For the July 2010 issue of Management Consulting News, I interviewed Dave Ulrich, who is a business professor at the University of Michigan, a partner at RBL Group, and the author of twenty-three books. In his new book, The Why of Work, Ulrich argues that to achieve extraordinary results, leaders must pay as much attention to creating meaning for employees as they do to making money.
Read my interview with Dave Ulrich.
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One thing is certain about your next project: it will be different, in some way, from every other project you’ve done. Over the last couple of years, project managers and consultants have published some outstanding books about designing projects, managing project teams, and influencing change.
I’ve compiled an Amazon list of ten books to help you build your skills as a project planner, manager, and leader. Have a look at the list, and feel free to send me your best recommendations for additions.
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If you want to predict how a client project will end, look no further than how it begins. Just about everything you do during the sales process and in the initial days of a project sets the stage for how it will wrap up.
Until both sides commit to a project, you might let minor assumptions about scope or outcomes slide. Once you have commitment, or so the reasoning goes, you and the client can hammer out the remaining details.
Sometimes, that approach makes sense. During the sales process, for example, you don’t have to nail down the precise schedule for the client team’s participation in every task of the project. It may be that neither side is ready to make some decisions until a project ramps up, so it seems natural to table some matters for a later time.
Sadly for some consultants, that later time never comes, and the client’s initial expectations for how the project will unfold become the operating assumptions. Then, you have to try to bridge the gap between those expectations and the reality of what you can deliver. Consultants get stuck with that unenviable task more often than they want to admit.
One way to flush out unresolved issues is to plan for a detailed walkthrough with the client before you start the work. Review the project plan, schedule, and the roles and responsibilities of each team member. Clear up those lingering questions and get everyone aligned around a common set of expectations.
That may seem obvious. But, what often happens, especially on smaller projects, is that everyone agrees to do the work, establishes an end date, and you start the project, sorting out unresolved issues as you go. Too often, this approach leads to difficult conversations with the client and the need to rework project tasks.
Lots of consultants miss the opportunity to shape the endings of their projects by taking some basic steps at the outset. If you’ve ever had a project that didn’t finish well, you can probably trace the root of the trouble to the beginning, not the end, of the project.
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It’s tough to find any professional who can’t answer the typical client question, “Why you?”
In response, most offer a glowing self-testimonial with a laundry list of relevant qualifications, an accomplished track record, and a string of ardent references.
In this month’s issue of The Guerrilla Consultant, I suggest that you turn that ordinary question around and ask yourself, “Why not you?” Your answers can unlock opportunities for improving your practice that you might otherwise overlook.
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If you’ve been consulting for more than a week, you’ve likely heard a client ask, “What are your deliverables for the project?” Sometimes, you get that question even after you and the client have agreed on project objectives, tasks, and expected value.
Some clients (and consultants too) just aren’t comfortable unless there are compulsory deliverables for you to dutifully create, package, and submit for approval. I’ve seen some consultants agree to tie their fees to the client’s acceptance of interim work product. That makes about as much sense as paying for part of a haircut before the barber has finished cutting your hair.
I know that complex projects and many IT initiatives need formal milestones with reviews of what you have accomplished. But too often, a deliverable, which is supposed to be a means to an end, becomes an end in itself.
It’s common to see project teams fixating on how they’re going to put together deliverables to gain the client’s approval, instead of focusing on the underlying success of the project. It’s not hard to find failed projects that have a long paper trail of approved deliverables.
Few things divert you from the real goals of a client project more than slavish dedication to creating deliverables, which can end up being of dubious value anyway. Change happens during any project, so a deliverable may not be relevant by the time you finish it.
Sure, it’s essential to measure progress. Just be sure that you don’t equate project success with meeting requirements for deliverables. Once you confuse the two, you’ve lost sight of why the client hired you in the first place, and it won’t take your client long to figure that out.
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“The greatest opportunity to build a referral-based business lies in creating a strategic partner platform.” – John Jantsch
For this month’s issue of Management Consulting News, I talked with John Jantsch, award winning social media publisher, and the author of Duct Tape Marketing. His new book is The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business to Market Itself.
I asked Jantsch for some practical tips on creating a productive referral engine for your business.
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In an earlier post, I outlined the five essential elements of a winning sales strategy, which together give you a better chance to win any services sale:
First up for a more detailed discussion is how to offer clients a compelling story.
It’s not exactly a newsflash that stories are a powerful tool for communicating ideas. You don’t have to look far to find many articles, books, and workshops on crafting the perfect story. If it’s true that we’re all enamored of a good story, why do so many sellers leave their best stories behind when they head into a sales meeting?
Maybe sellers (and their managers) believe it’s just safer to stick to the facts. Well, think about the last dry, fact-based sales presentation you listened to. If you were still awake when the speaker finished the corporate overview, you likely still had to endure a heavy dose of unreadable slides, dense charts, and generic case studies.
Lulling clients to sleep like that during a sales meeting is hardly a safe bet. But sellers do that, over and over. The good news is that leaves plenty of opportunity to connect more effectively with clients and strengthen your position by animating your presentations with stories.
In any services sale, consider using stories with at least two aims. First, help your clients understand the need for change. Your stories can confirm or illustrate the urgency for the client to take action and also address resistance to change. In short, the story should breathe life into the problem or issue the client is facing by showing the implications of maintaining the status quo.
After all, the toughest competitor you’ll usually face is the client’s “do nothing” option. To beat that competitor, you’ll need more than a handful of facts. A good story can help push through the natural inertia that prevents change.
You could craft stories that show how others met similar challenges, but it’s best to highlight precisely how the issue impacts your client. You might tell a story about how unresponsive information systems affect customer service, for example. Or you could relate how one of your client’s best customers suffers as a result of seemingly small errors in the information your systems generate.
Maybe you have a video of the customer talking about late shipments, unknown order status, and incorrectly shipped packages. You could underscore the point by showing how the client’s sales reps and warehouse workers struggle with the customer complaints that arise from the systems problems.
What’s important is to tell the story behind the facts. Don’t just report that customer complaints are on the rise. Let your client hear from the customer directly via quotes, video, audio, or in person. Nothing connects with clients faster than experiencing the impact of the current issues on customers, employees, and others.
The second point of using a story is to paint a picture of the client’s future once the proposed project is done. Too many sales presentations and proposals get bogged down in unimaginative descriptions of “deliverables” and “end products” and lose sight of what the future will really look like. Offering a laundry list of “value” may seem to be a good way to comply with your client’s request, but think again.
Everyone you compete with will generate that same list. When the client compares your proposals side by side, it may be impossible to tell one firm from another. Once that happens, you’ve lost any advantage you might have had. Using a story of how your client’s business will change adds a compelling dimension to your proposal.
You can begin with relevant testimonials from other clients to tell the story of how you changed their businesses. If possible, get those testimonials in more than just written form. And be sure each testimonial is tailored to fit your client’s challenge.
But you can do more.
Why not ask your client’s customers to comment on how their lives will change if the proposed project is successful? And don’t forget the client’s employees. They can add to your narrative of what the future holds if your client achieves your vision of the future.
You won’t always need to tell an elaborate story with video interviews and extensive testimonials, nor will your client necessarily want that. But, as a rule, think about how you can use stories to enliven your sales strategy. Sticking to the facts and figures may be comfortable, but that strategy can easily backfire.
If you’ve read about the power of stories, the first thing you learn is that we’re all “wired” to learn through stories. Given that so much of selling is an educational process, why not use every tool at your disposal, including the story? Your clients will thank you.
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Most of us know what it’s like to lose a sale that we thought was a sure bet. Even when a sale seems to go exactly as planned, you can still find that the project was given to someone else.
It’s always possible to lose a sale for reasons that you can’t control. Maybe the client was set on choosing another firm no matter what you said or did. Usually, though, you can trace the reason for a loss to a shortcoming in some aspect of your sales strategy. Your competitor may have done a better job showing the client a view of the future, for example. Or maybe you didn’t make a compelling enough case for the value you would deliver.
As you move through the sales process, it’s helpful to keep five essential elements of a winning sales strategy in mind. If you neglect any of the elements below, you’re adding unnecessary risk to your sales process.
In the next week or so, I plan to write a series of blogs to highlight how each of these elements contributes to winning the sale. I’ll also suggest how you can incorporate each into your client sales efforts.
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During the sales process, clients give us clues about their intent. Sometimes, a client’s off-the-cuff comment offers more insight than what you learn any other way. Whenever you hear variations on the themes below, you might pause and reflect on whether you want to leave the sale to someone else.
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These days, presenting, meeting, and working in the virtual world are expected. But connecting with an online audience has its challenges. I asked webinar expert, Roger Courville, for a few tips on how to approach and succeed in this new presentation environment.
McLaughlin: What’s the most common misconception about presenting in a virtual manner, as opposed to in person?
Courville: Misconception number one is that you don’t need to adapt your presentation approach to a new medium. Studying communications teaches that the medium of communication changes the way messages are sent and received.
This is obvious when you think about telling a story in a book versus a movie; the discipline of telling the same story is different for each medium. It’s less obvious when you think about making a presentation in a web session because you’re speaking and using PowerPoint.
McLaughlin: Is that because you can’t see your audience?
Courville: Exactly. But that is thinking about, “What I lose” instead of, “What are the tradeoffs.” If you focus only on the fact that you lose body language or other aspects of in-person communications, presenting virtually will forever be a “poor alternative” instead of an “option with new opportunities.”
Presenting virtually gains you the huge benefit of extending your reach with audio-visual communications, and it adds the flexibility and power of influence that only comes with a live connection between presenters and audiences.
McLaughlin: Is there a good technique for improving audience engagement and getting feedback on how the audience is receiving your message?
Courville: Web seminar solutions have all kinds of tools built in, including polls, attention meters, and so on. I coach people to start in one place: If you do nothing else, get familiar with the Q&A or chat capability AND (and this is a big and), figure out how to monitor it in real time.
McLaughlin: You mean instead of waiting until the end of the presentation for questions?
Courville: Yes. The goal is to figure out how to connect as naturally with people online as off. With an in-person event, we do this by responding when we see a hand go up, right? If you can’t see a “hand up,” you can’t respond and your audience engagement level goes down. It’s like becoming a pilot…you have to learn to fly by sight and by your instruments.
McLaughlin: If you could give just one piece of advice about becoming an effective virtual presenter, what would it be?
Courville: Plan how you’re going to interact and rehearse it. Use a poll, stop for questions in the middle of your presentation, use a moderator, plan a spontaneous question, and even plant one if it helps.
And give yourself a grace period. Remember a time when you hopped into an unfamiliar car, went to turn on the lights and the windshield wipers start flapping? Presenting online isn’t hard; it’s just different. Never wing it…that’s a recipe for sub-par performance online or off.
Roger Courville is the author of The Virtual Presenter’s Handbook. He is also co-founder and principal of 1080 Group, LLC, a consulting firm that helps clients to design and optimize web seminar programs. You can reach him at roger@1080group.com.
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