Practice This

 
by skippyjon

It takes ages to build trust in consulting. It only takes a moment to lose it. I call it trust and Geoffrey M. Bellman calls it partnership in his book The Consultant’s Calling: Bringing Who You Are to What You Do, New and Revised

Bellman gives a good list of reasons why partnership [or trust] is easily lost. Here it is:

• The contracting is unclear.
• You work your own agenda.
• The fit is poor.
• The client has too much work and too little money.
• The project becomes less important to the client.
• You accept the work you would  not ordinarily do.
• You after the money.
• You catch the client’s "disease".
• You hold naïve positive assumptions.
• You pretend.

I wish I had this list long ago, before I learned it myself.

The contracting is unclear

The anti-pattern is very common. I get a call from sales guy telling me the gig is sealed so I can start working. I get onsite, I talk to a customer and realize that the expectations are somehow different from what was written in the contract. Worse, what’s written is quite blur.

Today, I mitigate such situations with prepared boilerplate SOW’s that I hand out to sales guys – “Hey, this is what I can do and this is how much it costs. Put your name on it and seal the deal.”

Question to ask:

• What’s the objective?
• Who’s affected?

You work your own agenda

There is always an agenda. But it should be in sync with the one of the customer’s. A consultant is a change agent. The ultimate goal is to change to better situation. If it serves your agenda – fine. If not, adjust your agenda but never the other way around.

The fit is poor

I was brought several times onsite but very quickly we all saw I am a poor fit. To mitigate such situations I tend to discuss the gigs with sales guys first and if it does not help I discuss the issues at hand with the customer in terms of objectives. Once objectives identified it is usually easy to understand if I can be of help or not.

Ask yourself:

• Am I the right guy for the job?

The client has too much work and too little money

Scoping usually reveals such situation. Recently I accepted few jobs with significantly reduced budget. The idea was to help the customer. The result was the opposite – unfinished results, unsatisfied expectations. I have learned my lesson again Gerald M. Weinberg taught me once in his book Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving and Getting Advice Successfully:

"We can do it – and this is how much it will cost".

Ask yourself:

• How long it usually takes to complete similar gig?
• How much we usually charge for similar gig?

The project becomes less important to the client

You should sense it from the start. Who’s the real stakeholders? What’s the goal behind the goal? Have you tried to read between the lines? What folks say in a hallways? The other situation is re-org. Re-org is the surest way to lose original focus. Heard of re-org? Look for another gig.

You accept the work you would  not ordinarily do

I did it once recently. The reason I did is I just did not want to sit on the bench. Looking back, sitting on the bench would pay off more. I could not deliver to the standards I used to. The trust was damaged. Sitting on the bench wouldn’t hurt it.

You after the money

We are all after money. Your customers know that too. But do not be greedy. Customers talk each to other. It’s better that they talk that you deliver on the promise. “Hey, this guy charged me for Mercedes but delivered … a scooter.” or “The price was above the average it was worth it, no doubt.” Which one you choose?

You catch the client’s "disease"

It usually happens with Time&Material projects – you just go with the flow billing hours until they are exhausted. You catch all sort of diseases at customer’s along the way (organization diseases). That’s why I love fixed price gigs more – you are on mission, you get in, you hit your mark, and you get out of there for another gig. Adios.

You hold naïve positive assumptions

Having positive attitude is essential for success. Having positive assumptions is destructing. Having positive assumptions without solid ground for it will lead to failure and loss of trust. Being skeptic and constantly testing the progress toward the objective is what helped me to avoid pitiful situations at the end of the gig. Another approach is getting customer’s fingerprints on what’s going on – this way you know if your positive assumptions are true or not.

You pretend

We are all professionals. You can BS some all the time, you can BS all some time, you cannot BS everyone all the time. BS’ing is not your path, do not do it – do not pretend, just say “I am not in the know, but I know the guy who is. Here is his phone number.”

Practice This – Get Results

• Build your trust – it is the best marketing weapon I ever had.
• Guard the trust you have built – it’s too hard to build it, but it too easy to ruin it all.
• Read The Consultant’s Calling to become a better consultant.

My Related Posts

• Consultant Writes Proposals That Sell
• Consultant Overcomes Constraints and Reaches the Goal in 5 teps
• 5 Stages of Successful Consulting Gig
• 3 Basic Conditions For Successful Consulting Gig