Some Simple Lists

Some Simple Lists

In my experience, about 85% of organizations attempting change of any sort are largely unsuccessful. Reasons:

• Fad
• HR sponsored or implemented
• Some manager’s pet project
• No long-term reinforcement
• No adjustments made for culture or beliefs
• No flexibility as conditions change
• No commitment (just compliance) from participants
• No results, just tasks

As consultants, we need to overcome those obstacles, and not fall victim to them. That means we should avoid:

• Non-buyers, unless they can introduce you to true buyers, and fairly quickly.
• Middlemen, such as brokers and agents, who claim they have contacts but you would work at their discretion.
• Trawler fishermen—those people who are issuing RFPs, inviting you to “meat market” auditions and casting calls, requesting you apply for inclusion in their conference (“We can waive your registration”).
• Meeting planners, who haven’t any clue about the buyer’s needs or any control over the budget.
• Human resource types who have no credibility, and pride themselves on extracting good deals from “vendors.”
• Purchasing people—the new “heavy hitters” after the economic chaos, with their sharpened pencils, eye shades, and myopic vision—who only see dollars and not results.

This is the marketing business. Hence, you must continually be:
• Attracting buyers via gravity
• Meeting with them
• Establishing trusting relationships
• Creating conceptual agreement
• Sending them proposals with options and definitive next steps
• Maintaining and nurturing the relationship once they are clients

© Alan Weiss 2010. All rights reserved.