Category: management

Picasso and the Napkin or: ‘Be a Consulting Pro, Not a Consulting Ho’

Are you offering free consulting without realizing it?

Upon first reading this, a Silicon Valley episode (spoiler alert!) came to mind. In it, Richard, an entrepreneur, and his team are prospecting for investors and meet one particular group that seems very interested and excited about everything they have to share. A few days later they decline to invest and instead take all the useful information they gleaned from Richard’s team and use it for themselves to develop a saleable product. BTW – the series is extremely funny and highly recommended. It’s just not so hilarious when it happens to us IRL.

The information we gather and learn as professionals is valuable and perhaps the advice below is a little cynical. Unfortunately, more often than not, it also holds true. Read on.

Originally posted on Carol Roth: Tough Love for Business

Please Don’t Ask to Pick My Brain

Cafe workingThe working title of this post was “Be a Consulting Pro, Not a Consulting Ho.” I can argue that consulting might have come before what is generally considered to be the world’s oldest profession. And we are renting our bodies, too – our brains.

Yes, fellow brain-renters, people pay us for our knowledge and expertise. It’s an intangible, but often quite valuable. They pay us for the things we have learned over the years. They pay us so that they can save time, save money, save aggravation, etc.

There is a famous (possibly apocryphal) story about Picasso and the napkin drawing where someone in a café asked him to draw a picture on a napkin. Picasso then asked a large sum of money for something that took him a minute or two to draw. He justified the price by saying it took him 40 years to be able to draw it.

Did you just have an “ah-ha!” moment? I did when I first heard this story.

Honestly, as much of a consulting pro as I am (having worked as a solo consultant, project employee for the mid-tier firms, and full-time employee for three of the former Big Five), I still struggle with this.

I do understand that you want to get clients and, sometimes, it is easy to just give it away. Especially if you really enjoy doing it. Helping people develop business strategies is like eating popcorn for me – I love doing it and I can’t stop myself.

Ways to give it away

If you know you are giving too much away, here are some suggestions:

  • Create an “office hours” time on your calendar and have a way for people to book that time with you or join you on a conference call line or Google Hangout.
  • Develop some kind of assessment offering that is easy for you to do and valuable for your prospect. Give it a special name so it sounds important. Create a few time slots that you dedicate to providing this. Make sure people know that it is a good way for both of you to see if there is a fit for you to work together more.
  • Create a webinar that you give periodically that people can sign up for. This will have reusable content so it won’t take a lot of your time after the first time you give it.

Ways to make them pay

Here are some things to try if you are having trouble saying no.

  • Make people pay a small amount so you weed out the real tire kickers – maybe $15-30 for 15-20 minutes. You can even add this to your services page with a link to book you for that.
  • Create a low-cost webinar so that people are getting good information, but you aren’t spending a lot of one-on-one time. This way, they get used to paying you for your knowledge.

Ways to avoid coffee dates

So, what do you do about the dreaded “can I buy you a cup of coffee” request? Honestly, I mostly try to redirect that to a short 20-minute chat, unless they are a very close friend, possible business partner, referred potential client, or Bradley Cooper.

This sounds snotty, but I lose three hours of my day meeting for coffee between getting ready, getting there, having the meeting, and getting home. You need to be pretty interesting to get me to do that.

You also could direct them to the free ways to work with you mentioned above.

Ways to avoid premature proposals

Consultants start to get excited when a prospect asks for a proposal. We think that means that the prospect is serious, and that they might actually hire us.

Here’s the thing, proposals take time – often a lot of time. And you may give away too many ideas too soon.

To avoid premature proposals, try the following:

  • Get the prospect to clearly articulate their need or exactly which of your services they are interested in to solve which of their problems. Clarity is key here to avoid having to send a second proposal. Also, try to confirm that they have a budget to avoid a giant time suck.
  • Have the prospect complete some sort of detailed intake form or survey or inventory. Making them do something that takes time will weed out some tire kickers. They think their time is valuable, although they may not particularly value your time.

As you can see, there are specific situations where it makes financial sense to give them a quickie, as you have a good chance of acquiring a long-term client.

What should you do with the obvious tire kickers, freebie junkies, and entitled who think they don’t have to pay for your hard-earned knowledge?

I recommend you tell them what I do, “No, you can’t pick my brain.”

Original post is HERE

The Necessity of Failure

I would hope by now, that everyone understands that failure is nothing to fear. Also understand that getting to that point is a real trick sometimes.

“There are very few black-and-white truths in management or in business, but one that I have found is that people either hire people who are smarter than them or people hire people they can control. I see it over and over again. I’ve always hired people who are smarter than me. I rowed crew in college, and I’m always thinking in those terms — will they make the team better?” ~ Nancy Dubuc
Originally posted on NYTimes

Nancy Dubuc | The Necessity of Failure

Nancy Dubuc, chief executive of A&E Networks, has made her mark on cable television by taking big risks. But for every success, Ms. Dubuc says, she has learned from important failures.

This interview with Nancy Dubuc, the chief executive of A&E Networks, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant.

Q. Tell me about when you were younger. What were some early lessons for you?

A. I grew up in Bristol, R.I. I had grandparents and great-grandparents nearby, and because I was the only grandchild until I was 12, I was the center of a lot of adult attention.

I’ve only come to realize this within the last couple of years, but because I was part of so many different households, I was able to be a slightly different child in each one of them. That openness to change was ingrained in me at a very young age. I think it helps me to this day, because I can walk into a meeting, size it up and pivot. That’s not something you can teach.

Were you in leadership roles in high school?

My interests were more extracurricular, more external and more social than they were academic. My birthday is also in December, so I was one of the older kids. That meant I learned social leadership early on. I was always just much better in a team and work environment than I was in a classroom environment.

How have your parents influenced your leadership style?

The directness of my mother is clearly in my voice. Her opinion is always a very strong opinion at the dining room table. I think she empowered me to have the same drive.

My stepfather and I had long drives to school together, and I was never allowed to listen to my radio stations. It was either NPR or we would talk. One of the things that he used to say to me often, and I’ve taken this with me, is “Don’t worry about it, because it’s not going to turn out that way anyway.”

I don’t think you understand that when you’re 16 or 17 years old, but now as I look back on it, so much of what we worry about is the outcome, and outcomes rarely turn out the way you think they are going to. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have patience and discipline and drive during the process, but only thinking about the outcome is in some ways very singular, because the outcome might be something different, and it might be better.

When did you first start managing people?

I worked at an outside production company for five years. People didn’t report directly to me, but I handled a lot of logistics, like schedules and budgets. Then, over time, some of the field producers started asking my opinion about their work — “Could you look at this and tell me what you think?” I aspired to be these people someday, and they cared what I thought about their work. That’s when my creative confidence grew.

And what was your first formal management role?

I was put in charge of development for A&E. I suddenly had eight people reporting to me, and I had to let some of them go.

Because?

I have an innate passion and competitive streak to win and to create, and I want our team to be better than everybody else. Some people thrive in that environment, and some people don’t.

There are very few black-and-white truths in management or in business, but one that I have found is that people either hire people who are smarter than them or people hire people they can control. I see it over and over again. I’ve always hired people who are smarter than me. I rowed crew in college, and I’m always thinking in those terms — will they make the team better?

Another pattern I’ve seen is that managers will sometimes complain that one of their employees is difficult to manage. But those difficult people also tend to be the best performers. Sometimes managers don’t realize that they actually have to manage people. You have to figure out what motivates them. Great managers recognize that there is no one way to manage. You may have to be 10 different managers to get the best out of your team.

How has your leadership style evolved?

I lead with some core principles. I need to trust who works for me, and they need to trust me. Trust is just paramount. And the more people say, “Trust me, I’m here for you,” the less I trust them. It really needs to be trust by action. If people do, act and deliver, I will forever give those people more leeway.

I value people who have something constructive to say and can make things better. Anyone can have an opinion about what’s wrong with something. I can’t stand the pile-on effect when something didn’t work. But then somebody might say, “Well, what if we did this?” It may be wacky and it may not be the right thing to do there, but at least they’re trying to solve the problem.

How do you hire?

A lot of it is intuition. I also think about the skills I have and the skills I need. I’m a big believer in the idea that people tend to fall into one of three camps — you’re either a thinker, a doer or a feeler.

So I’ll be thinking about the mix of those three groups on my teams. If you have all thinkers, nothing will get done. If you have all doers, that can be really chaotic because you’re not necessarily thinking about the consequences. And feelers are important because they create energy — but if you have too many of them, they will just dramatize the moment.

When you put the different kinds of people together in the right way, that can be very powerful. You never want that out of balance.

And which camp are you in?

I’m more of a doer. And when I have time, I think.