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Share the Pain and Share the Gain

Written by: Michael Shays

Article Overview: How to be the one to help clients with the right solution before they set upon the wrong approach and started looking for help among your competition. Clients are giving professionals subtle and even strong signals of pain. But professionals with tunnel vision do not catch these signals and lose the opportunity to be of real help.

Share the Pain and Share the Gain

Share the Pain and Share the Gain
E. Michael Shays CMC
Too often a professional is called in to help a client after he has recognized the company has a need, and worse, has already decided how it must be served. Thus begins a protracted selec¬tion process, sometimes competitive, sometimes between “buy or build.”
It is better to be a trusted advisor than just another professional. How do you respond to these client state¬ments?
 I am soliciting competitive proposals to solve this problem. (well, maybe okay)
 I need you to solve this problem this way. (okay)
n I need to solve this problem. (better)
n I have a problem. (getting much better)
n Things aren’t going well. (best)
Why is the last statement the best? Because the professional who recognizes an opportunity from the last statement is in a position to explore options before the client has defined his need and set his mind on a course of action. He is in a position to be a partner with the client in addressing the pain and in so doing is the logical one to assist him in the implementation.
After a casual lunch, a consultant and his client were walking back to their respective offices. The lunch was mostly social. No spe¬cific professional opportunities were discussed, though they did review the results of some recently completed assignments. As they were about to go their separate ways the client mentioned that he thought it was ironic that although his company measured staff performance to the N’th degree, the big-business risks were decisions made by the executive corps, whose perfor¬mance could not be measured.
As the consultant walked back to his office, he realized there was some unrecognized “pain” in the client’s statement and possibly an oppor¬tunity to help. He brainstormed some ideas with his colleagues and went to the client’s office that same afternoon with a plausible approach to measure executive performance. It resulted in an annu¬ally recurring six-figure assignment.
The effective professional shares an empathy with the client. He is more interested in the client’s needs than in his own. Instead of waiting for “the call,” he is there beforehand, when the client begins to feel pain but hasn’t yet understood that something can be done about it. This gives the professional the opportunity to convert an unclear need to a clear need, to make an implicit need explicit. It gives the professional the inside track and often a sole-sourced assignment.
Clients are giving professionals subtle and even strong signals of pain. But professionals who have tunnel vision do not catch these signals and lose the opportunity to be of real help. Imagine the following conversation between a consultant and his client:
CONSULTANT: I hear you’ve been out of town.
CLIENT: I just returned from Asia. We’re considering a plant in Indonesia, Thailand, or the Philippines. Do you have offices in any of hose countries?
CONSULTANT: Yes, we do. In Jakarta and Manila. So what’s happening at your headquarters?
CLIENT: We’re examining plans to restructure our headquarters staff. What do you think about that?
CONSULTANT: Terrific idea. I thought about that need when we spoke last year.
Does that mean you will expand staffing?
CLIENT: I don’t know. These are the times of downsizing. We’re having some difficulty internally trying to determine how to cover our expanding needs and control salary costs.
CONSULTANT: That’s a problem all right. By the way, how’s Dorothy?
CLIENT: This is not good news. She’s suing for divorce—and after 25 years of marriage. My lawyers don’t understand the financial side of my life very well. I’ll probably get wiped out.
CONSULTANT: I’m real sorry to hear that. I wish you luck.
CLIENT: And on top of all that, my boss has told me that if we can’t get the Baker project up and running by the end of the year, he’s going to scrap it. I’ve staked my career on that project.
CONSULTANT: It sounds like real frustration. Ah, here’s the check. My treat.
It was nice to see you. I hope we can find a way to work for your firm again. Take care. Oh, and good luck with the Baker project.
* * *
Okay, so this conversation was over the top, but it does illustrate the many ways professionals get clues of pain from clients. However, professionals who are focused only on their own agenda will be clueless, and they may as well invite the competition to their client lunches because in the long run clients will give the work to the one who shares their pain. They don’t want a relationship. They want a partner.

* * *
E. MICHAEL SHAYS CMC (ems@emsnetwork.com) is President of EMS Network, International, an association of senior consultants helping clients faced with conflict, transition, stagnation, and management dilemmas.

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