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What Aristotle Could Teach You About Consulting

By alik levin

April 3rd, 2009 | Consulting


Being Subject matter Expert (SME) is not enough to succeed in consulting. Consulting is about successful persuasion first, then SME. Care to master your persuasion skills? I recommend you grabbing grabbing Jay Heinrich’s book Thank You for Arguing: What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion. Aristotle consulting by amir taj 
Aristotle’s tree essential persuasion qualities that Heinrich shares in the book are Virtue, Practical wisdom, Selflessness. Here is how it helps me when I am on consulting mission.


Virtue

The main idea is getting connected to the target audience, the customer. You cannot persuade if you do not share your customers values. It is hard to persuade if you do not feel the pain of your customer. It is hard to communicate if you do not speak your customer’s language.  Connect!

  • Anti-patterns. The biggest issue I observe about connecting to the customer is when a consultant is focused on self. “We possess deep insider expertise”. “Our service/product is the best of breed”, “We offer value.”
  • Proven Pattern. Focus on customer, not you. Show you understand customer’s pain then tell him how you can help (if you cannot help – tell him so!). “What’s on top of your mind? What bothers you the most?”. “We solved similar problem recently to other customer in your vertical”. “We have never done it before, but applying proven patterns it might succeed in your case. Would you like to hear the rough idea how?”

Practical Wisdom (street smarts)

Show you have been around. Do not brag. Just facts, dry facts. Show similar results you achieved in the past. Be specific. Numbers are good. 50% improvement. 3000 users. $10 K. Extrapolate to your customer’s case. Try to model what would be the rough benefit in his case? Offer tools to make the decision. By tools I mean simple models of measuring impact (“simple” is key, do not make the customer work hard to understand your super genius ideas).

“If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself.” – Albert Einstein

Selflessness (disinterest)

Demonstrate you cannot care less giving away your best advice. And that is done by… just giving it away, no less. Free of charge. The best effect achieved is when you give away the advice and then send the follow up email with the short PDF document that describes just that. Too much of the investment? Not at all if you regularly blog and journal your professional experience on your professional blog. Creating PDF document is just a matter of using this free online utility - Free PDF Converter. Supply the link to your blog and press the button. Voila, the PDF is ready to be downloaded.

Practice This - Get Results

  • Connect - feel your customer’s pain, speak his language. 
  • Show off your trophies. Do not brag. Facts and case studies are king - make your customer confide in you. 
  • Give it away. Free of charge, - make your customer believe you have much more to share worth paying for.

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12 comments ↓

#1 J.D. Meier on 04.03.09 at 9:57 pm

Good stuff.

I’m a fan of sharing stuff for free. The downside is, the perception that you get what you pay for and that if it’s free, it can’t be that great. That said, I think the world is still figuring out how to put a price point on things and questioning/challenging value and what good looks like.

#2 Melissa Donovan on 04.05.09 at 7:42 pm

Excellent advice! I adhere to all of these philosophies in my own business and consulting services - especially giving advice away for free. That’s a big one!

#3 Sheila Atwood on 04.06.09 at 3:09 am

You are right about showcasing your stuff. How would anyone know if you don’t tell them.

#4 Giovanna Garcia on 04.06.09 at 5:56 am

I totally agree with you about showing your you understand your customer’s pain. I beleive that is the first thing in building a great customer relationship.
Thanks,
Giovanna Garcia
Imperfect Action is better than No Action

#5 alik levin on 04.06.09 at 1:16 pm

J.D.,
Very good point. Sometimes I give up on opportunity only because giving away too much freebies becomes very expensive for me. But I always keep trying though ;)

Melissa,
Good to hear we share same practices! It’s good to hang out with like-minded ;)

Sheila,
Yeah! Talk is cheap (free) - that is why no one values it. Case studies and real stuff that solves problems has a value, that is why giving it for free makes such impact

Giovanna,
100%, feeling the pain is one of the most important things in consulting. Just like in medicine ;)

#6 Mark on 04.06.09 at 4:49 pm

A very rare trait that I would add would be responsiveness. Fantastic advice!

#7 alik levin on 04.06.09 at 7:03 pm

Mark,
Thank you for good words!
Actually responsiveness is mentioned the most when we survey our customers. They value it a lot. I’d attribute it to the art of contracts renewals persuasion ;)

#8 Gennaro on 04.06.09 at 11:07 pm

Aristotle is one of my favorite thinkers. A great, great mind. I like Einstein’s advice (bet I’m not the first). Keep it simple. It’s inclusive. It provides comfort for customers or the audience. That doesn’t mean it should be intellectual…just clear.

#9 alik levin on 04.07.09 at 4:05 am

Gennaro,
Simplicity is helps tons in persuasion ;)

#10 Liara Covert on 04.08.09 at 1:51 am

Alik, practical wisdom arises from experience. An energy being also evovles to tap into inner knowing. This is part of a process of reconnecting to Soul, the source of all energy and pure consciousness. The self-lessness you mention is part of one’s core identity. A person must simply recognize conditioned beliefs and misunderstandings obscure the truth until they are discerned and discarded. This comes with awarness.

#11 alik levin on 04.08.09 at 5:23 am

Liara,
It sounds like i need first to start with self persuasion ;)

#12 Want To Win? - Argue, Do Not Fight! — Practice This on 04.08.09 at 9:26 pm

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