. The relationship grew naturally in the course of their work together and through adherence to a few guiding principles.

Focus on the Here and Now

When someone who is “talking” to you often looks beyond you to others in the room, you get the message: that person is obviously lining up the next, more important conversation. Don’t send that message to clients about your projects. Once you’ve started a project, put your ambitions for follow-on work on the back burner.

Resist the urge to look beyond the current project, at least until your client signals that it’s ok. Stay focused on the here and now and your client’s trust in you will grow. In time, the client will draw you into other opportunities and you may find that you’re developing a champion.

Steer Clear of Politics

Politics percolate just below the surface in every client organization. In an effort to please client sponsors, many consultants get caught in the morass of client politics. It’s helpful to know what’s happening behind the scenes. But, get sucked into the client’s drama, and you lose your objectivity and cut off access to potential champions.

If you’re backing someone else’s agenda, expect to take arrows from detractors. I know a consultant who aligned herself with her sponsor’s project strategy, which others didn’t agree with. Instead of orchestrating a healthy debate about alternatives, the consultant pushed for her sponsor’s solution.

The result: when the sponsor’s idea was ultimately rejected, the consultant became the target for criticism. She hasn’t been back to that client since.

It’s not enough to have a champion in an organization. When someone advocates on your behalf, others have to view you as credible too. Taking sides in office politics will tag you as biased and self-interested. That’s a showstopper even a champion can’t overcome.

Don’t Look for a Two-Way Street

In a perfect world, the more value you give to clients, the more you receive. The value profile of most client relationships, though, isn’t that clear-cut. Sometimes, you give and give without getting anything in return. At that point, some people give up and move on to something else.

Don’t expect a quid pro quo from your clients. I know consultants, for example, who schedule regular meetings with their clients to review the latest regulatory issues and competitive information. Those meetings happen whether there’s an ongoing project or not. There’s no expectation of an immediate return, but a return on the effort always materializes.

A potential champion watches how you behave when there’s nothing in it for you (like a new project). So always search for innovative ways to help out, especially between projects.

Extending Your Influence

Your long-term success with any client depends on both what happens during a project and afterward. You’ll benefit from a client champion or two to watch out for you when you’re not there, and to help write the narrative of what you accomplished. Nothing beats the marketing power of a client who knows what you do, how you do it, and is willing to go to bat for you.

Filed Under: Client Relationships, Consulting Process Tagged With: Client Relationships, consulting process, managing projects

Arrogance

May 5, 2011 By Michael W. McLaughlin Leave a Comment

Looking through blogs last month, I came across Consultants Are Pros, While Corporate IT Staff Are Minor Leaguers, by Erik Eckel. Admittedly, the provocative title lured me in.

In the piece, Eckel argues that it’s difficult for corporate IT employees to make the leap to the consulting business because they just don’t have the chops. Really? I read on.

Eckel says:

IT consultants are essentially the equivalent of baseball’s major leaguers, while corporate tech staff members are typically minor league professionals…consultancies too often must slow down and train corporate professionals on simple and basic processes. These are fundamentals that I think it’s fair to claim any big leaguer should have mastered.

Besides the lame use of a sports metaphor and flawed reasoning, what’s really wrong with Eckel’s slap at corporate technologists lies in its not-so-subtle arrogance. The path to consulting oblivion is paved with such arrogance.

If you put yourself above others, which arrogant consultants do, you sabotage any effort to establish communication channels with those who are “beneath” you. Especially in a client environment, effective consultants ratchet up their listening skills, instead of selecting who is worthy of their attention.

Arrogance grows from a self-perceived image of importance. A client may tolerate that in the short term, but, over time, arrogance always wears thin. It won’t be long before an arrogant consultant makes the wrong move in the client environment and winds up looking for a “new opportunity.”

Mostly, arrogance gives all consultants a bad name. Arrogant behavior fuels every negative myth that consultants confront as they serve clients and build their businesses.

I don’t know Eckel or how he practices his craft. I do know that he stumbled as he tried to point out the skills someone needs to succeed in an IT consulting practice. But he gave me an important reminder: If you have a shred of arrogance, check it at the door.

Filed Under: Client Relationships, Consulting Process Tagged With: Client Relationships, communication, consulting firms, consulting industry, language of consulting

9 Signs of a Bad Client Situation

May 1, 2011 By Michael W. McLaughlin 5 Comments

You know you are in a bad client situation when:

You show up for the project kickoff meeting and your client says, “Oh…was that scheduled for today?”
Your client still mispronounces your name after your third meeting.
The client asks you to match your consulting rates to those in a proposal the client solicited from a Ukrainian programmer on Elance.
You have to go through an assistant to an assistant to get on your client sponsor’s calendar.
Your client continually tells you, “This project should be so easy for you.”
The client starts every status meeting with, “I’m sure I told you about this change…”
Your email to the client confirming that day’s final briefing comes back with an automated, out-of-office reply.
At the final project meeting, your client says, “Remind me again–why are we here?”
The invoice you sent to the client comes back to you as “undeliverable.”

What others would you add to the list?

Filed Under: Client Relationships, Consulting Process Tagged With: Client Relationships, communication, consulting process, humor, managing projects

Death to FUD Selling

April 25, 2011 By Michael W. McLaughlin Leave a Comment

The FUD Seller's Favorite Tool

If you’ve heard a few sales pitches, and I’m sure you have, then you’ve probably encountered the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) approach to selling. The strategy is simple: scare people into taking action.

Usually, the seller offers a vivid description of a disastrous future in which the most profitable opportunities go to others because of your lack of action. Sometimes the FUD message is subtle, but it still underlies the seller’s strategy.

FUD selling should be kicked to the curb along with other bankrupt sales techniques like canned sales questions and forced closing gambits.

Trying to sell with FUD techniques shifts attention away from the problem that needs to be solved and focuses it on questions about the legitimacy of the threat. In the face of a possible threat, clients will wonder if it is real and worth worrying about. They will also ponder whether the seller is just blowing smoke to get the sale.

In either case, the seller becomes the center of attention, not the client’s need. That creates an unnecessary detour to arriving at a solution to the client’s problem.

Plus, the FUD seller takes a risk that the threat is truly credible. Last week, for example, I got a call from an FUD seller who so badly assessed the risks in my business that the sales pitch was laughable. The competitive threat he laid out was preposterous and irrelevant. It was a fast conversation.

Today’s sellers can thrive by building a client’s confidence that they understand the issues, emphasizing certainty that they can deliver on all promises, and, most importantly, creating trust that they have the client’s best interests in mind. Do those three things and FUD sellers will slowly—and forever– disappear.

Filed Under: Client Relationships, Selling Tagged With: client issues, Client Relationships, sales strategies, Selling

The Client Value Dip

April 22, 2011 By Michael W. McLaughlin 2 Comments

In a perfect world, the more value you give to clients, the more you receive. If you’ve got clients who fit the ideal profile below, hold onto them.

But the value profile of most client relationships isn’t linear–it’s more like a sine wave, as shown below. The value you get (projects, referrals, compensation, and so on) grows for a while with the value you deliver, and then it dips. One common time for a dip is when you wrap up a project.

When a relationship enters a dip, lots of service providers pack up and move on to the next opportunity. Predictably, the relationship fizzles out.

If you find yourself in a dip, take steps to make sure it is temporary. Often, you can pull out of a dip by staying in touch and visible, and by bringing new ideas to your clients. You’ll find that getting out of the dip with an existing client can be easier—and more profitable—than chasing after a brand new one.

Filed Under: Client Relationships, Marketing Tagged With: Client Relationships, Marketing Professional Services

What’s in a Name?

April 4, 2011 By Michael W. McLaughlin 2 Comments

It’s easy to overlook little things that make a big impression on clients. The job titles we use on business cards, email signature lines, and web sites, for example, convey a world of meaning to others, some of which isn’t helpful.

Take the title Business Development Manager, which seems harmless enough. The problem is that many clients will get the clear message that your aim is to develop your business, not theirs.

The same holds true for Account Manager or Sales Executive. You’re sending clients a seller-centered message, when they’re looking for someone who puts their interests at the center of the conversation.

Some people recognize this problem but make it worse with their solutions. Instead of Client Relationship Manager, for instance, they go with something lame like Chief Synergy Detector or the Grand Marshall of Morale Boosting. Besides making people roll their eyes, these titles are less useful than the run-of-the-mill ones.

So what do you use instead? If you feel that you must use a title (which I’m not convinced everyone needs to), begin by thinking about titles that reflect what you do for clients, not what you do for your business.

Maybe you’re a Supplier Productivity Specialist, Online Marketing Strategist, or a Leadership Development Manager. With such a title, you can use your calling card or email signature line to help convey your value to clients.

If you’re not inclined to use this kind of title, you have two options. Either dump the title entirely, or use a simple one like Consultant, Associate, Principal, and so on. Whatever choice you make, be sure it’s for the benefit of the client, not you.

Filed Under: Client Relationships, Managing Your Business, Marketing Tagged With: Client Relationships, language of consulting, managing your business, Marketing, selling professional services

Clients Aren’t Just Clients…

March 25, 2011 By Michael W. McLaughlin 3 Comments

They may be prospects, targets, executives, staff members, managers, or any other label we apply to them.

But that’s not all they are. They are people.

They could be mothers, fathers, spouses, little league coaches, amateur athletes, art enthusiasts, history buffs, cooking enthusiasts, or hopeful fiction writers.

If you get beyond the abstractions and understand people for who they are, you’re likely to get the support you need exactly when you need it.

Filed Under: Business Life, Client Relationships Tagged With: Client Relationships, communication, differentiation, language of consulting

Do You Call Yourself a “Trusted Advisor?”

Blogs I Like: Andrew Sobel

What’s Your Ideal?