So here is some unsolicited advice for consultants:
Next time somebody tells you ‘I need your advice’, ask two simple questions:
1. Why?
2. Can you prove that my external advice is indispensable? Right here? Right now?
The answers?
To my gut feeling they are distributed as follows:
50% will be “NO”
- These are the customers you would otherwise serve and invoice and then run into trouble with
- Rather than gulping out Powerpoint slides try having a conversation on the answers
- You may find out that these customers asked for your advice because they are afraid to make a decision
25% will be “NOT YET”
- These customers sense that there is something coming their way that they cannot handle alone
- Thanks to these questions it is clear that they do not have the coalition to make your advice stick in their organizations … yet
- I have seen lots of bright consultants giving the sharpest and best advice to customers who didn’t get their part of the act together
- That’s a shame because we all know how that ends: ‘this expensive consultant just told us what we already knew: lots of hot air”.
25% will be “YES”
- Indeed, only a quarter of the advice situations you run into are ready to take your advice and actually DO SOMETHING WITH IT.
Does this mean that I am a massochistic revenue avoiding uncommercial consultant?
No. I just stopped taking things for granted and I sharpened my focus on the end state.
My goal is to keep the 50% “NO”s in the loop; to invest in a good relationship with the 25% “NOT YET”s and to serve the 25% “YES” really well.
And in the end, that is what I get rewarded for. Big time.
