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MILLION DOLLAR CONSULTING
by determining that the competition attended preliminary discussions using three people who, acting as a team, provided the client with a feeling of depth and competent support that I, acting alone, couldn’t provide. I once lost a survey project at USA Today for which I was a finalist (and was told that I had the inside track) because the ultimate winner offered in his proposal to train management in how to convey to employees both the survey results and the actions that management intended to take as a result of those findings. I had never thought to do this because every prior survey project I had obtained had involved long-distance data gathering only, with one-on-one meetings with the top executive to discuss results. However, I would have been quite willing to do this, I had the capacity to do it, and I could have done it in a cost-effective manner. As a result of this particular controllable rejection, I now provide the option of management education in every survey proposal. Quite a few clients and prospects have complimented me on this follow-through and have been willing to pay slightly more to use it. As an extension of this tactic, I’ve since added sixmonth and one-year follow-up days to all my strategy work. The extra days cost me virtually nothing, yet they provide the client with a sense of continuation and long-term interest and enable me to remain visible on a scheduled basis.
One Percent Solution: If success is a plateau, it will erode eventually, right under your feet. But if it’s a steady climb, you’re always looking up.
Although I was very disciplined about finding out why I’d been rejected, I found that I had seldom asked for the reasons that led to my being selected by a client. Success will do that to you. After all, you were trying to get the business, you did a fine job in your preparation and proposal, and the client demonstrated superb judgment in selecting you. What else is there to know? Enough of these successes, however, can lead you into a trap because you’re so busy scheduling implementation and cashing checks that you aren’t growing in any other dimensions. Million dollar consultants don’t get that way by doing one thing well over and over. They succeed to the extent that they do because they evolve with the times and grow with increasing challenges. Consequently, you should always try to stretch your applications and abilities until you are rejected so that you can find out why. We hear about test pilots “pushing the envelope.” They don’t know what a plane can do until they discover what it can’t do. Then the designers can try to improve on that.