The Irresistible Consultant's Guide to Winning Clients

6 Steps to Unlimited Clients & Financial Freedom

David A. Fields

• Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781683501657
• Topic: Negocios y empresa
• Subtopic: Consultoría

This deeply insightful guide to understanding what clients really want is "an indispensable resource for consultants" (Keith Ferrazzi, #1 New York Times -bestselling author of Never Eat Alone ). Independent consulting is a potentially lucrative enterprise—but the reality seldom matches the dream. Most solo consultants and boutique consulting firms are perpetually within six months of bankruptcy due to the sputtering unreliability of their new business engines. The problem, according to international consulting expert David A. Fields, is twofold: 1) lack of a consistent, proven plan, and 2) fundamental misunderstanding about what clients want in a consultant. Fields, who has helped hundreds of consultants and boutique firms worldwide build profitable, sustainable practices, replaces the typical consultant's mindset of emphasizing expertise and differentiated processes with a focus on building relationships, engendering trust, and solving clients' existing problems. In The Irresistible Consultant's Guide to Winning Clients, Fields synthesizes his decades of experience into a step-by-step approach to winning more projects from more clients at higher fees. From nuts-and-bolts business advice and tactics to a deeply insightful breakdown of the human side of a very human profession, Fields, named one of Advertising Age magazine's "Marketing Top 100, " delivers a comprehensive guidebook that is at once highly approachable and satisfyingly detailed. "If I could have just one book on client strategy, this book would be it." —Marshall Goldsmith, #1 New York Times– bestselling author of Triggers

STEP 1

Think Right-Side Up

(Prepare Yourself to Succeed)

When we thought the sun revolved around the earth, our vision was limited to a tiny planet. Then, a startling reversal of perspective opened up a universe of possibilities.

Your journey to unlimited clients and financial freedom starts with a similar, fundamental change in your frame of reference. And it turns out your opportunities are boundless.

CHAPTER 1

Right-Side Up Thinking

This book is all about YOU and your practice. About YOU winning a steady stream of new clients, month in and month out. About You learning six steps that will take you from wherever you are today to being a happier, more confident, wealthier consultant. That’s incredibly ironic, given your first lesson on the path to Nirvana:

Consulting isn’t about YOU. It’s about THEM.

If you put this book down now, after only learning—and fully adopting—that one concept, you’ll walk away a far more successful consultant. (But please, keep reading!)

As normal, healthy human beings,* our world view looks like an upside down pyramid. In fact, it looks like the one on the next page. Most of our world view is dominated by a tiny group of one: it’s only us. That’s where we focus the majority of our thoughts. Then we spread our attention to the slightly larger groups comprising our family and friends. If we broaden our outlook further, we attend to acquaintances and other connections. Even though those are much broader populations, they tend to be obscured by the people closest to us. The rest of the world is way off there in the murky distance.

It’s natural to think about yourself first. In fact, I’m glad you do, because thinking about yourself is what motivated you to pick up this book!

But from the perspective of attracting clients, that pyramid is upside down. To kick your business development into overdrive, invert your pyramid, and adopt Right-Side Up thinking. Put them first.

The Power of Right-Side Up Thinking

Let’s look at a conversation between a fictional consultant named Bob and the equally fictional prospect you’re going to be winning a project from throughout this book—Yuri Yusimi.

BOB: “Hi, uh, Mr. Yusimi. I’m Bob Jenkins from TopNotch Consulting.”

YURI YUSIMI: “Good to meet you, Bob. What is it you guys do?”

BOB: “We help companies grow. I see you’re with Sereus Dough, Inc. We’ve helped many companies just like Sereus improve their operations and profitability. We have access to some of the world’s leading experts in all areas of manufacturing, and we’ve developed a breakthrough process called 9-T testing to identify exactly how to increase margins. I think Sereus Dough would be a great client. Here’s my card. Can I give you a call to follow up?”

YURI YUSIMI: “Uh, thanks. Well, I have your card. Let me reach out if I think there’s something we can do together.”

Pretty bad, right? You know there’s virtually no chance Yusimi will call Bob. Ever. You could probably count a dozen different mistakes Bob made. But the one underlying, fundamental challenge Bob has is his mindset. He’s thinking about himself. As a result, he’s talking all about himself. B-o-r-i-n-g. Also, irrelevant. That’s upside down thinking at work.

Right-Side Up thinking flips your focus from YOU to THEM.

Amazingly, this simple switch will be your key to winning new business, growing your consulting practice, boosting your confidence, and, ultimately, securing your financial freedom. If you’re willing to act on Right-Side Up thinking, you’ll become an irresistible resource to your clients and your prospects.

Since successful business development revolves around this core idea, you’ll see it come up over and over again throughout this book. It affects everything you do as a consultant. Perhaps most importantly, Right-Side Up thinking will change how (and when) you think about yourself. And you’re going to love the results.

The following table summarizes the difference between Right-Side Up thinking and typical “consultant-think”.

Table1-1

YOU ARE WHAT YOU THINK
	Typical Consultant-Think	Right-Side Up Thinking
Mindset	Worry about what prospects think about you	Worry about what prospects think about themselves
Outreach Approach	Approaches you’re comfortable with	Approaches they pay attention to
Marketing Materials	Your capabilities, your approaches, your offerings, your background	Their situation, their problems, their aspirations, their potential wins
Conversations	Your offering, getting business for you	Their world, helping them improve their lives
Offering	Your capabilities, your skill sets, your experience	Their needs, their wants

Every aspect of Right-Side Up thinking in Table 1-1 will be explored and expanded upon in the following chapters, so you’ll have everything you need to make it work for you.

Right-Side Up thinking isn’t rocket science. It’s just common sense. But it’s also the linchpin of your business development. If you embrace it, you’ll be ahead of the game for the rest of your consulting life. If you reject it, you’ll struggle.

How to Adopt Right-Side Up Thinking Instantly

Take a look at the opening line of your emails to prospects. Do they start with “I” language or with “You” language? Emails that start with “I” are less likely to engage a prospect, no matter how valuable or thoughtful the content may be.

A typical follow-up email might begin this way: “Hi Mr. Yusimi. I enjoyed meeting you yesterday.”

Who’s that email talking about? You! Does Yusimi care whether you enjoyed meeting him? Not really.

A simple shift makes the email feel a bit clunkier to you, but infinitely more interesting to Yusimi: “Hi Mr. Yusimi. You were a pleasure to meet yesterday…”

Now, who’s the email about? Yusimi! It’s a subtle difference, but it provides a big clue about your thinking. (And yes, I know your high school English teacher would pour red ink all over that opening line. Well, we ain’t in English class.)

Move on to the body of your emails. What do you see? Are you talking about you or about him? Are you talking about what you want and what you have to offer, or are you talking about Mr. Yusimi’s needs, his goals, and his situation?

Let’s shift gears and examine your overall marketing communications. Does your marketing display typical consultant-think or is it overflowing with Right-Side Up thinking? How much “I” language fills your speeches and articles? Your answers will clue you in on your mindset. Chances are, you need to flip your thinking Right-Side Up.

“Hold on there, buckaroo,” you may be muttering (if you believe consultants from Connecticut are cowboys, that is). “Don’t stories about me make things more personal for prospects and allow me to create a deeper, more personal connection?” Good point. Personal stories are important. But it’s a matter of balance and intention.

Think of it like a cocktail conversation. Your host starts talking about his recent trip to Italy, and Bob from TopNotch listens politely until the first pause, and then interjects, “That’s great. That sounds just like my trip to Greece. I spoke to the Athenian Association of Feta Makers and… blah blah blah… it’s all about me.” (Well, Bob doesn’t say that exactly, but that’s what it sounds like.)

In contrast, because you’re a master of Right-Side Up thinking, you listen attentively to your host (or Bob) for a good while before contributing anything. “That sounds great,” you say. “Your adventure reminds me of my trip to France. The managerial style there was surprising. What did you think of the senior executives you met in Italy?” Just like that, you’ve shared something personal, connected to the other person, and kept the focus exactly where he wants it: on him.

Your business conversations and marketing work exactly the same way. Even during a speech, which tends to be a monologue rather than a dialogue, your stories can briefly reveal an endearing slice of yourself, then quickly revert to what it means for your audience. Why? Because even though your story is about you, the message ...