To become a client’s trusted advisor, you must be viewed as a peer. This doesn’t mean you must become a literal peer. If you work with a CEO, for example, you will never be their strict peer in an organizational or hierarchical sense. But if you want a seat at the table with them, they need to consider you as a peer in three areas: Professional acumen, behavior, and values. Let’s look at what these are and how you demonstrate them. In this blog I will cover point one, Professional Acumen.
How often do you jump into a car or taxi and show up at a prospect’s office ready to ask questions and pitch your solutions—but without really having prepared? Many senior executives I’ve interviewed have told me this happens all the time. And, they usually add, they aren’t impressed with someone who walks in knowing very little about their business and their issues.
When you meet with a senior executive—someone who is a leader in their organization—you need to think carefully about the questions you ask. Don’t ask boring, general questions like “How’s business?” or “Can you tell me about your strategy?” With top executives in particular you need to add value for time. Prepare carefully so that your questions can be specific, not general. Politely challenge them. Ask questions that will help get at the root causes and help redefine the problem . Get underneath their thinking. What options are they considering? How are they going to make an important, upcoming decision?
Great advisors often have moments when they forcefully demonstrate qualities such as great conviction, perceptive big picture thinking, and independence—or when they simply act rapidly and decisively on their client’s behalf. These instances illustrate how great advisors distinguish themselves from ordinary ones. Here is one of my favorite “breakthrough moments” of a truly great historical figure—General George Marshall, who became Roosevelt’s most trusted military counsel during World War II:
Are you part of your client's growth and profits or are you simply a cost that can be cut anytime?
Have you come to hate the word “networking?” Join the club.
Robust pricing is a key to profitability, yet most professionals spend little time seriously exploring how to price their services effectively.
Enthusiasm is contagious! Think about the most enjoyable and memorable professors you had in college. More likely than not, they possessed unbridled enthusiasm for their subject. Whether it was Art 101 or Political Science, they drew you in. They captivated your attention and interest.
I could easily be a dinosaur.
That’s because I earned my MBA in 1981 from Dartmouth’s Tuck School. I looked at the course catalog recently, and realized that I’m like the doctor who went to medical school before the invention of penicillin and the discovery of DNA. Most of what MBA students study today was not on the curriculum 32 years ago.
The point is this: the half life of knowledge is incredibly short, and what we learn in school is dwarfed by what we should and must learn outside of school. As so-called “educated” professionals, the ability to rapidly learn and flex our minds is the key to occupational longevity. We must be, as Einstein said to a friend, “passionately curious.”
Look no further than Leonardo for one of history’s most prolific and motivated learners.
When you find yourself getting into an argument, and arguing about how you're arguing–you need to reset. At work, if you start a presentation and it's not going well–or new information comes to light that you were unaware of–you need to reset. Use this simple question: "Do you mind if we start over?" It's a powerful way to get the conversation back on track.
