Here’s how you schedule time to get things done. Let’s say you want to write an article or position paper.

1. Choose the audience you seek to influence, probably those most appropriate for your value proposition. (5 minutes) [Bank lending officers]

2. Choose a topic that will be provocative and timely. (10 minutes) [Identifying the best candidate for safe loans and repeat business]

3. Choose a working title, not something for all the ages. (5 minutes) [Behind the Interview: The Prospect Within]

4. Select 4-6 key points. (10 minutes) [1. The lessons in the first greeting; 2. How to assess behaviors in an interview; 3. The key questions to ask to appraise the business proposition; 4. The key questions you want to be asked.]

5. Write an edgy opening paragraph. (10 minutes) [Why do lending interviews reveal so little about the customer and so much about our own fears? If the objective is to increase business, then we should first increase our own probabilities of identifying and welcoming high potential prospects. That's not usually done with a shaky wooden chair and a bare lightbulb overhead.]

6. Write about each of your points, making sure to include your rationale, an example so that it’s not merely conceptual, and a graphic if it helps explain the point. (20 minutes per point)

7. Write a closing that’s a call to action. (10 minutes). [The next time prospects walk into your office, invite them to sit in a comfortable chair, offer them some refreshments, and remind yourself that they represent opportunity, not threat. Ask yourself how they might speak positively of the experience, no matter what your ultimate decision. That, alone, might increase your business more than you can imagine.]

8. Reassess the title to see if you want to now adjust it. (5 minutes) [The Human Banker—Stepping Out from Behind the Green Curtain]

That entire process above, with six points, requires about two hours. Spread it over four days, and it’s a half-hour a day. Put that in your calendar at 10:30 each morning, and don’t change it, no matter what.

That’s how you get work out. I’ve probably taken a week off the process above for most of you! Stop fooling around, discretionary time is wealth, and you are eroding yours.

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

There are certain words and phrases that, while originally well intentioned, have become hackneyed and trite. “Have a nice day,” “meaningful,” “impactful,” and “good to great” all come to mind.

I’m not merely fossicking here, because “We want to go to the next level” has become one of those tendentious phrases that seems to mean so much but results in so little.

Whether that “next level” is financial (which it usually is), or competence, or repute, or anything else, I’ve found that it’s less a matter of action than one of thought. That’s because you seldom reach new heights by merely doing more of the same of what you’re doing now. You have to change your mindset and thought patterns if you truly want to metamorphose into a new being.

Fortunately, that’s not physically difficult—there are neither cocoons nor hibernations required. Unfortunately, it can be quire difficult mentally, because different frames of reference and perspective are required.

Earlier today a woman wrote to ask exactly where in Los Angeles my June workshop would be, since that would depend whether she would go. (This is a workshop that would normally cost at least $1000, but I’m doing for $100!) Upon investigation, I find that her days are totally filled, primarily because she is “selling all day” and feels obligated to run at 4:30 or so in the morning. If you’re in a rut that doesn’t allow you the time to explore how to leave the rut, guess where you’ll remain? (Hint: Not on the next level.) This is why doctors who schedule back-to-back patients every day all week can’t improve their practices.

Here is some quick help:

1. Who are you? How do you define yourself? Are you a consultant, or are you someone who dramatically improves sales results or ensures strategic goals are exceeded?
2. What do you do? Do you “coach” or “consult” or “facilitate”? Or do you improve your clients and help them reach results unattainable without you?
3. Why are you doing this? Is it to make money, or to salve your ego, or to implement a methodology you love? Or is it to make a difference in the world and create a legacy?

Look through a telescope, not a microscope. Change your mentality so that you’re thinking big and not constantly stuck on trifles and trivialities. There is a hebetude around people who immerse themselves in the granular and specific. There is an excitement around those who forge new paths and provide new ideas.

If you want to arrive at “the next level,” start aiming for three levels above that.

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

Here’s a surgeon’s observation on my approach to RESOLVE:

“Developing resolve translates to the creation of new neural pathways, and then making conscious choices to use the new paths over the old.”

Vicki  Rackner  MD

To view my free video series on RESOLVE, visit here:

http://www.summitconsulting.com/resolve/

People often fail to achieve goals because they don’t “run through the tape,” don’t have the wherewithal to get past the finish line. What I call “resolve” is beyond accountability, beyond priorities, beyond discipline.

I’ve created four free videos for anyone interested. Simply go to this page and you can watch my introduction to the four and arrange to receive one every two days. In about a week and perhaps 30 minutes, gain “resolve”!

http://www.summitconsulting.com/resolve/

Nice review, sent courtesy of Donna Brighton. The Consulting Bible on Amazon is at #18,000 overall, #9 in education and #13 in consulting; by comparison, Million Dollar Consulting is at 22,000 and 16 in consulting (it isn’t in the other category). I have five of the top 20 consulting books at the moment.
Consulting Community of Practice Book Review: The Consulting Bible – Everything you Need to Know to Create and Expand a Seven Figure Consulting Practice
Author: Alan Weiss Ph.D.
Reviewer: Richard Sachs, PMP, MCPM
Dr. Alan Weiss adds this recent book to his extensive publishing career of over 40 books and more than 500 articles. The CONSULTING BIBLE, has some biblical analogies as it is divided into five sections: Section 1 Genesis: Consulting as a Profession; Section II Exodus: Consulting as a business, Section III Deuteronomy: Consulting Methodology, Section IV Acts of the Apostles: Implementing Consulting Methodologies, Section V Proverbs, Consulting Success. The author adds in ‘lessons learned’ or tips under the caption of “The Gospel” throughout each chapter and section when he wants the reader to pay attention to special information. I counted over 50 of these tips and the reader could create a compendium of these for quick reference as I found them valuable: Here are just three examples: “The only time an alliance makes sense is when there is money on the table”; “Everyone can write. Writer’s block is merely a clever term for procrastination. But not everyone has something to say. That’s a key differentiator”; “You must accept rejection and reject acceptance. This is a relationship business and you will not always be successful. But do not align yourself with those who can’t say ‘yes’ but can say ‘no’ “. This last “Gospel” is one pitfall everyone should consider carefully when being asked to prepare a proposal.
The book reads easily and Weiss communicates as if he was giving a presentation. He uses many techniques to move the reader through his thesis. That thesis is that wealth is discretionary time and not money and building a practice to give one the freedom is the goal. There are Case Studies from Weiss’ personal and extensive consulting career. Truth is stranger than fiction and Weiss captures some humorous client situations stating that “you can’t make this stuff up”. Weiss creates many applied consulting terms and illustrations and shares these throughout the book. His concepts include- The Consulting Model, The Accelerant Curve; Market Gravity Wheel and The Market Value Bell Curve. These are designed to foster new thinking by the consultant in how he/she models their business to achieve growth. His experience is as a sole practitioner and his goal is to expand your capability and income as a one person consulting practice or small boutique firm. Weiss makes light of those that would criticize his approach as not scalable to the medium or large consulting firm- but that is not his market.
The Consulting Bible at 265 pages provides some strong sales tools(obtaining referrals) as well as real tactical insights into pricing services, charging retainers and finding the best clients which by the way have a mutual respect for the consultant they engage. The consultant is sometimes his own worst enemy by taking on work and services that he or she will not be paid for. “Scope Seep” which Weiss adds, is “the most invidious and potentially damaging aspect of consulting… (it is) when the consultant without impetus or request from the client, enlarges the project unilaterally without changing the proposal, agreement or fees”. Some readers may find this familiar territory and Weiss provides some clear advice on the subject of roles, responsibilities and self-management.
Disengaging is a chapter that I especially found thought provoking. You don’t necessarily have to leave the client but your project when coming to an end requires an endorsement that the improvement your client was seeking as a condition of the assignment was achieved. As a consultant, either the results were achieved or will require more time, but disengagement is necessary so that you can “maximize the chances to leverage business internally and externally”. Weiss outlines seven things a consultant should do to enable a positive disengagement. Weiss elaborates on referrals, testimonials and long term leverage. This chapter is highly valuable as any good project manager knows that lessons learned is what builds a strong foundation for organizational project performance. This same thinking, but with a business development consideration, is most illuminating and worth the price of the book.
Weiss ends the book on the subject of giving back. This especially resonates with me as I mentor project management students and put high value on the benefits we both derive in this process of returning to the community. The author goes on to talk about ‘Advancing the state of the Art’ and again I subscribe to the belief that while not everyone can add to the profession in a substantive way it is often about incremental change that when aggregated actually adds to thought leadership, innovation and service excellence.
I recommend this book to other PMI members who are interested in learning how Alan Weiss has built his multi-million dollar practice with an array of services and offerings that leave his business diversified and capable of growing during various economic cycles. He is a consummate expert on the subject of coaching consultants and has provided the reader with many tools in The Consulting Bible. Enjoy.

I never give financial advice and I don’t pretend to be a financial expert. But I have worked with thousands of solo practitioners and firm owners, and I have learned from my own mistakes. So here are some New Year’s suggestions for a healthy financial regimen.

1. Pay yourself first. Set up a new business account separate from your regular personal and professional accounts. Transfer 10% (choose your own percentage) of EVERY dollar you collect in 2012 into that account. If you close a $150,000 project, transfer $15,000. If you sell $200 worth of products, transfer $20. Try not to touch it except in emergencies (a new car is not an emergency).

2. Fund your retirement plans during the year to their maximums through installments. Figure out what you can contribute to SEP IRAs, IRAs, 401Ks, or whatever else you’re created, and contribute as you go through the year. (Example: If you are confident your personal income will be $160,000 or greater, you can contribute a maximum of 25%, $40,000, to a SEP IRA—and more if you’re over a certain age. That means you should start contributing about $3,000 a month, and try to pay it in the 2012 calendar year, even though you have until April of the following year.)

3. Make a plan to payoff credit card balances the same way. Every month, pay ALL the new charges and then pay at least one-twelfth of the remaining balance. This will decrease interest payments, improve your credit score, and free up credit if you need it in an emergency in the future.

4. Make plans to maximize your TOP LINE revenue. No one grows through cutting expenses. Doing your own monthly financials on software programs instead of hiring a bookkeeper for $250 a month is just ridiculous. Focus on truly growing your business and start thinking BIG.

5. Create “budgets” that you fund for key, planned expenditures: school costs, vacations, house improvements, and so on. Try to fund these monthly, as well. It actually helps to keep them in different accounts.

6. Monitor your spending. There are sites such as Mint.com and apps such as Pageonce Pro than can help if you’d like an automated system that notifies you of bills due, spending deviations, bank charges, and so forth. While I don’t believe in cutting to grow, I have found that some people don’t realize where and how their money is actually being spent.

7. Pay forward. By that I mean this: When you incur a major credit card debt (e.g., you’ve run a meeting, taken in all the revenue, but the hotel balance is $20,000) start writing checks immediately. If you wrote a $10,000 check at the time to, say, Amex, and then the balance when the actual bill arrived, it’s less of a bite and less chance that you’d spend that first $10,000 elsewhere. Better still: If you can, hold revenues from future events in an escrow account and pay the hotel bill at one time from there. (These are also very important if you are forced to cancel and repay all money already received.)

8. Delegate everything you can. Stop doing your own graphics design, slides, software fixes, bookkeeping, taxes, printing, travel reservations, product fulfillment, and so forth. Have others do it, because the money you spend is paid back one-hundred-fold in free time to devote to marketing and raising your top line. (Do you want YOUR clients doing things themselves that you should be hired to do and you can do faster and better than they?)

9. Don’t “play” the market. Put your long-term investments in the care of professionals. Ask for referrals and references from people who are successful to find the financial advisors who are best for your situation and philosophy. Never accept financial advice from anyone who is also selling a product (insurance, securities, and so on), because their product will always be the “answer.” Just pay for advice or the management fee. Remember that the idea in life is not to make money, but to create value and help people. As George Merck said, “Do good and good will follow.”

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.

I was driving by a well-manicured expanse of lawn covering perhaps six acres. In one spot, about 150 gulls were sitting on the grass in a large cohesive group, conducting a meeting on the drizzly morning. Just a few yards away, about 100 geese were holding court. Apparently, the Avian Aviation Authority had grounded all flights due to weather.

There were no gulls among the geese, no geese among the gulls. Neither ruffled the feathers of the other, but there was no interaction whatsoever. They each stuck to their own kind.

Too often people do the same. We stick with people who look like we do, think like we do, dress like we do, comport themselves like we do. I remember the New Yorker cartoon in which a man behind a desk talks to a job candidate on the other side of the desk who looks exactly like him and says, “I don’t know what it is about you, but I really like you!”

Yet we are sentient creatures, and our DNA does not require that we all look alike and act alike and congregate as one. We have free will, and our futures are mainly in our own hands, our daily behaviors totally within our own purview.

A Fortune 100 client once assured me, while hiring me to look into their diversity practices, that I would wind up using them as a model of diversity and inclusion. Yet when I walked into the massive cafeteria to look around at lunch, I saw all the gulls, geese, blue jays, robins, and sparrows—clustered together in their own groups.

Too many trade and professional associations appear to be birds of a feather—the same people saying the same things in the same way. There are no divergent opinions sought, no provocation, no exploration. I once facilitated a group of high-powered, male, insurance executives from 24 different firms. Every one had on a blue or grey suit, a red or blue tie, and wing-tips; all had hair that was grey, white, and/or balding. The topic was innovation, and why the insurance industry seemed to lag behind.

“Look around,” I advised.

With whom are you hanging out? At meetings, might you as well be peering into a mirror? Does anyone around you provoke, confront, upset, push back, or find irony? Are you walking away energized or merely content, agitated or merely reaffirmed?

My money is with the gulls. The geese fly in formation. The gulls fight for food. To me, all geese look alike. But the gulls have diverse colors and markings if you look closely.

The problem is that I shouldn’t have to look too closely at you to tell you’re your own person.

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.

Meg Wheatley is my featured guest at the Third Annual Thought Leadership Workshop in October at the Ritz-Carlton in Naples (http://summitconsulting.com/seminars/the-thought-leadership-symposium-2012-10.php). She was recently interviewed on leadership in a piece you can access here:

http://www.strategy-business.com/article/11406?gko=15f1d&cid=TL20111215

If you want to reach new heights in your professional development, you can’t afford to bypass these opportunities to spend intimate time with the top people in their fields. She follows Marshall Goldsmith and David Maister in my series with the best and the brightest.

Click here to register now.

Not long out of college, when the tradition was for everyone to get a job, get married, and get a house, many peers were talking of the benefits of a finished basement. The problem was, I heard “Finnish basement,” and never having owned a house, figured that this was a sophisticated Nordic feature, akin to a sauna or ice fishing.

Fortunately, the pronunciation was close enough so that I didn’t embarrass myself and everyone assumed I was not as abysmally dumb as I was about this.

Prior to this, I was the beneficiary of a classical liberal arts education at Rutgers, and our “western civilization” professor spent a great deal of time on “The Sun King,” France’s Louis XIV. “Fourteenth” in French is Quatorze and our professor often called him Louis Quatorze or “Le Roi Soleil.”

Near the end of the semester, a guy across from me asked, “Which of the three kings is he going to focus on in the final?” I told him he had better study all of them.

We create these inadvertent falsifications all too frequently. We believe what a disaffected employee tells us about a client without applying our observations to validate the claim. We accept “projection” by others: “You’ll never be able to get to see her,” or “You’ll never be able to ski that mountain.” For years I had heard that the CEO of Merck at the time, Roy Vagelos, was a tyrant. But when I sat in meetings with him I found him to be a tough but very fair leader, who listened to reason and changed his mind when presented with factual arguments.

This phenomenon is stimulated by laziness—it’s easier to accept comments than to take the time to check them out. I’ve heard people admit they rush over words they don’t know, guessing at the meaning, rather than simply tapping the iPad screen and generating an instant definition. I fell off a chair when a consultant, asked for comment on a client initiative, said that he found it “meretricious.” (Definition: Of or relating to a prostitute.)

If you don’t know, ask. If you’re not sure, test. If you’re unfamiliar, admit it.

Otherwise, you may just retreat to your office to get some work done only to find three guys in your sauna.

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.

The Art of the Referral Workshop attendees in Newport:

Left to right: Barry Cope, Kevin Pare, Jean Oursler, Phil Symchych, Kathy Kingston, Bill Lee, Alan Weiss, Mitch Tubin, Dave Balch, Phillip Werenfels, Linda Henman, Scott Edinger

We will have a complete video for our home study page available in the next two weeks or so.

I was asked in Melbourne, as I’m asked almost all the time, how I can generate so much material in so short a time. I publish several newsletters, columns, articles, videos, podcasts, and book portions on a monthly basis. In addition I handle the usual 80 emails a day, and appear on AlansForums.com at least three times a day. Oh, yeah, and then there’s this blog. Yet I work far less than most people.

My facetious response is that I strive for volume and not accuracy. A truth that is equally uncomfortable for people, however, is that I have two basic techniques to generate enormous volume:

1. I plan my work in advance.

2. I NEVER self-censor or self-edit. I don’t second-guess myself.

Can my writing be improved? Sure. Would it make a significant difference for my point and for the reader? No.

My past guests at my Thought Leadership Workshops: David Maister says, “You know what has to be done. The problem is you don’t do it.” Marshall Goldsmith says, “What got you here, won’t get you there.” (In other words, change your habits to reach new levels.)

I’m telling you to seek success and forget about perfection.

Here’s a radical thought. Write an “appointment with yourself” in your Filofax (or whatever calendar you use) to write an article, or blog entry, or position paper, or part of a book at a certain time on a certain date. Keep that “appointment” sacrosanct, as if it’s with a client. Eventually, schedule three or four a week, and you’ll find yourself producing prodigious amounts of material.

Stop procrastinating. Stop saying you’ll get to it when you have time. Stop telling yourself you can’t decide what to write (content) or where to put it (vehicle). Just write it and place it anywhere.

I hope this is of help, because I’m not rewriting it.

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.

We’re three days into the Consulting College, and here are some of the “keepers” from the group:

• Speed and brevity are essential for success.

• Extraordinary growth does not result from doing more of the old, but from changing the nature of how you do things.

• High buyer commitment accompanied by fees which are too low create a self-defeating sale, and leave money on the table you can never, ever recover.

• You should be diagnostic in your marketing phase but prescriptive in your delivery.

• Creating a trusting relationship MUST precede conceptual agreement and proposals.

• You are far better served with a limited list of highly qualified prospects than a massive list of random names.

• It is completely consistent to move to higher fees AND lower labor intensity concurrently (e.g., retainers, licensing, etc.).

• Audio, video, and text combinations should be used in marketing on the web, including your own site and blog, as well as platforms such as iTunes and YouTube.

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.

As consultants, we have to guard against the insidious dynamic of “not being able to win enough.” It’s often an external stimulus: “Nice sales job this year, but of course you didn’t break that record set in 1988.” Or: “It’s wonderful that Stanford accepted you early admission. Your cousin, Rachel, did that with Stanford AND Harvard, remember?”

However, this is often an internal issue, especially with people whom we coach. When Jim Collins’s fine book appeared, everyone was talking about going from “good to great,” but very few knew what that meant, or how they’d know when they made progress toward “great.” Remember Michael Hammer and “reengineering”?  Everyone wanted to “reengineer,” though few would know it if they tripped over it, and some probably believed it meant running a locomotive.

When coaching clients say they want to be “extraordinary leaders,” “outstanding managers,” “state-of-the-art financial experts,” or “world class strategists,” ask them exactly how that condition would differ from their current one. I just completed my second annual Thought Leadership Workshop for two dozen people, and one major issue is: What are the traits that describe and typify a thought leader? With that knowledge you can tell what you should be achieving and measuring.

Do you want to be regarded as the top consultant in supply chain management? Or does your client want to be acknowledged as the finest sales executive in the industry? What would that look like and how would others know?

If you don’t pursue that level of specificity, you wind up in tendentious discussions about “best” and “ahead of the curve” and “innovative.” But those contribute to an amorphous mess if you can’t really specify what the “best” would be compared to “non-best.” When you are specific—with yourself or with your clients—you create the environment for clear objectives, crisp metrics, and obvious value, and concomitant high fees.

You can also discriminate among the important and not so important. A pharmaceutical firm needs world-class chemists, but probably not world-class accountants. The book that you write doesn’t have to be a best-seller, but only has to get you into a few dozen key new clients.

TIAABB: There Is Always A Bigger Boat. Don’t pursue grandeur for its own sake. Pursue reasonable growth goals. If you do that consistently, you’ll be in a very comfortable boat, with the wind and spray in your face, and others in your wake.

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.

The 2011 Thought Leadership Workshop is now completed, with David Maister as my guest, following Marshall Goldsmith last year. (The 2012 session is October 22-24 in Palm Beach—contact me for participation or use my web site. I have 15 seats available, that’s all.)

Here are my most vivid recollections from the beach:

• Tell people what you think and what you believe will help them, prescriptively. Don’t struggle for consensus.

• The ideas don’t have to be new, they have to be pragmatic and immediately applicable.

• Use multiple media: books, articles, blogs, newsletters, speeches, interviews, video, podcast, teleconferences, and so on. Broadcast your message.

• Use metaphor and symbolism to emphasize and create memorability.

• Understand your own “sweet spot” (what you’re superb at helping others accomplish) and identify the support factors that emphasize varying aspects.

• Thought Leadership can be research-based, or anecdotal, supported by examples and evidence.

• “Hang out with” and interact with other, recognized thought leaders.

• The term is vulnerable to cliché. I like to think of “results leaders.”

• Thought leaders evolve and change and are public figures who are accessible.

• One of the truest tests is longevity, with evolution of intellectual property.

• Intellectual property isn’t supposed to be hidden under a mattress. If you’re afraid of it being stolen if you broadcast it, then your claim to it is tenuous.

More to come.

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.

(This is a summary of just one day of my Thought Leadership Workshop currently underway at The Breakers in Palm Beach. The notes are from Andrew Hollow, attending from Australia, who is a member of the Mentor Hall of Fame, and who posted these on AlansForums.com.)

Thought Leadership Summary by Andrew Hollo

Today we had David Maister join us for the afternoon, so these points combine Alan’s and David’s sessions:

1. If you meet resistance, don’t just give up, you have to make your point MORE strongly: either the idea, its instantiation (the conversion of an idea from the abstract to the concrete), its monetization or its exploitation.

2. The shortcut to determining whether my TL offers value is asking: (i) what’s a condition that needs to be improved? (ii) what’s the need that I can create? and (iii) what’s my response to this?

3. Focus my TL on my great clients. Then, my past clients. Next, prospects, recommenders and knowledgeable strangers.

4. Success trumps perfection (yes, again!) – From Alan: “People don’t examine a body of work closely; all it does is builds credibility”

5. A TL at the top of his/her game distills an accumulation of tested, repurposed, accessible IP and earns the right to express it didactically and assertively (viz. “The Consulting Bible”)

6. From David M:
- “Forget the big piece (i.e., the book). Write articles. After a year or two you’ll have 20 – 30 pieces which have been widely distributed and which you can assemble”
- “TL is not about originality; it’s about being the person they want to speak to about a topic”
- “A TL writes as if THIS is how he’s (already) running his life”
- “Train people to get used to me as a source of ideas”
- “Get a reputation as someone who shares content, not as someone who obsessively keeps ownership”
- “Tempt and seduce: give them (your audience) somewhere to go”
- “If you’re doing ANY marketing in consulting, you’re an idiot” (e.g., building databases of prospects is nearly always a less effective substitute for actually LISTENING to clients, preferably current clients with unmet needs)

7. David referencing Neil Rackham: As a Thought Leader, you won’t get directly to ‘powerful people’. Instead your TL will reach ‘receptive people’, who will put you in touch with ‘troubled people’ (those “whose ox is being gored”) who can help you reach ‘powerful people’.

8. The most potent TL is “what no-one helps you learn” (In David’s case, this was how to sell – when you have an over-developed intellect but an under-developed personality i.e., many accountants, lawyers and consultants).

9. You don’t where opportunity will come from. So write. And speak. And do both a lot. And don’t worry WHICH talk, or which article, or which book will generate the big lead.

10. Thought Leaders attract people who are attractive to other people.

11. Practice performing as a Thought Leader: high energy presentations; self-deprecation balanced with healthy ego; engaging and interactive with your audience; seemingly limitless content.

12. TL is as important as actual consulting: “What you do with your billable time is your income; what you do with your non-billable time (i.e., TL) is your future”

Two-thirds of the way there – another great day tomorrow.

Over and out.

Andrew Hollo

“Reinvention” can quickly become a bromide and buzzword. But I’ve found reinvention to be key to my career, especially when it’s ahead of the curve (or creating it’s own curve). We discussed this at the Million Dollar Club and elsewhere, and here’s a quick diagnostic to help you proactively consider it.

I’ve developed 8 areas of reinvention which are affected in varying degrees by three major dynamics. Consider radical change (“a sharp right turn”) in those areas where you can achieve the highest impact. Here’s the graph:

……………………..Societal Change       Technology       Economy

Beliefs

Expertise

Processes

Content

Market

Affiliations

Clients

Distribution

For example, if you converted part of your practice from wholesale (corporate) markets to retail (individuals) whom you reached with remote means (teleconferences), you would be reinventing your market to take advantage of the technology, volatile economy, and growing belief in being your own boss.

Another example: You begin working with non-profits as a new client base, since they are having tough times raising funds (economy), by creating new ways for them to reach prospective donors (technology), with a marketing message about the importance of communities helping themselves (social change).

Too many consultants try to guess at what “the next big thing” will be. Why not create it yourself with some discipline and analysis?

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.

What is “intelligence”? I don’t believe it’s equivalent to IQ, which often simply reveals who takes certain types of tests better than others (and if you’re at all exposed to Mensa, the self-described “top 2 percent,” you’d think the members had acquired the answers to the tests).

Intelligence is reflected by success, not necessarily solely or even primarily financial success, though one would think that the more success you enjoy the relatively more you’ll be compensated in your particular career pursuits. But what creates a person of better than average intelligence?

It’s certainly not merely education, because I attended a fine school, Rutgers, that educated a great many people but didn’t contribute much to the intelligence on some because the individuals were busy refusing to learn. (They believed, with some degree of proof, that they merely had to pass certain tests, not realizing that the greater test of life didn’t have an answer sheet that could be cribbed or notes that could be copied.)

In observing, coaching, and helping to develop people globally for 30 years, my “model” looks like this:

AI = A + L + V  x  S

Applied intelligence equals awareness, plus learning, plus volition, multiplied by speed.

Awareness means Scope of Processing

• Sensory skills

• Discrimination

• Perspective

Margaret Wheatley points out in Leadership and the New Science that “consciousness” is related to the extent that information is processed.

Learning means Degree of Integration

• Synthesis

• Versatility

• Prioritization

This is the ability to take processed information and “attach” it to your frames of reference, priorities, and talents, creating new knowledge.

Volition means Immediacy of Action

• Optimism

• Resilience

• Risk taking

This is the drive to apply the learning immediately, not to “wait for the right time,” and to create opportunities to apply it to improve performance and results.

Speed is the rapidity possible in each of the three areas

• Judgment

• Sense of urgency

• Relevance

This measure includes increasing speed as the processes are internalized, and seeking success, not perfection.

Each of my bullet points can involve specific skills building, coaching, and practice.

My experience is that intelligence should be measured by relative success and is dependent on these factors, all of which are learnable and coachable. While some people have “gifts” (e.g., the ability to play the piano by ear or write quickly and expressively), the norm is for pragmatic skills development, which means we have to understand the process.

Anyone can improve their intelligence with the correct steps and discipline.

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.

What many of you really need….

Used with permission, © Jim Hines 2011 (www.jimchines.com).

From out 2011 meeting notes:

How Do You Sustain A Seven-Figure Business

• Leverage your momentum. Use client stories with permission. Aggressively seek referrals.

• Build on strengths. Seek new markets, new offerings, new clients—and expanded work around current clients—based on core competencies.

• See the client as a person, not an entity or “business.” You’re dealing with a person, not merely a representative of the organization.

• Have passion about what you do, not about making money or “building numbers.”

• Reinvent yourself continually, and help your clients reinvent themselves.

• Ask, “What IS a high quality client relationship?” and then adhere to those standards.

• Help others and you’ll help yourself.

• Think of the fourth sale first. How can this become a long-term client?

• Gravitas plus relevance equals trust. Produce intellectual property, build your brand power, become a thought leader.

• Personally, improve your visibility in the marketplace with your most valuable potential buyers through gravity, publishing, speaking, the web, and brand power.

We now have 12 people representing 6 countries. There is still time to register and participate in the October 31 event in Newport. The only other College currently scheduled is in South Africa in March, 2012.

http://summitconsulting.com/consulting-college/consulting_college_2011-09.php

l’m offering a teleconference on Sept. 30 at 11 am Eastern US time on the subject of “money” (NOT investing money): Why it’s important, how to use it, why it’s not real wealth, how to safeguard it, philosophy about it, and so on.

I ask only a $10 donation BY CHECK ONLY to the East Greenwich Animal Protection League, sent to my company address: Box 1009, East Greenwich, RI 02818. (If you are outside the US, a local contribution on the honor system is acceptable, drop me an email to register at alan@summitconsulting.com.)

Inside the US, you can register ONLY by check, including your name and email address for instructions to be sent. I will not register you without the check, and checks must be received by Sept. 28. Do not make a direct contribution in any other manner, as I am collecting the checks, and matching the total, presenting them at a special event. Within the US, you can only register with a check made out to EGAPL and your email address and name.

A free download will be forwarded to your email address within 48 hours of the teleconference. So if you can’t make the date and time you will still have the entire event. No cancellations, sorry.

I hope you can join us.

Alan

This is a small sample of some of the issues discussed and supported at the fourth meeting of The Million Dollar Consulting® Million Dollar Club. This session was in Stresa, Italy, on the shores of Lago Maggiore. If you feel you qualify for the club and are interested, just drop me a line or give me a call.

Keepers from the Million Dollar Club

Stesa, Italy

Sept. 15-17,2011

• Just-in-time knowledge, combining the trend for mobile information with the means to provide quick access to the particular knowledge needed for the work.

• Purchasing an ongoing, successful event which draws buyers for your services, and hosting it in the future.

• Creating teleconferences around the subject of your new book.

• Developing and retaining intellectual property—and recombining it—by tracking it within your business “universes.”

• Creating a disciplined, methodical marketing plan within current clients before the engagement ends.

• The eight areas of reinvention and the three dynamics affecting them (separate article to come).

• Synthesizing intellectual property, thought leadership, and equity in your brand.

• Ensuring all aspects of your image are those of a highly successful firm.

• Refraining from over-diversifying, to the point that nothing is moving forward boldly.

• Improving the options we offer in value and fee.

• Lateral selling within clients: internal buyer referrals to other internal buyers.

• Creating a client site project manager from the client’s management.

• Never second-guess yourself. Save the time, the energy, and the stress. Just do it, make any correction later.

• You are not your firm. Don’t take personally comments about the firm, and use the firm as an entity to borrow money, provide a legal firewall, and so forth. Your firm may fail, but it doesn’t mean you fail.

• Technology is highly scalable, and you can leverage it without adding overhead.

• Everyone is the room has published commercially or is in the process of doing so, or both. Seize opportunities to use the book to promote your major business initiatives.

• Exploit referrals, and build a plan to solicit them constantly.

• Create high value in your firm today, because the equity is important now and as an eventual exit strategy should you want one.

• Chad has developed a prototype App for Alan which will be launched in the near future, and the likelihood is that all of our firms can benefit from either personal Apps or pass-through Apps from others.

• Keep personal time sacrosanct. Work around it to achieve your musts each day, and if there is time work on priority “wants.” If there is still time, work on lower priority “wants.”

• Whether in wholesale (corporations) or retail (consumers) business, there is still an individual buyer with whom a relationship is key in non-commodity sales.

• Passion is about the nature of the value you provide, not revenue or numbers. Find out what your passions are, then make money providing that value.

• Focus often requires help. The time we spend doing this is usually not done elsewhere at all. That includes our business time and social time together during these events.

• There is no substitute for self-discipline, self-accountability, and self-reliance.

© The Million Dollar Club 2011. All rights reserved.

I entered a coffee shop after my workout this morning and a very young, petit woman was on the job. She had on a tee-shirt with a single word emblazoned: “Seniors.” I asked for two iced coffees, with two sweeteners and cream.

She held up different sized cups in each hand and said, “Which size?”

“The one in your left hand,” I said. She promptly put that one away and used the cup in her right hand. I am not making this up. I watched her prepare the iced coffees and noticed there was no cream, yet she filled them to the brim. She made two trips for the sweetener, instead of getting them all at one time.

“You forgot the cream,” I pointed out, and she said, “Right.” Instead of pouring some of the coffee out to make room, she topped them off to overflowing with some cream, mixed them, and put the covers on.

I asked if she were, indeed, a senior. She said she was, and I asked which of the local high schools she attended. “Oh, no,” she corrected, “I’m a senior at the University of Rhode Island.”

“What are you studying?”

“Secondary education.”

(I couple this with a guidance counselor I saw recently in another state at her retirement dinner, giving the middle finger as part of her speech in critique of the state governor. Sometimes I’m so repulsed that I’m stunned.)

The senior is a nice kid and any of us can have a bad day, including me. But I began thinking about the primary and secondary school mess in the US in terms of providing universally high quality education, the frequent impasses between teacher unions and boards of education, and the woeful inability of too many kids to gain employable skills.

Every business today is a communications business. The Internet hasn’t changed that, it’s exacerbated the need. Every organization needs customers or clients or members, and they need to market, sell, service, and repair.

I’ve been consulting and coaching since the 70s, for some of he largest entities in the world, boutique firms, and individuals. I’ve been to 59 countries and written 45 books. I tell you this because I have a pretty fair frame of reference.

To succeed, we need four basic communications competencies:

1. Read with comprehension. We need to be able to read a newspaper column, a blog post, or a book and understand the author’s intent, apply it to our situations, and relate varied ideas to each other. Speed reading is senseless unless it includes speed comprehension. I’ll take slower reading and greater comprehension any day.
2. Write with expression. We should be able to use metaphors, analogies, and examples to help others quickly understand what we’re conveying in our email and business correspondence, and convince them of our worth and intent. This is a matter of building vocabulary and practicing writing. (And if you don’t teach kids cursive writing, how do they read their families’ correspondence, historical documents, write personal “thank you” or sympathy letters, and so on? If the power fails and keyboards are useless, are we then rendered inarticulate?)
3. Speak with influence. We ought to address a meeting, a conference, or merely other parties with appropriate language and examples. We don’t (believe me) need to be “motivational speakers,” but we should be able to make our points without stammering or using “you know” as an adjective. The too-frequent resort to mere obscenity among many comedians is simply a demonstration of lack of wit and talent (which you can also see on Facebook and YouTube among those who curse instead of think).
4. Listen with discernment. We’re all so eager to talk, that we don’t adequately listen. We want our Warholian 15 minutes, but we want it every hour. We hear a cacophony in ongoing stimuli, but don’t listen for intelligence or knowledge. Listening is a skill, but apparently there is insufficient instant gratification for those who just want to talk. Take the blue, blinking metal out of your ear and try listening for a change.

Read, write, speak, listen: In this environment, they are the fundamentals for success, the advantage over the competition. More than ever, we are a communicating society. The question is, who’s making sense?

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.

I’m too often asked the same question by the same person, often within the life span of a Mayfly. One of the more useless of the mindless bromides is, “There is no such thing as a stupid question.”

Or course there is, and most are questions already answered but ignored.

There is a profound difference between coaching or mentoring and co-dependency (and enabling it). A healthy individual should be able to listen to the response to a question and integrate it into one’s knowledge and performance base.

The person responding to the question should make the attempt to “test for understanding”: Ask how the answer will be utilized and applied. (Example: I’ve just answered your question about how to apply value-based fees. Now I’m going to ask you, “What will you say differently to your next prospect about your fee basis?”) Very few of my college professors EVER attempted to test for understanding. They were simply testing for memory or study habits once or twice a semester. (When I ran an interactive class for grad students at the University of Rhode Island for several semesters, it was so popular and effective that an assistant dean told me I was not to continue after five semesters because the full-time faculty was complaining.)

How does one integrate learning, and how does one help someone else to do so? Without delving into the synapses and psychologically arcane, here is what I’ve observed:

1. Make sure you understand the question’s intent by asking why it’s important. Many people have a legitimate need but ask the wrong question. Find out what the need is and don’t simply accept the question at face value.
2. Ask what they think the answer is. Find out what thought they’ve given it.
3. Provide your response and ask the other person to provide an example of use and/or to repeat it in different words (testing understanding).
4. If you’re asked the same question again within a short time frame, ask the person to repeat the prior discussion, and ask why they need more help.
5. If you’re asked again over a longer time frame, the probability is that the answer isn’t juxtaposed to the actual need, and you’ll need to provide some reinforcement or reference for the situations when the answer is needed.
6. If you’re asked repeatedly despite the above remedies, refuse to answer. You’re simply enabling dysfunctional behavior.

It’s been said that if you “use a word three times, it’s yours,” in terms of building vocabulary. I have observed that if new knowledge or new behaviors are immediately implemented, they become reinforced much more quickly. You can’t wait “for the right opportunity,” you have to create the opportunity. If you’re trying to master new influencing skills, don’t wait for a moment requiring influencing, go to a meeting and try to influence the discussion.

If something is really important, why don’t you learn how to do it instead of relying on others every time?

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.

I’m here to invite you to the final “Odd Couple” in 17 years in June 1-3, 2012 – 2 and a half days, we’re going out in style.

I am an advanced stamp collector (stop snickering), and have a quite sophisticated US collection. I’m constantly looking for those rather expensive issues I’ve not yet acquired.

In a national publication, I found a stamp dealer online in my home down, specializing in the US! I send an email, asking if he had three issues in particular I was looking for. Here’s what he wrote back:

I’m looking toward the breakers about 200 yards away. But I can’t see the beach or even the water because of the fog. Last night on the boardwalk at Wildwood you couldn’t see the top of the ferris wheel or the roller coaster.

The fog is caused by atmospheric conditions. Water droplets are formed when cool air is over warmer ground in most cases of fog on the surface (unlike a cloud). It can be quite opaque or at best translucent.

But I know the beach is there. I know the roller coaster is still on its track. And if I move forward, the fog disperses and I can begin to see those things closest to me all the better.

There is fog in all of our lives at various times. The “atmospheric” conditions cause it: family, business relationships, uncertainty, fear, lack of self-belief, and so on. Many of us can quickly remove it by changing the temperature, or moving our position, or shining a bright light. But many wander around in it, waiting for it to end, bemoaning their fate, cursing the poor visibility.

You can’t go through life, let alone your career, groping about in the fog of confusion, fear, guilt, or lack of confidence. You need simple methods and approaches to eliminate the fog: acquire skills, take prudent risks, understand and communicate your value, jettison demeaning baggage.

There are too many people lost in the fog who make excuses about why they should be there, why they can’t escape, why it’s impossible to see any better. They become ghosts of themselves, spectral images without substance, without followers, without interest. To the world around them, it’s as if they’re no longer present.

I can’t see the beach but I know it’s there. I know the route and I’m unafraid to pursue it. I know the roller coaster doesn’t disappear. In fact, I know that if I get on it, even if I can’t see the top, it’s going to be one hell of a ride.

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.

Our Shameless Promotion group at Siena Restaurant and my home, the fifth such intimate group aimed at dramatic growth. The learning is the “filler” between great meals!

Todd Ordal, me, Pat Tith, Richard Citrin

I get some nutty requests and some innocent misunderstandings in my mail, but sometimes I simply receive unbridled self-absorption.

I guy writes me this morning and says that he purchased on of my books on Amazon.com as an electronic download for his Android, but he can’t read all the charts and graphs clearly on such a small screen, so would I send him all the charts and graphs in the book by return email?!

I pointed out that he engaged in a transaction with McGraw-Hill through Amazon, not with me, and that he chose the particular platform on which to read the book, not I. It would take all of $16 or so to purchase the book and get the charts in context. But, no, I should take $2,000 of my time to make it right for him.

He wrote back and told me I violated my own values, that I’m claiming it’s not my fault and he should fix it himself. He said there’s no reason why I can’t send him the 20 or more graphics. Yet it is his fault and I’m not going to fix it. Imagine if one one-hundreth of my readers started making such requests on a daily basis?

This is symptomatic of people who are so self-absorbed that they’re about to shrink into a tiny cube of self-importance. I have millions of readers at this point, worldwide, and I’m sitting here running a seven-figure, global business. Yet because he made bad choices, I’m supposed to fix things for him, stop my day, pat his head.

Folks, if you have to cry out for free help with something this abysmally silly, you ought to go back to day care, where there’s a much more appropriate peer group.

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.

Socrates observed that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” Perhaps the unexamined practice is not worth working.

How often are you willing and able to take a critical look at your own professional services practice (or most kinds of business)? Here are some suggestions to be your own best consultant:

• Are your revenues increasing by at least 10 percent a year? Why or why not?

• Is profit increasing by at least 10 or more percent per year? Why or why not?

• Are you ensuring that no single client represents more than 15 percent of your business?

• Is your name and/or brands better known by more prospects than a year ago?

• Have you created new intellectual property in the prior year?

• Have you published in magazines, newsletters, or newspapers—hard copy or electronic—in the past year?

• Have you received at least a dozen unsolicited, spontaneous referrals in the prior year?

• Are you being asked to speak and address groups at least monthly?

• Have you been able to increase your vacation time and discretionary time over the past year?

• Do you have contracted business that will pay fees over the next six months, and contacts going beyond that?

• Do you have no outstanding receivables older than 30 days?

• Are you submitting all invoices for fees and expense reimbursement as soon as possible?

• Do you create and analyze ideas for new products and/or services on a monthly basis? Do you implement at least one a quarter?

• Do you feel in charge of your life and organized, or disorganized and overwhelmed?

• Do you have a financial, liquid reserve equal to a year’s expenses?

• In all candor, would most people in your field and most of your clients and prospect see you as a current or emerging leader in the field?

Food for thought. Tough questions. If you don’t ask them and act on them, who will?

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.

Last opportunity before end of Australia’s tax year, and discount deadlines. Save over $1,000.

Reserve your space here:
http://www.summitconsulting.com/seminars/alan-in-sydney.php

I frequently  critique book ideas of people whom I mentor, and sometimes co-write books, in addition to my personal publishing. The early conversations often go like this:

Them: “I want to write a book about the importance of execution.”

Me: “The prospective readers already know the importance.”

Them: “Well, I’ll write about how to execute better.”

Me: “They know that, too.”

Them: “Then what should I write about?”
Me: “The discipline and accountability of execution.”

I’ve found that most senior managers (and, for that matter, most people), know why something is important. If they don’t, then some awareness heightening is needed.  They also know what to do about it. If not, they need to be exposed to options. They additionally know how to do it, in most circumstances. If they don’t or they can’t, then some skills training or coaching or experiences will take care of it.

But what people lack these days in the impetus, urgency, and rigor to actually put what they know into action. They claim combatting priorities, lack of time, disorganization, and so forth. But the reality is that the difference between getting something changed and not getting something changed is focus and discipline. These two traits seem to require exequies these days.

People have the tools to paint the garage or to find a painter to do it, but the job goes undone until the home owners’ association threatens to condemn the property. Why? Because we just “never get around to it.”

The company needs to change its brand, or enter a new market, or revamp the compensation system. There are enough smart people around, either internally or externally, to make those changes. But there is no champion, no special incentive or reward, and no real pressure to make it happen. Habitually, executives assign tasks but not accountability.

The last time I looked, over $62 billion was spend annually in the U.S. on training programs by corporate America (source: American Society for Training & Development). Yet virtually none of it was measured for effectiveness or return on investment. That’s because no one wants to know. Not the firms which don’t have the rigor to turn the training event into behavior change on the job. Not the training firms, selling boxes and software and workshops that are highly profitable and without any metrics at all in most cases. Not the participants, who are merely getting their “ticket stamped” on the way to being promoted or at least left alone by management.

Discipline requires these elements:

• Clarity of purpose and results intended.

• Metrics for success.

• Accountability to others who frequently review your progress.

• Tools and authority to overcome obstacles and resistance.

• Reward and recognition, even if self-imposed.

My dog, Koufax, apparently holds himself accountable to clear the yard of squirrels when he’s out there. He’s clear on what needs to be done; considers himself successful when the yard is rodent-free; possesses the requisite speed and ferocity; and is quite pleased with himself after a few minutes of work, after which he lies in the shade.

Whether yourself or your clients, it’s surprising how frequently the value isn’t in “how” but rather in “Here’s the deadline, don’t let us down.”

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.

We already have 30 people! If you’re interested in an unprecedented virtually free day with me, including food, drink, and a seat (!!), don’t wait. I haven’t even broadcast this to my larger lists yet.

The Almost Free Workshop

Hyatt Harborside Hotel

Boston’s Logan Airport

October 13, 2011

For the very first time I’m running a free day for people in the consulting, coaching, speaking, and related professions to help them dramatically accelerate business and find new markets. It’s my way of “giving back” and providing an easy location and high-content day.

The registration fee is only $100, which offsets some of the expenses (lunch and refreshments during the day are included) and ensures that people don’t merely sign up to hold a seat and drop out at the last minute.

There is limited seating. And I imagine it’s not going to last long.

Whether you are beginning in the profession or a veteran needing a boost, you’ll find a fast-paced, entertaining, and pragmatic session that will include:

• Finding buyers in times of volatility.

• Framing buyers’ issues quickly.

• Isolating your highest potential constituency and achieving high penetration.

• Creating a fast track to your highest fees for clients.

• Improving self-esteem.

• Improving use of time.

• Overcoming the four primary objections.

• Improving the “language of the sale.”

• Creating “bullet proof” proposals, based on my new book Million Dollar Proposals.

The session will begin at 9 and conclude at 4. Lunch will be provided between noon and 1, and refreshments at 10:30 and 2:30. In addition, there will be complimentary internet connections in the sleeping rooms, free airport shuttle, free gym access, discounted water taxi rates, and a special room rate of only $249 at an outstanding property.

The Hyatt Harborside is on the Logan Airport property, and is reachable by car, free shuttles around the airport, and water taxi from Boston.

Once the seats are taken, I have to close off registration. These are six hours that routinely are included in my $1000 per day and more workshops, but never in the same day. There will be ample opportunity for Q&A, and we’ll have some “hot seats” and role plays from the stage.

First come, first served.

Registration:

http://summitconsulting.com/seminars/Almost%20Free%20Workshop.php

I launched the Million Dollar Consulting® College in 2006, and have run 16 on three continents. Our “home” for the past several years has been the extraordinary property at Castle Hill Inn in Newport, RI (though I did run a session in London earlier this year).

There have also been two graduate schools, and another in the works for early next year, and a home study version.

Over 200 people have participated (often more than once), the best of the best in consulting. Here are my thoughts on concluding #16:

• The toughest aspect of this profession is marketing one’s services. Most people are very fine consultants, coaches, facilitators, and so forth, and/or can quickly learn additional delivery skills. But people are not adept at marketing.

• There is a self-confidence “crisis” that undermines even the best of the best at times. I believe that’s because they don’t feel the common sense which is at the heart of pragmatic consulting is adequate to deal with executive egos, money, and power. And yet it is.

• Most true buyers are undamaged, healthy, and willing to listen to rational argument. They wouldn’t be where they are if they weren’t smart, wouldn’t be thinking of hiring us if they weren’t smart, and are often ridiculously portrayed by “consulting gurus” as evil, malicious, and as “the enemy.” That’s preposterous. This profession is collegial, not adversarial.

• As a rule, consultants undercharge and overdeliver. Worse, they spend far too much time with people who can say “no” but not “yes.” There is a hesitancy to risk not being liked, and to spend far too much time traveling down the dead end of low level people.

• The real difference starts as soon as you awake in the morning. You’re either of the mind that this is another tough day with horrible prospects and overwhelming challenges, or it’s another great opportunity to provide value to people who will profit from having known you.

• The profession isn’t about “selling” but rather about value. That means that a fundamental step is understanding clearly what your own value is for others, and articulating it clearly and readily. One of the problems for very bright, intellectually curious people is that they don’t like to focus on what they feel may be a delimiting statement.

• Solo consultants have done well before, during, and after tough economic times. That’s because the value we provide isn’t resident within the clients who need us.

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.

The College draws to an end today. We had the opportunity for cigars and wine on the beach. The last College in 2011 is scheduled for the week of October 31: http://summitconsulting.com/consulting-college/consulting_college_2011-09.php

If you’re having difficulties in your consulting business, or want to grow considerably, there are six areas to examine that can immediately focus you IF you’re honest about the responses.

1. Defining yourself: Can you quickly, clearly, and articulately explain how others are better off after having done business with you? That should take about 15 seconds. (“Elevator speeches” are among the dumbest advice you’ll ever receive.)
2. Finding/attracting buyers: Are you regularly reaching the people who can write a check for your value, and are they regularly finding you? Is your marketing directed at the right people to begin with, and do you have sufficient appeal and visibility to attract them?
3. Creating relationships: Can you form trusting relationships with buyers relatively quickly (in one or two in-person meetings)? Will they share their objectives, concerns, and personal views with you, and actively seek out your advice and reactions? Do you have the business acumen and interpersonal skills to accomplish this?
4. Creating proposals: Do you have a template for a brief, highly focused proposal based on a large ROI for the buyer and equitable compensation for you? Can you readily provide options to escalate the scope of the project and fees? Are you using value-based fees?
5. Proposal acceptance: Are at least 80 percent of your proposals accepted without compromise or negotiation? Are they accepted within one week of submission? Are two-thirds accepted with higher options (option 2 or 3, not 1)?
6. Repeat/referral business: Are you receiving both solicited and unsolicited referrals from your buyer, and are you able to create additional business with the same buyer at least half the time?

Choose those that are causing you a problem and improve your skills or modify your behaviors. Find someone to help you if you don’t know what to do next. You have to be adept at ALL of these steps to dramatically grow a business.

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.

If you want to succeed, “show up”:

Don’t ask for directions that are clearly stated in the literature or notice you’ve received. Pay attention.

Get to the meeting early and get your materials and support prepared. Find a good seat to listen and to influence.

Don’t get up to get coffee when the organizer says, “We’re ready to begin.” Stop talking to the person next to you while others are talking. And don’t think no one notices you’re texting. Is there another reason to be staring at your lap?

No one is impressed that you’re talking and laughing with others as the meeting or event is beginning. Sit down and don’t have to be asked three times.

Stop being a prima donna. Don’t ask for the temperature to be changed if you’re the only one uncomfortable. Put something on or take something off. Unless you have a true allergy problem, stop asking for a special meal to be prepared for you. And never take the meal that everyone else had at lunch and ask for it to be delivered to you after the program reconvenes.

You have no right to order Internet service in a conference room at a cost to the organizer, nor to ask for additional power strips.

Don’t ask for private time when there are 50 people in the room who would like the same benefit.

Arrange your calls and email during lunch or after the meeting. Stop taking longer breaks to reply to calls that are less than urgent.

If there was preparatory work, do it. Turn it in on time.

Bring business cards, extra batteries, writing implements. Dress appropriately. Act as if the event wasn’t a last-minute surprise to you.

Ask questions, don’t merely answer them. Stop trying to be a faculty member or the second smartest person in the room.

Make your travel arrangements so that you get there before it starts and leave after it ends.

If you’re on a teleconference, either don’t use a speaker phone or mute it. Spoiling it for everyone else with ambient noise and irrelevant conversations should be a criminal offense.

Show some tolerance. Don’t lash out at the hotel or the organizer because an elevator is out of service or the restaurant doesn’t stock Muesli.

Follow up. Send a thank you. Acknowledge the experience. Be someone who people are eager to see again, not someone whose presence discourages others from coming back.

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.

I was asked by someone I’m mentoring whether or not to include a certain element in a workshop she is preparing.

“Why will participants need that?” I asked.

“I’ve been doing this for years,” she said.

“Yes, but why?” I persisted. “What does it provide for anyone?

The answer, of course, is “nothing.” It’s simply another “good idea,” or favored option, or comfortable activity. This is the alternative in search of an objective, the solution  in search of a problem.

Individuals and corporations do this all the time. It’s like the old Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland MGM musicals, where “Let’s put on a show!” was the answer to every challenge, from bankruptcy to poison ivy.

Why are you upgrading your software every two weeks? Why are you attending meetings? Why are you providing reports? Because all of that is truly needed by you and the client, or because you think it represents some kind of forward movement satisfying some need?

Why does your client schedule meetings, run customer surveys, require ten years of experience for certain positions? Because they represent qualitative improvements or because someone things they “make sense”? How many of those survey really tell you anything, or are actually used in terms of their feedback? How many of those meetings are really needed? How many of those ten years were qualitatively worthwhile?

If you want to streamline your life and work and improve your life balance, stop implementing alternatives when you don’t know why you’re doing it, when they don’t provide obvious improvement for you and/or others, and when you’ve never asked yourself if you may be better off not doing it.

Do you want to gain a day a week, a week a month, a month a year? Examine your activities and ask if you’re performing them to improve your or someone else’s condition, of if you’ve simply “always done it that way.” I can guarantee you that you’re doing a lot the client doesn’t even feel or sense, almost as atonement or out of guilt.

Let me give you my best therapeutic analysis: Stop it!

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.

When I was touring the extraordinarily emotional Normandy beaches, I saw the evidence for the noncoms urging men forward, to keep moving, into the guns, and not to stop. Despite the withering fire, the soldiers were safer if they moved toward the obstacles and tried to engage. If they stayed where they were, they would eventually be killed by the unceasing havoc directed at them.

To paraphrase Will Rogers, if you’re simply content to be on the right track and sit there, a train will eventually come along and hit you.

Consultants seem to get stuck on the beach and not move toward clients. The “enemy fire” in this case doesn’t come from the prospect, but from their own poor perceptions. They hesitate if there is an objection, instead of seizing it as an opportunity. They focus on ultra-protection and 26 technology backups instead of common sense and having one good one. (If the world explodes, it really doesn’t matter if backups of your files are circling Alpha Centauri awaiting you.)

No one told the troops on the beach to get ready. They told them to point their guns forward and start firing as they headed in that direction—over obstacles, up hills, and into close combat.

You don’t engage prospects by email, nor close business on the phone. You can’t spend hours on social media platforms, digging foxholes, and actually claim you’re marketing to corporate buyers. You can talk forever about theoretical “alliances” and “collaborations,” make lists, and attend every trade association conference in the world to exchange techniques with your peers, and you’d still be on the beach.

Get off the beach. Follow me. Ask for referrals daily. Get in touch with your past clients. Put proposals in front of buyers within 24 hours of your meeting. Don’t deal with non-buyers (who live on the beach offering sand dunes for protection and who are scared out of their minds themselves). Aggressively write, speak, and network. Broaden your appeal (get more weapons) and abandon the ridiculous mentality that you should specialize in an age of diverse needs.

The soldiers didn’t get ready on the beach, and they weren’t really ready for what they faced. They could have stopped to check their gear or clean their guns or rearrange their equipment. They didn’t. They charged.

Get off the beach. Those are prospects up there on the heights, and the tide is rising behind you.

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.

When you enter a buyer’s office for the first time, here are some useful behaviors to discipline yourself to follow. They’ll help you understand the person, the environment, and your own actions, as well as calm you down if needed.

1. Look around.

What is the office like? Large or small? Is there comfortable seating or merely a desk and chairs? Are there mementoes, photos, and awards, or is the place institutional and sterile? Is it neat or does it look like the aftermath of a shipwreck? This will tell you a lot about the person with whom you’re meeting (assuming it’s the buyer’s personal office!).

2. Shake hands firmly and smile.

Press the hand you’re offered with equal pressure back, whether male or female. Smile when you repeat the other person’s name and your own. If the other person says, “I’m Jane Anderson,” it’s fine to say, “Nice to meet you, Jane.” But if she says, “I’m Dr. Anderson,” then your reply is, “Nice to meet you, Dr. Anderson.” If she says, “Dr. Joan Anderson,” reply with “Dr. Anderson” and see if she says, “Please call me Joan” or not. I always ask people to call me “Alan.”

3. Be seated quickly.

Don’t unpack as if you’re checking into a Ritz-Carlton. You should have left any coats, baggage, computer cases, and mining equipment with the secretary or the receptionist (or in your car or limo). Sit where indicated by your host, take out something with which to take notes, and start listening carefully. (Note: Don’t accept the offer of refreshments, unless you’ve just arrived from the Gobi Desert. Trying to balance coffee, or figure out where to place a tea bag, or wait for the assistant’s interruption, and so forth, just get in the way. You don’t go to a coffee shop to build business, and you don’t go to a business meeting for coffee.)

4. Follow the buyer’s lead.

There’s a huge difference among, “How can I help you today?” and “What can you do for me?” and “Tell me something about yourself and how you’ve come to me.” Answer what you’re asked, but briefly. Tell the buyer what the buyer needs to know, not everything that you know (“I was born in Madagascar….”) You’ve now been able to observe the office, your seating arrangements, body language, and opening conversation, all in about 60 seconds.

5. Take the initiative.

Once pleasantries are briefly exchanged (which could be 30 seconds or five minutes), say something like this: “Both of us appreciate the need to make the best use of our time, so why don’t we set a brief agenda? I have three items I’d like to discuss, and I’d like to hear what your expectations are, and then we can utilize our time accordingly. I think you said we have 45 minutes, is that still the case?” This exchange immediately establishes you as a peer and allows you to actually lead the discussion and avoid becoming a performing seal. Make sure you know what your minimum and maximum objectives are (min/max) for that meeting.

6. Take notes.

Don’t trust your memory, but be judicious. I’ve seen people write everything down as if they’re auditioning for a court reporter’s position. Just note the salient points for your purposes of exploring a potential partnership. I find this easiest to do with a pen and paper, not electronic pecking. Ask for clarification when needed, and paraphrase and summarize regularly.

7. Watch for changes in behavior or language.

The buyer is going to do one of only three things: Stay the same as when you arrived; become less cordial and communicative; become more cordial and communicative. You want the last. Make mid-course corrections by observing what, if any, changes are transpiring. “You seem more enthusiastic about this last point. Should I infer this is your top priority?”

8. Create definitive next steps.

Building trusting relationships takes time. But the time can be shortened if there are clear and agreed upon actions and dates. Never accept “Let me get back to you,” or “Call me in a couple of weeks,” or “I’ll need to get some more information for our next conversation.” Make definite times and dates while you’re sitting there.

Never overstay your time unless explicitly invited to do so and it’s necessary for your purposes. It’s always fine to leave early once the mission (min/max) has been accomplished.

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.

Some consultants I coach and mentor (and many I observe) become “overwhelmed.” The are figuratively (or literally?) overcome by being overcome. The don’t know where to start to begin the journey out.

Here are some tips:

• Stop putting things off and procrastinating. Choose two or three times a day to clear your email, and get rid of it. Respond or file  or delete. But get it off your system. Don’t plan to “get to it later.”

• Stop helping people for free. Help people who pay you to help them. If you want to do pro bono work, do it for a charity you believe in once a month. If you don’t value your help, no one else will, and more people will keep asking you for free advice.

• Minimize social media time. It’s not marketing to the corporate market, and it’s not important for your personal development. If it’s recreationally important, allot  30 minutes a day for it.

• Reconcile your financial needs. Money concerns completely undermine the ability to be confident, make decisions, and take risks. Get a loan, reduce expenses, pursue more business. But stop worrying about money or nothing will work for you. Use credit, that’s what it’s for. Who’s a better risk than you?

• Drop leeches and energy suckers, and focus on positive family, friends, and colleagues. Don’t allow others to add to your sense of overwhelm. There are people who do nothing but, and they are inferiors crying in the night rather than trying to get better during the day.

• Organize yourself. Clean up your office and your calendar. Find a device (I recommend physical aids such as Filofax) to order your universe and control your time. Plan what you have to do and work backwards in small chunks, e.g., from a workshop to its design and its materials, or an article to three periods of writing.

• Ask for help. Talk to people you trust, tell them honestly where you are and listen to their advice.

You don’t want to be hurled away by the gale. You want to lean into the wind.

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.

Here is the opening of my new book, available in about a month from John Wiley & Sons, The Consulting Bible. It will be available for order on my site in about a week.

Section I: Genesis

Consulting as a profession

The origins, evolution, and basic requirements

of successful consulting.

Some realities are self-evident and eternal.

Chapter 1

Origins and Evolution

From whence we came

The role of a consultant

One day, somewhere in the mid-Pleistocene Epoch, after the last glacial period, a man was trying to create a stronger point on his stone spear head, so that he could better hunt and slay the peccaries that fed his clan, and protect himself from dire wolves that fed on his clan. He did this in the only way he knew how, which he learned watching his father—he laboriously abraded the sides of the point on a larger rock.

On this day, however, a stranger happened by who may have been seeking more interesting surroundings, or was exiled from his clan or, one could readily assume, might have simply been lost. Observing the work on the spearhead, the stranger demonstrated that the point had to be ground on a harder rock, not a softer one, and indicated how to choose them. Not just any rock would do. And, indeed, his method worked and the hunter fashioned a sharper spearhead more quickly. The stranger was offered thanks, provided with food, and bestowed with a lion’s tooth. He then went on his way once again, well fed, and with a talisman.

Consulting had been born.

The Gospel: The role of a consultant is to improve the client’s condition.

It may or may not have happened that way, but you can’t prove it didn’t. Consulting—advice, counsel, suggestions—has been around since people began living together. Claims of  “the oldest profession” have been misapplied to another career, though some would claim that consulting can also be somewhat meretricious if performed with poor motives or lack of skills.

Our job is to improve the client’s condition. Doctors are consultants, and one of the first things they learn in medical school is Primum non nocere (first, do no harm). When we walk away from a client, the client’s condition should be better than it was before we arrived, or we’ve failed. (That “we” may mean both the client and we have failed, but we share in the failure in any case.)

It’s that simple.

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.

For decades, politicians have used a slick trick to try to support their positions. They’ll say, “Just yesterday, a druggist in Charlotte, North Carolina asked me when we’ll change health care reimbursement, because he’s going to have to close his business this year if things don’t change.”

Even if the story is true (always questionable), it’s a single incident, not representing “the American people,” and could be the result of the pharmacist’s poor business practices or the big pharmacy chain opening down the block.

Consultants come to me with bizarre plans, justifying them with this same practice: generalizing from a specific. “I want to offer a dancing class for chief executives which will combine strategy work with physical fitness,” I’ll be told. And then: “I was talking to a retired small business owner on an airplane, and she told me after a few drinks that it was a great idea, so I think I’m on to something.”

Conversely, someone will complete a highly successful workshop delivery and be depressed because one person in 20 said on a feedback form, “I didn’t like your sense of humor,” or, “What are you thinking, wearing those shoes?”

Never take action or change your behavior based on a single scrap of feedback. (Most unsolicited feedback is meant to benefit the sender, not the recipient.) Never scrap or implement an idea based on a lonely, single sample. And by all means, elicit feedback from people who know how to do what you want to do and have done it successfully and repeatedly.

I’m very confident about this advice, because I ran it by a wrong number on the phone this morning, and he said it made a lot of sense just before he hung up.

© Alan Weiss 2010. All rights reserved.

Our meetings have concluded in Bora Bora, and our final dinner is tonight. We’ll go via private launch with canapés and champagne

Here are the takeaways from the group:

• Reach out economically to larger constituencies.

• Validation to move to the next stage of growth.

• Diverse people asking for and giving help generate unique ideas.

• Creating “knowledge factories.”

• Licensing globally.

• Replacing one’s self as the CEO of the company to foster creativity and growth while delegating administrative chores.

• Gaining value from others’ abilities as professional advisors, not merely their business models.

• Creating accountability candidly and feeling responsible for goals.

• Thinking bigger (we’re often asked by others how to do this, and we have to do more of it ourselves).

• Focus on dominating targeted markets.

• Applying a low labor intensity/high revenue model to determine strategy for current and proposed offerings.

• Sharpened value propositions.

• Clarifying that “thinking big” is about how you think about your future, not about materials and courses.

• Renewed and stronger confidence in the value of the work.

Members in attendance: Chad Barr (and Laurel Barr), Suzanne Bates (and Drew Yanno), Shane McLucas, Rob Nixon, Michael Sheargold, Andrew Sobel (and Mary Jane Sobel), Alan Weiss (and Maria Weiss).

© Alan Weiss 2010. All rights reserved.

Here is a list of the factors that the Million Dollar Club members found were most critical in improving quality of life:

• Frequent and regular relaxation, and not depending on a major, single vacation.

• Holidays inserted early in next year’s calendar and working around them.

• Establishing specific outcomes for events so that you can maximize progress and make best use of time.

• Attracting clients to come to you.

• Scheduling additional “down time” on either end of a business trip.

• Enabling and encouraging your spouse to join you on trips.

• Stimulating a spirituality about life.

• Avoiding back-to-back meetings and assignments.

• Saying “no” to business and requests that are too burdensome or are inappropriate.

• Establishing the freedom to make your own choices not dictated by the market, the competition, or finances.

© Alan Weiss 2010. All rights reserved.

I haven’t written for a while because we’ve had business meetings in the mornings, snorkeling and water sports in the afternoons, and great dinners in the evenings. Imagine taking one of the finest hotels in the world—with appropriate service and amenities—and transporting it to a Pacific island in a breathtaking settings.

Although the Four Seasons is about 80 percent occupied, there are no lines, ever. Breakfast, lunch, beach chairs, pool lounges—everything is always available and without that horrible resort mentality where people are staking out positions at 6 in the morning and then going back to sleep.

This is the final morning of the Million Dollar Club, with another dinner tonight. Tomorrow is relaxation and then an evening plane connection to LAX and back to Marina del Rey for an evening before returning home.

© Alan Weiss 2010. All rights reserved

Thought Leader characteristics from my Thought Leader Workshop this week at The Breakers in Palm Beach, FL.

• Sought by other professionals.

• Sought by the media.

• Multiple commercially published books.

• Expertise appreciated globally.

• Public appearances.

• Continually ad intellectual property to the field.

• Admit errors and changes/grows.

• Cited by others to prove their points.

• Controversial/provocative.

• Usually have taught at undergraduate and/or graduate levels.

• Star client list.

• Know other thought leaders.

• Plethora of protected intellectual property.

• Totally comfortable with top people in any field.

• Longevity over diverse conditions.

• Communities surround them.

© Alan Weiss 2010. All rights reserved.

I’m writing this on the Internet at 34,000 feet on a Delta flight from Atlanta. We’re returning from Hilton Head Island where I hosted 55 people in The Write Stuff™ Workshop, then 67 in my two-day Mentor Summit, then a dozen of the Mentor Hall of Fame members for a full day.

All of these people throughout the week are dedicated learners, high performance people seeking to improve by investing in themselves. Their professions call for them to add value to others.

During this same week I’ve been approached by the following scammers:

1. Tom, from some organization that sounds like WTG in London, leaves a message with no detail to call him back. When I do track him down in London, he recites either a script or memorized spiel about business executives paying him 2,000 Pounds each to find “solution providers” for their businesses. He is running meetings for them in Berlin and Boston, and would like me to attend as a solution provider.

“How much will you pay me to be there?” I ask, smiling at my wife next to me.

“Oh, you pay me for the opportunity,” Tom says glibly.

“This conversation is over,” I inform him, ending the call. Tom leaves another message calling me “dismissive,” noting that he will remove me from all his data bases and all his mailings. I guess there is great ROI in being dismissive!

2. A woman named Brittany (what else?) calls to tell me she is a “risk analyst” and has found my credit card merchant account is among the lowest risk anywhere. If she can ask me a few questions, I may be qualified to “be treated like my own bank” and not have to work with my credit card processor or real bank.

“Do you work for my bank or my merchant services people, and what are you trying to sell me?” I ask.

“No, I don’t work for them, and I’m merely a risk analyst,” she coos.

“We’re done here,” I coo back, but apparently not dismissively, because I received no follow-up call assuring me I’d be taken off all their lists.

In prior weeks, I’ve received:

3. The ancient offer to place a chapter in a book where the other chapters are all written by “names” and famous business authors. Of course, everyone knows that you pay to do that, everyone knows that there is no credibility at all in doing so, and everyone with a brain thinks poorly of the “names” who lend their names to this awful scam, since most of them don’t need the money (or, then again, maybe they do).

4. The incredible offer for only $15,000 to shoot an “interview” with a host and an ancient politician or celebrity who is propped up against a wall while you’re asked softball questions about your business for a non-existent audience. Why would your buyers find it credible for you to be on channel 469 at three in the morning with Alexander Haig? Who’s in charge here?!

5. The AM radio station that offers you a show to host for only $500 per half-hour and an advertising quota you must bring in. I know a realtor who did this and actually walked around telling people she was asked to host the show!

I could go on. While the thoughtful, professional people in my communities are trying their best to grow and help others legitimately, the scammers immerse all the media with appeals to our ego, the quick buck, the phony celebrity, and the scam.

As the sergeant used to intone on the great, late Hill Street Blues, “Let’s be careful out there!”

© Alan Weiss 2010. All rights reserved.

These are scenes of the crowd at the Writer’s Block Workshop and the Mentor Summit held this week at Sea Pines Plantation in Hilton Head. The Private Roster Mentor Community is a global community of consultants, speakers, coaches, professional services providers, and entrepreneurs who interact daily on AlansForums.com, in workshops, through newsletters, in mastermind groups, on teleconferences, in scheduled podcasts and videos, and so forth.

For information on joining this 12 year-old network of high growth and dynamic learning, visit this page on my web site:

http://summitconsulting.com/services/private-roster-mentor-program.php

You’ll find the program options, my international Master Mentors who can work with you geographically or by speciality, options to work with me directly, the Mentor Hall of Fame, commercially published books by Mentor members, and all the ancillary benefits.

There is no other group or community like this in the world.

Here are the key points that emerged from my third Self-Esteem Workshop, for consultants and entrepreneurs, which I’ve now run in Providence, Dublin, and Newport.

• All of us have a story. It’s exceedingly rare to find anyone who has not had to cope with family breakup, illness, trauma, loss, or catastrophe.

• All of us face challenges to our self-worth at times.

• What happens to you is often not preventable. What you choose to do about it is within your power.

• “Baggage” in and of itself, is necessary. But the baggage must contain the clothes, accessories, and support that suit us for today and tomorrow, not yesterday’s stuff that no longer fits or is out of date.

• You can’t just drop baggage on the train, because it’s still traveling with you at the same rate of speed. You have to throw it off the train and risk killing a few grazing cows.

• Since we become familiar with the often inaccurate and unfair messages and baggage we received growing up, it’s incumbent on us not to do the same to our children and loved ones.

• Pleasing others is not of primary importance, and can cause you to sacrifice your own very legitimate and important objectives.

• Efficacy—how well you can do something—and self-esteem—how well you regard yourself irrespective of how well you do something—are independent variables. You can do well but feel unworthy, or feel worthy but not deliver the goods.

• Support networks are critical to build and reinforce self-worth.

• If you choose to spend time with people who think they are victims, who have low self-worth, and who suck up energy, you will eventually become just like them.

• The acquisition of skills builds self-worth if one employs them successfully and relevantly. The most important and useful skill of all is language.

• Put your own oxygen mask on first. That’s not selfish. It’s how you can help more people.

© Alan Weiss 2010. All rights reserved.

I’ll be conducting a full-day workshop called “Alan 101″ at the Ritz-Carlton in Denver on October 7, then doing a half-day for the combined forces of the ASTD, IMC, NSA, and RMC on October 8 at the Westin. The first day is the least investment for any of my workshops in years, and it’s intended to enable new people to the profession and those still affected by the recent downturn to “jump start” their practices at a cost that can be gained back in less than a week. The second morning is to provide the parameters that will build an exceptional business for professional services providers through 2011. You can attend either or both, and we encourage you to attend both.

Links:

Link for Oct. 8 Master Class:

http://www.imcusa.org/events/event_details.asp?id=109835

Link for Oct. 7 full day course (links to Summit Consulting site):

http://www.imcusa.org/events/event_details.asp?id=116023

http://summitconsulting.com/seminars/alan-weiss-101.php

I also use a neat trick I call “identical differences.” It involves taking two words that many people assume mean approximately the same thing and differentiating them strongly, so that the other person says, “We’ve never considered that. We need you.”

Some examples:

Teams/Committees: These are entirely different structures, with the former requiring everyone to “win or lose” and the latter providing for some to win and some to lose. You can’t engage in “team building” with a committee.

Mentor/Coach: The former is reactive and situational, the latter is proactive and comprehensive. I can mentor a consultant, but no one has created the role of a baseball mentor for the team.

Preventive/Contingent: The first reduces the likelihood of a cause, the second attempts to minimize the effects of a problem. A sprinkler system is contingent, and so is an insurance policy. The fire marshal is preventive.

Problem/Decision: A problem requires a deviation from experienced performance with an unknown cause, and sufficient concern about it. A decision is a choice among options. Two entirely different starting points.

Oral/Verbal: “Verbal” communication is the usual umbrella for these, but that embraces everything to do with words. “Verbal” doesn’t mean “oral,” and it includes writing. These are two separate skills requiring two separate forms of development.

Strategy/Planning: The former is a picture of the future to which you aspire, the latter is an extrapolation of the present. Hence, “strategic planning” is an oxymoron, and a focus on planning will kill strategy.

You get the idea. You want the buyer to stop in place and consider the fact that this is “fresh air” and a new perspective, and needs to be heard and applied.

© Alan Weiss 2010. All rights reserved.

Passive-aggressive behavior, which seeks to hurt under the guise of help, is highly malicious and potentially damaging. (“Oh, your son was accepted into UCLA? Was that his second choice?”) In the June edition of HR Magazine, Signe Wilson offers these telltale signs that you’re dealing with a passive-aggressive personality:

• avoids responsibility
• performs less or deliberately underperforms
• misses deadlines
• withholds information
• uses communications other than face-to-face dealings
• arrives late for meetings
• gives lip services to suggestions which are not acted upon
• claims to lose or misplace important materials
• embarrasses others regularly, though seemingly inadvertently
• is constant in these behaviors

I’ve paraphrased, but beware of people who are deliberately inefficient and allow problems to grow if it means elevating them and degrading you.

Cognitive dissonance is a state where two conflicting ideas or experiences collide. Many people in consulting and related professional services are almost incapacitated by this phenomenon, because their frustration and stress are exponentially increased.

And I’m here to tell you why that is.

If you call yourself a “consultant” but are usually hired merely to complete a task for the client, you are not a consultant, you are a subcontractor or part-time employee. This is especially prevalent among “IT consultants.” If you are paid to write code or program some sequence simply because the client has no one around who can do it—and a thousand people like you can do it equally well and exactly the same way—you’re not a consultant. (And you’re subject to enormous price pressures, because you’re a commodity.)

Consequently, if you call yourself a consultant, but find that you can only charge a few dollars an hour, have to work at someone else’s beck and call, and have zero differentiation, you’re facing one heck of a set of conflicting ideas and experiences every waking hour. At the very least, that’s beyond depressing.

Consultants help improve the client’s condition by providing ideas, advice, intellectual property, best practices, proprietary approaches, unique behavior and other interventions which not only make them distinctly attractive, but draw people to them. Consultants are not another pair of hands. They are a new brain.

If you are hired by clients to teach courses the clients have already developed, you’re not a consultant. You are a contract trainer, simply providing help that their own training people (or lack of them) can’t handle. You are one of kibillions of people who could do that. But if you design the program, or bring unique intellectual property to it, or arrange for it to be conducted remotely, then you are a consultant, improving the client’s condition in your distinctive way.

If you contribute a chapter to a book, you are not a book author. If you create a work of 20 chapters contributed by other people you haven’t created a book, you’ve created a compilation. If you have four insurance products to sell in health, property, life, and disability coverage, you’re not an “insurance consultant,” you’re an insurance agent. We scoff at garbage collectors—who perform important work—who call themselves “sanitary engineers.” Why is that ludicrous, but a speaker with a single speech calling himself a “sales consultant” is not?

I found a teacher from nearby Warwick—on strike—in a coffee shop here once calling herself not a teacher, but a “Warwick educator.” Maybe that’s part of the problem.

I wrote an earlier piece here on the blog about not lying to me by first not lying to yourself. If you continue to call yourself one thing but act in a completely different fashion, the lie you try to maintain will cause you great stress, because the goal you seek can’t be found on the road you’re traveling.

Everyone in a bank is a vice president today. Yet most of them can’t even authorize a new set of checks, let alone find you a loan. You are not your fancy business card, no matter how many colors, photos, and cute sayings you print on it.

If you want to reduce the horrific, subliminal stress and agita caused by cognitive dissonance, change your behavior to match your objectives. You can’t call yourself a consultant and act like a hired hand without doing damage to your ego.

You don’t follow your dream by following all the people in front of you and lying to yourself that somehow you’re really different. Move out of the crowd and actually be different.

Try this: Print a business card with just your name and contact information. When someone asks, “Who are you with and what do you do?” tell them, “I’m with me, and I help you.”

© Alan Weiss 2010. All rights reserved.

I’m scheduling Change Management for Jan. 12, and Thrive! for Jan. 13, 2011 in Berlin! Each is $1300, both are $2,000 total. (Save 23%). Prices will go to $1600 each, or $2500 for both, on October 1. You can read about both on my site, Change under “current workshops” and Thrive under “archived workshops.”

I’m buying dinner for the first 9 in each program, the night prior to each. This will go up on my site in the next week, feel free to register directly with me before that: alan@summitconsulting.com.

At one point after some minor surgery, I hadn’t eaten very much for two days, either on doctor’s orders or because I hadn’t felt much like it. To my pleasant surprise, I found that I had lost three pounds. I decided to leverage that, and watched my eating for the next few weeks, which led to another couple of pounds. After 90 days, I had lost 12 pounds and was at a level I like to maintain.

I had leveraged a pivotal moment.

Pivotal moments are those usually abrupt occasions which can be exploited for major advances and improvements. They occur with amazing frequency, but we’re often too preoccupied to notice and appreciate them, or too scared to spontaneously capitalize on them.

These aren’t “impulses” which can get you in trouble (as in impulsively buying that $85,000 car which is reduced to $70,000 because it’s almost a year old and the dealer tells you it will be gone by tomorrow. Not that that’s ever happened in my life, long ago). These are occasions which you can consider and ponder for a while, but they do have a short life-expectancy. My decision to further my weight loss needed to be made prior to my having a cheeseburger and fries that evening, for example.

A client may tell you that there’s an afternoon meeting with international people and you’re welcome to sit-in if you’re still around. You have the choice of rescheduling your departure to a later flight in order to meet and chat with potential new clients in the presence of your existing one. Or do you simply say to yourself, no, that’s not what I had planned?

You meet a piano teacher at a social event who tells you she’s having trouble staying in business because she has no idea how to market what she does. You realize that this may be your final chance to obtain piano lessons, on a bartered basis. Do you make the time to help her and help yourself? You find that, unknowingly, you’ve built up 75,000 points in a hotel program that you pay little attention to, but that you can transfer to an airline. If you also transfer your other programs’ points to that airline, you could take an unexpected vacation to Italy. Do you take advantage of that, or resort to the excuse that you’ve already planned two vacations?

Pivots are part of leverage systems. I think that pivotal moments exist when we realize that we can use the event or situation as a fulcrum to gain strength and speed. Archimedes said, “Give me a lever, and I can move the world.”

A successful article can lead to a column. A well-received column can lead to a book. A popular book can lead to speaking appearances. You get the idea. It’s not enough to correct weakness, you must build on success.

Where’s your lever? Watch for your next pivotal moment. You may already be well on your way to a key goal and you don’t even realize it.

© Alan Weiss 2010. All rights reserved.

I’ve been following the various political frenzies going on in Greece, the UK, and the US. Then there are the investigations into the markets here, and derivatives, and technical trading glitches, and so forth. There are competing marketing claims from all kinds of sources, and exaggerated claims from nearly everybody (I haven’t yet seen a recording released that HAS NOT gone platinum).

And it seems to me there are three kinds of lies which all to often upset our apple carts or at least spoil the fruit.

1. Egregious Lies
This is Bernie Madoff and Enron and Tyko and every politician who makes a claim he or she doesn’t believe in just to get elected. They know it when they utter it, and they all are just hoping to get away with something. But if anyone with any guts and a bit of clout pokes at it, the result is a collapse of what’s rotted within. The manufacturers know that the medication won’t enlarge what it’s supposed to, and the authors know that their book will not enable you to make a million in real estate or avoid income taxes by claiming you’re a church or a Martian.

2. Rationalized Lies
When we tell ourselves something long enough, we tend to believe it ourselves. We didn’t really star at quarterback on the high school team, but we told the fib once and then had to repeat it for consistency, and since then….. This is why so many prominent people are undone by a faulty résumé which they don’t really need but never bothered correcting. They told everyone so long and so often that they were Phi Beta Kappa that they began to believe it themselves. And they’ve enjoyed the cachet. Or we convince ourselves that it’s important to maintain a certain façade or standing for someone else’s good. We’re really being Samaritans by lying to help our kids or colleagues.

3. Subliminal Lies
We carry around some lies like leeches, clinging to the insides of our souls. We can feel it within ourselves without really examining the rational—that it’s okay to cheat because everyone else is, or it’s okay to overeat because the diet will start on Wednesday, or we can sin or steal or cheat because we’re special and our cause is just. (All narcissists would seem to have a vast reservoir of subliminal lies.) If we received an unjust traffic ticket five years ago, it’s certainly balances the books to cheat on our taxes now. We don’t think about it, our internal “justice” devices takes care of it.

When you tell the truth, there is no taxation on your memory. That is, we don’t have to remember the creative fictions we’ve constructed, and to whom we exposed them. When you lie, you are telling me you respect neither my intelligence nor my character, because you doubt I’ll be able to tell you’re lying and, if I find out, you won’t care.

I’m weary of politicians who start sentences with “What the American people really want,” and claims from manufacturers that they’ll provide an extended warranty that actually maximizes their profit and adds minimally to my protection. It’s disconcerting to hear financial “experts” tell me what happened yesterday when they really have no idea, and can’t reliably tell me what’s going to happen tomorrow.

Most of all, I despise the folks who inform me that “this call may be recorded for training purposes,” when the service never, ever improves.

You can try to sell me a lie, but I’m not buying.

© Alan Weiss 2010. All rights reserved.

• Failing to return a legitimate email request within a day. NO ONE is so busy that they can’t return email messages in a day, unless you are allowing all kinds of spam to intrude or are spending all your time on “social medial platforms.”

• Neglecting to establish a future time and date certain. “Let’s make it Tuesday at three, I’ll call you on your private line,” is not a hard language to learn, like Mandarin or Tagalog. Throwing away momentum with “Let’s talk again soon,” or “I’ll wait to hear from you” is simply slovenly.

• Dealing with people who are easy to see but can’t buy, and rationalizing why it’s okay to do that. Virtually no one in training or HR can approve a major project. At best, they have limited “event” budgets or are intermediaries. And they tend to be rude and obnoxious, which is why they’re in HR.

• Consistently making grammatical and punctuation mistakes that reveal the writer is an amateur. In modern printing, only one space is skipped between sentences, not two (which is a throwback to typewriter days). Commas and periods go within quotation marks at the end of the sentence, no exceptions. If you can’t learn to correct poor writing at your age, why should anyone expect you can consult well?

• Procrastination, especially with prospects. There is not reason in the world—no reason—why you can’t turn around a proposal after a meeting within 48 hours.

• A pecuniary mental set, that impels one to use mail instead of Fedex, a raspy old phone instead of a modern model, and to question whether it’s worth spending money to travel to see a legitimate buyer. No one ever made a million in revenue by cutting costs, and you can take THAT to the bank!

• Hanging out with blowhards and bloviators. The people giving the loudest, most inflexible, most complex advice are almost always people who aren’t successful but just claim to be. (Hint: Take a look at their clothing. The sign of a successful person is expensive, well-tailored casual clothes and accessories.)

• CFO: Creating False Overhead. Unless you are running a several million dollar practice, you don’t need a virtual assistant, advisory board, full-time bookkeeper, sales and marketing assistant, or general factotum. Having a staff doesn’t create a consulting practice. It creates a welfare state.

• Spending more than 30 minutes a day on social media sites. I don’t care about those people who claim they landed a $50,000 “deal” on Plexico or Faceup, and I care much less about the “marketing experts” whose source of income is, gee, telling you how to market on social media. (But what have they DONE?). If you’re selling to a corporate buyer you are not going to make a living doing so on Chainedin, but you will be able to spend a lot of time there avoiding things like networking at events, publishing in the trade press, and speaking at conferences.

• Being afraid to ask for repeat business, referrals, references, and testimonials. If you’re working with a true buyer and doing good work, and you’ve prepared that buyer, there’s no reason in the world not to ask for that person’s continuing good will. In our business, that good will is best expressed through referrals (ever send someone to your doctor or accountant?). If you don’t ask, you seldom get. (Or at least you miss out on a lot you should have received.)

• Not establishing a support system. Your spouse, significant other, extended family, close colleagues, friends, or whomever should be assembled into a support unit, so that you know when you’ve done well, you receive candid, solicited feedback when you could have done better, and you have people with whom you can commiserate. Otherwise, unsolicited (usually worthless) feedback will have far too great an influence on you.

• Carrying around too much of others’ baggage and not creating your own. Consultants often have strikingly low self-worth. You can’t live without baggage (we all need clothes and “stuff”) but it should be baggage you create with clothes that fit you today and stuff you can really use tomorrow. I’m weary of consultants lamenting, “Why should they listen to ME?” If you feel that way, then I don’t know why they should listen to you, because I’m getting tired of listening to you. If you don’t think you’re good and act that way, why would I ever be interested in hiring you? The first sale is to yourself. If you can’t make that one, you’re in the wrong business.

© Alan Weiss 2010. All rights reserved.

Patricia Fripp and I are once again (for over a decade!) conducting The Odd Couple® Workshop for marketing professional speaking services this June in Las Vegas. Details are here: http://www.fripp.com/oddcouple.html

We’ve just waded through a flurry of schedule changes and related matters (the economy is recovering and assignments are reappearing with a vengeance) and we have a few unanticipated openings. There is a discount until the end of April, so I’m letting everyone know here and now.

Join us if you’re a trainer, workshop leader, keynoter, facilitator, panel moderator, emcee, or in any related line of work, and in two days we will help you improve your marketing and subsequent revenue by a couple of hundred percent. Don’t believe it? Check out the reference on the site. AND we have experts contributing in media publicity, technology strategies, multi-media, and a couple of former “world champions of speaking.”

You never know what Fripp and I are going to do (or disagree about). It’s a small investment for a huge return. (And the day prior I’m running a Process Visuals Workshop if you need help with your marketing and delivery communications. You can find that here.

For more info and to register: http://www.fripp.com/oddcouple.html

I’m a product of the pubic school system when it was an impressive place to learn, even in the inner city. When I attended grammar school, teachers were regarded as the most highly educated people in the community, were respected, and were authoritarian. In Hudson School, in Union City, NJ, there were perhaps 30 teachers, only one of whom was male.

The school itself was a former cheese factory of some kind, a three-story structure where the janitors were forced to place traps in the dank corners in the winter to control the rats and mice which, through countless generations, had populated the place. The cheese was simply a dim, racial memory for the current vermin.

In the third grade, I was the kind of kid you probably hated. I was teacher’s pet, vied with a nerdy girl named Carolyn for top honors in every category, and was saved from extinction by the fact that I was also one of the best schoolyard athletes around.

About once a month, a special teacher would visit us in Miss Mandelkern’s third-grade classroom. Her job was to focus on spelling and language, and she would be allotted about an hour of classroom time. I don’t recall her name, but she was quite old (especially to a third-grader), and wore a horrible wig, which was immediately identifiable because it was always skewed somewhat to starboard.

One day she launched an exercise to have us provide a word that began with each letter of the alphabet. As others volunteered “cow” and “dog” I bided my time.

Sure enough, we arrived at “X.” I waited, a cheetah on the savanna, poised for a monumental explosion of speed. A girl offered “X-Ray.”

“No,” said the special teacher, “that has a hyphen.”

I allowed the silence to continue for several delicious seconds, then up shot my hand. Miss Mandelkern beamed.

“Xylophone!” I pronounced, as my classmates stared in envy (or it could have been revulsion).

“No,” said the special teacher, “that starts with a ‘Z.’”

Miss Mandelkern lost eye contact with me as I slumped back, stunned. My classmates began to snicker. I don’t remember what happened after that, I may have wound up in the nurse’s office.

Later that day, one of my friends said, “I looked it up over lunch. ‘Xylophone’ does start with ‘X.’ You were right!”

I learned from that 8-year-old experience the following:

1. A position of authority does not create infallibility.
2. Those in authority often back each other, at least through passivity, ignoring (or even harming) the customer.
3. Life isn’t fair. You can be right and still fail.
4. If you feel powerless, you can be easily cowed by those with power, even when they’re wrong.
5. I would never, ever, let anyone tell me that “xylophone” begins with anything other than an “X” for the remainder of my life (though I do now keep “xanthic” and “xenium” in reserve).

I don’t care what’s on your business card or how many initials you have after your name. What you tell me had better make sense and not contradict what I know to be true. Play that on your marimbas.

© Alan Weiss 2010. All rights reserved.

Of all my books, Million Dollar Consulting is by far my best seller, having something over 400,000 readers, in its fourth edition, and on the shelves for 18 consecutive years. That is relatively rare. Its name has created perhaps the most powerful brand in solo consulting, and its use is a registered trademark, as in Million Dollar Consulting® College. I can trace probably 90 percent of current revenues directly or indirectly to it.

So how did this come about?

I wrote my first book in 1988, when a colleague asked if I’d be interested in co-authoring a work on innovation (we would both conceptualize, I would write). The resultant The Innovation Formula went from hard cover to soft cover, became part of a HarperCollins strategy series, was picked up by Wharton, Villanova, and Temple, and was translated into German and Italian.

Based on its success, I pitched and wrote my first solo book for HarperCollins, Managing for Peak Performance. That went from hard cover to soft cover, and was translated into German. Based on that success, I pitched and wrote a strategy book, Making It Work, which never made it out of hardcover for the same publisher. And that was my last book with HarperCollins to this day, having placed my first three with them. (I now own Making It Work, and have re-released it as Best Laid Plans, a far better title.)

I then set out to write Confessions of A Consultant, which would inform executives about good and poor practices, how to choose consulting help, what to reasonably expect and pay for, and so forth. I had read in a National Speakers Association magazine that an agent named Jeff Herman liked to represent speakers and consultants. I sent him my first thee books and my latest idea, and he immediately signed me. (He is today responsible for placing my three best-selling books, and is still my agent.)

Confessions was rejected 15 or 18 times. Then one day Jeff called me in my car while I was returning from speaking in Hartford. I had one of the first car phones in New England in 1991, and it was a regular phone handset hard-wired into the dash of my Mercedes 450 SLC.

“I’m at McGraw-Hill,” said Jeff.

“McGraw-Hill!” I shouted. “They like the book?!” I considered McGraw then and I do now, to be one of the great business publishers.

“No, they hate the premise, but they are interested in publishing a book on how you can make a million dollars a year in solo consulting. That part of your credentials impressed them. Can you write a book like that?”

“In six minutes,” I whispered.

“I’ll tell them six months,” he said, putting his hand obviously over the phone, and then responded, “We have a deal, I’ll work it out.”

Four months later I had finished the manuscript and had offered to meet once again the senior business editor at McGraw, Betsy Brown, in her Manhattan office. This was our third meeting.

“We’re going into production tomorrow,” she said, “and we can’t call this Confessions of a Consultant any more. What do you want to call it?”

Standing, I said, “I’ll give it some thought.”

“Sit,” she said (you tended to do what Betsy Brown ordered, a strikingly beautiful woman who took no prisoners and whom I was always chasing after in the halls despite her stilettos). “I want the title right now.”

“Betsy, I don’t know what to tell you. It’s a book about how to make a million dollars consulting.”

“Ah, and there it is!” she said.

The rest is not just history, but my present and future.

What happened during this crazy journey?
• I agreed to write a co-authored book, though I had never done a book.
• I pitched a second and third book to the publisher.
• I joined a professional association and searched it for resources.
• I found an agent, having three books to bolster my credibility.
• I did not get depressed over all the rejections.
• I readily agreed to change the premise of the book.
• I visited my editor.
• I used a spur-of-the-moment title.
• I recognized a brand when I saw one.
• I was willing to transform my business.

I’m not smart enough to tell you what’s going to happen tomorrow, but I’m agile and quick enough to jump on what’s happening today. My story is not unique. You can find these combinations of luck, accident, resilience, and talent all over.

My reaction is to always push the throttle forward. I’ll slow down only if I begin to lose control. In the meantime, I intend to take a fabulous ride.

What about you? Are you racing into the turns or riding the brake?

© Alan Weiss 2010. All rights reserved.

From 36,000 feet, posted from a Delta jet with wifi:

I’ve counseled hundreds of people who have involuntarily lost their jobs. And I’ve found a fundamental difference among those who are resilient and those who are desperate.

I had been asked by a mutual friend to give advice and counsel on how to become a high-level consultant to the former vice chair of a major bank whose division was merged into another, and who was given both a large severance and his walking papers. He had been making well over a million a year. I despise doing things like this for free (Would a banker give me free investment advice?), but I capitulated and agreed to a breakfast.

While I listened to him, he sounded exactly like a vice chairman still, which is not good, so as the omelets arrived I unleashed one of my prime questions. (Prime questions are those so basic and direct that they require an honest answer which will inform you immediately about the likely need or outcome. There are 13 such prime questions. No, I will not reveal the other 12, because I really do get paid for such things.)

“If you were offered the presidency of a major division at Bank of America, or one of their vice chairmanships, at about the same money as you were making before, would you accept?” (The prime question: “Would you return to the status quo antebellum?”)

“In a Brooklyn minute,” he hissed at me.

“Then let’s enjoy breakfast,” I said, “because we have zero to talk about in terms of you becoming a consultant.”

The fundamental difference between resilience and depression is in your choice of identity. If you choose to identify with your job title—whether plumber, branch manager, or vice chair—you will tend to lose your identify when you lose your business card or your wrench. But if you identify yourself—define yourself—in terms of your contribution, then your identify is intrinsically yours, transportable, and self-worth-maintaining. (“I create sustainable and efficient home environments”; “I provide for maximum service to create loyal customers in highly competitive business environments”; “I create and implement strategies that propel organizations beyond competitive challenges.”

The vice chair wanted to be a vice chair, period. That was his programming. I wasn’t being paid enough—hell, I wasn’t being PAID—to deprogram him.

I’m not a consultant. I’m someone who improves my client’s conditions, increasing both individual and organizational performance. HR people call me a consultant, and accounts payable people call me a “vendor.” That’s why I don’t deal with them, nor bother to try to educate them. My clients (buyers) call me a “partner.”

Don’t identify with your inputs, tasks, job description, deliverables, or business card title. They are ephemeral and are commodities. Identify with your outputs, results, and the degree to which you improve others. Those are permanent and highly valuable.

When Bjorn Borg won five Wimbledons in a row, six French Opens, and 90 percent of all of his grand slam singles matches (modern era records), a star competitor said, “The rest of us are playing tennis. He’s doing something else.”

Define what you do in terms of contributions and no one can ever take that away from you, no matter what. And you’ll be far more enthusiastic and aggressive in finding a new home for it. I was fired once by someone very wealthy and absolutely clueless. I swore that would never happen again because I knew what I could create for clients.

Control your own identity and you’ll control your own destiny.

© Alan Weiss 2010. All rights reserved.

Here is an advance notice for my blog community. You can register for this brand new workshop directly with me or wait until it is on my site next week. (Immediately: Fax to 401/884-5068, secure voice message to 800/766-7935 [401/884-2778] but do NOT ask for a call back, leave your information, or email to bentleygtc@summitconsulting.com.)

The Change Management Workshop

This is a methodology workshop analogous to The Strategist and The Coach. I only touched on change management in my Best Practices Workshop, due to the volume of material I was covering.

This workshop is intended for consultants who are (or who seek to be) engaged in change management efforts in large and small businesses, non-profits, government, and/or educational institutions.

You will, as a result of this session, be able to:
• Quickly frame and diagnose change needs.
• Utilize the little-appreciated role of changes in distinctions.
• Identify and galvanize stakeholders.
• Synergistically involve structural, systemic, and social changes.
• Create and perpetuate internal change agents.
• Adapt a rational change leadership sequence.
• Prevent and/or overcome the six key resistors.
• Apply your learning to case studies.
• Apply your learning to actual material you bring with you.
• Drastically reduce your labor intensity in accomplishing change.

In one day we’ll help you to become a laser beam of highly focused change management techniques. There will be preparation reading and performance aids provided during our time together.

I am a contributing author to the highly regarded 2010 Practicing Organizational Change (Wiley), along with colleagues such as Warner Burke and Edgar Schein, and the author of The Unofficial Guide to Power Management.

Join me for an intensive day of mastering change that will change your career.

Public: $1250
SAC® Members: $950
Mentor Members: $750

October 28, 9 am to 4 pm.
Breakfast, lunch, and refreshments included
Crowne Plaza Hotel
Warwick, RI

A famous scientific experiment put honeybees and houseflies in a milk bottle, with the closed end toward a window. The expectation was that since honeybees are known to be far smarter than houseflies, they would more quickly exit.

However, the “smarter” honeybees thronged toward the light, and all eventually perished in the closed end of the bottle. The “less smart” houseflies flew random patterns until every one eventually escaped out the open end of the bottle.

Sometimes, harder work, whether physical or mental, is not the answer. The answer is in an entirely new direction.

I reinvent myself every few years, and I follow the 3M Company’s famous mandate about X% of current revenues coming from products not being produced five years ago. (About 75% of my income last year came from products and services not available even three years prior.) I advocate that all professional services providers similarly reinvent themselves and not allow the market, the competition, or technology to reinvent them.

Hard work: laudable. Working smart: valuable. Setting independent, new directions that constantly put you ahead of the pack: priceless.

Straighten up and fly right.

© Alan Weiss 2010. All rights reserved.

Reprinted from the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers:

Ask the Expert : What “Golden Rules” Can Be Broken?
by Alan Weiss

The speaking business has changed significantly in the past decade, but the people in it often seem not to have noticed, as if watching jet aircraft from the insular comfort of their stagecoaches and thinking there’s nothing odd about that. I’ve seldom seen so many antiquated ideas bandied about as if still contemporary. I’m sure it was useful at one time to know the best way to kill a Tyrannosaurus, but even if the approach still made sense, the great beasts were last seen tens of millions of years ago.

I’ve been asked to report on what “golden rules” can be broken. I assume we’re talking about speaking and not Commandments, so here are my nominations:

1. Working through intermediaries.
It is ethically and pragmatically necessary to establish a relationship with the person who is making the investment in the speaker. That is never a bureau, a meeting planner, or an event manager. We must find the individual whose objectives and evaluation are critical, because it is their investment. The better bureaus and meeting planners readily facilitate a meeting with the true “buyer.”

2. Acting like a “hired hand” and ecstatic to have the business.
I actually heard an NSA convention speaker say that he was a “hired hand” who would help a client move tables or set up recording equipment. I’m not a hired hand, I’m a highly skilled professional, and I’d no more help with non-speaking activities than my doctor would help find an oil leak in my car during my visit, even if he knew about cars. We must stop undermining our value.

3. Thinking that stage mechanics and movement outrank words and meaning.
There have been bogus citations of “research” purporting to show that non-verbal behavior has more impact than words. This has been perpetuated by those who either never looked at the “research” or don’t know how to use words. Words are the tools of our craft. I’ve listened, rapt, to people who speak well even if they choose not to—or can’t—move at all.

4. Believing that audience evaluations are important.
“Smile sheets” are just dumb. The audience members are the last people you want to ask about success. We’re often called upon to make them uncomfortable, to shake them out of lethargy, to accept radical change. We don’t need for them to like us, we need for the buyer’s objectives to be met (see #1 above). You’re not in this business to be loved. If you need love, get a dog. (And within the profession, I’m bored to tears of undeserved standing ovations.)

5. Maintaining a fee schedule.
You should stop looking at a speech or training program as an “event.” Think about what you can do prior (e.g., interviews, surveys) and what you can do at the session (e.g., handouts, coaching), and what you can do after the event (e.g., newsletters, email access), and you now have a project instead of an event, that is worth ten times your “speaking fee.” The problem is that you probably “throw in” most of those extras for free to prove your value! (And bureaus demand “fee schedules” because they treat speakers like an ongoing cattle call.)

6. Thinking you have a “message” and this is an avocation.
This is an occupation, and unless you are meeting a market need (or creating one) no one cares about your “message.” It’s great if you overcame some challenge or learned some cosmic lesson, but unless you can interpret that into practical improvement for others, it’s just a nice story over cocktails and nothing others want to pay to hear. (No one will pay to see your vacation slides.) This is a business, not a hobby.

7. Listening to “experts.”
Unless the ski instructor is six yards ahead of you on the hill doing exactly what you want to do, the instructor is a fraud. Drinking brandy in the chalet is insufficient. Only listen to those who have done what you want to do repeatedly and successfully. Most people at conventions lie to each other about how well they’re doing, and too many people giving advice are solely “advice-givers,” with no real credentials of success.

Feel free to break all of these rules. I have. So do the people I coach. Now, follow me down the slope….

© Alan Weiss 2009. All rights reserved.

Ed Rigsbee is running a professional development workshop for speakers on December 1-3 in Key West, Florida. You can see details and video testimonials here: http://www.rigsbee.com/key_west_2010.htm.

I’m opening the program. I also have six seats granted to me for my community, whereby you receive all the royal treatment and benefits of the conference PLUS special and private dinners, cocktails, and cigars (optional) with me to talk about your career and your life. I have two of the slots filled. The fee is exactly the same, $2500, and you’ll be part of a group with impressive presenters and impressive colleagues in attendance.

Register directly with me via email or phone and I’ll take care of the details. It was great last year, it will be even better this year.

bentleyGTC@summitconsulting.com, or 800/766-7935.

Thanks,

Alan

I’ve just conducted a follow-up here in London for some of my Shameless Promotion Workshop grads, and here is a consensus list of what they’ve been doing to successfully increase their visibility and dramatically gain business:
• Improved web sites, as credibility statements, to state-of-the-art
• Created book proposals, sought and obtained agents and book contracts
• Obtained board positions with trade associations and non-profits
• Issued monthly or more frequent press releases
• Begun teleconference series
• Contacted trade association executive directors for speaking engagements
• Published manuals and booklets
• Created and/or increased usage of blogs, podcasts, and videos
• Put video testimonials on their sites and blogs
• Set up meeting with prospects while traveling for clients
• Analyzed and approved strategy as appropriate (the all HAVE a strategy)
• Become more assertive is seeking referrals from diverse sources
• Created lunch seminars to attract prospects
• Became objects of interest by hosting symposia
• Given up long-time business that was unprofitable or distracting
• Creating new brands or sub-brands

(Shameless Promotion Workshops admit only four people at a time, create monthly accountability phone calls afterwards, and are scheduled by mutual convenience. The fourth group will meet at the end of March. Participants have come from four countries thus far. You can find it at: http://tinyurl.com/ydcku8p.)

© Alan Weiss 2010. All rights reserved.

Ed Rigsbee is conducting a three-day workshop in Key West in early December. It will focus on professional speakers who wish to grow their business, expand into other areas such as consulting, and build additional passive income. I’m opening the session and leading the first morning.

Ed has granted me six seats for people I personally bring from my communities. In addition to the normal fun and games Ed provides, I’ll be providing a special dinner, private talks, and drinks and cigars (the latter optional) for those interested. The fee is $2,500, which is the same as the event fee, there is no extra charge, you merely register directly with me. There will two more high-powered morning speakers on the next two days, afternoon practicums, hot seats, and excellent networking with top people. The venue is the Westin. Key West, as many of you know, is a rather unique place! I’ll also provide a free copy of my two upcoming books from McGraw-Hill when published: “Million Dollar Speaking” and “Million Dollar Coaching.”

You can read more here: http://www.rigsbee.com/key_west_2010.htm

Contact me at 401/884-2778 or alan@summitconsulting.com.

I’ve often spoken of the “martial arts” of language, which means taking the other person’s momentum and turning it back at them. For example, when you’re asked, “What is your fee?” you respond, “I don’t know, what are your goals?” (“What can you do for me?” “I have no idea, yet. Tell me about your priorities.”)

Lately, I’ve had more questions than ever about people trying to be tough negotiators in the preliminary stages. Once you establish a relationship WITH A TRUE ECONOMIC BUYER, then there should be no problem, since partners don’t try to take advantage of each other.

But if you are confronted with an obnoxious (and often, just stupid, objection) use what I call “stiletto questions.” Read on and I think you’ll understand the reason for the sobriquet.

Buyer: I’m not going to pay for anything before I see results. So you’ll have to create a payment schedule that reflects my paying once I see those results.

You: What business are you in?

Buyer: You know our business, it’s consumer electronics.

You: And do you allow customers to tell you that they’ll pay once they’re happy with the device, or do you charge them when they’ve made the purchasing decision?

Always turn the question around to the buyer’s business, and 99.9 percent of the time, you’ll find that you’re being asked to do something that the buyer wouldn’t condone in his or her own business.

Also, always be prepared for either answer. Example:

Buyer: I want you to give me a better fee. Reduce your fee by 25 percent and we have a deal.

You: Do you reduce your fees for clients by 25 percent just because they ask you to?

Buyer: Of course not.

You: Then why would you expect me to do that?

If buyer says: As a matter of fact, we do!

You: Then that’s why you need me, and fast!

Wittgenstein said that the limits of his language were the limits of his world. That’s certainly true of your business world. Mastering language requires no capital investment and can be quite rapid. But you have to have the tools (never “dumb down” your speech, that’s for amateurs) and the self-esteem (you’re not “selling,” you’re providing value).

One final example, against a very powerful rebuttal, one that sends most consultants scurrying for the exits:

Buyer: Please don’t waste your time, we have a policy against hiring consultants here.

You: You’d be shocked at how many of my best clients said that during our first meeting!

Speak powerfully and confidently, with expression and influence. The alternative is poverty.

© Alan Weiss 2010. All rights reserved.

We were waiting in the United Airlines Red Carpet Club for our flight to Hawaii from San Francisco. A woman in ragged jeans and unkempt hair took a seat across from us.

Promptly, she fished her cell phone out of her bag and began a conversation with some unknown sponge, because she never stopped talking and complaining, indicating to me that the other person never spoke, but just absorbed. Her harangue was about her failure to be upgraded to first class.

She bemoaned the fact that there were no first class seats available for upgrade. She told the voiceless person on the other end that she alternatively believed that she was lied to, there weren’t enough seats allocated for upgrades, others of lesser status were getting upgrades (Y2K, one-world, seven star, diamond, elite, alliance partners—or something), and that the system was totally unfair.

It turned out that first class was, indeed full (“completely checked in,” as they say on the gate monitor), and, once seated, we saw her trudge by us on her way to the back, apparently eyeing the up-front crowd to try to determine which of her inferiors usurped her spot on the five-hour flight. I tried desperately to establish eye contact, but she had gone on to glower at a flight attendant.

If you want to be assured of a first class seat, buy a first class ticket.

Periodically, Business Week or the Wall Street Journal will run a fluff piece about someone who “plays the system,” gathering points from hotel stays, oil changes, and pay-per-view, as well as “chatting up” gate attendants, flight attendants, and rest room attendants, in order to secure upgrades with amazing rates of success.

It always occurred to me that if they had put the same amount of drive, energy, and talent into their own work, they probably would be successful enough to actually afford first class seats. But they’d rather play the system, to the extent they resent it if people paying full fare monopolize their monopoly game.

You and I have seen myriad people who seek recognition without merit; who want promotion without talent; who seek money without providing value; who want to be respected without expertise. They are usually of the mind of the woman on my flight, and sing a victim’s lament when they wind up in the rear, as well.

None of use deserves what we don’t earn. Oh yes, I know that frequenting an airline, flying a lot of miles, gathering points—all of that—makes one a good customer. But if someone is willing to pay more for a first class seat, then they deserve it. (I once watched a late arrival with a first class ticket find an upgrade in his assigned place, who had sweet-talked the gate agent to give him the seat, refusing to budge. What’s next, first one to the bank gets all the money, and it doesn’t matter who deposited it?)

If you’re in business, you reap what you sow, no free rides, no free lunches. You can’t get away with telling the customers to keep coming merely because you’ve been there a long time. Nor can you expect people to choose you over the competition because you open 20 minutes earlier or provide free bottles of water. You have to provide real value to beat the competition.

If you want to be assured of business, then provide more value than the competitors, don’t whine about unfairness in the “system.”

I can also remember when airline clubs were by invitation only, you had to dress properly, and the amenities were superb. But someone filed a lawsuit because he felt that he “deserved” access just as much as those people whom the airline considered its best passengers, and now you’re entertained in these clubs by people in shorts cutting their toenails with their feet on the tables, and the places are jammed. But don’t get me started on that.

If you want to ensure your success, focus on and work at providing more value than anyone else in your field. If you want to ensure your place in first class, then invest in a first class ticket. Otherwise, there’s no logical reason for you to be in front.

© Alan Weiss 2010. All rights reserved.

Some casual and work scenes (hard to tell apart) with the members and partners of the Million Dollar Club (MDC) in St. Lucia in early November. I’m forming a second club, please contact me for details. Watch the three videos below:

Listen to what participants had to say about this amazing experience:

Our MDC friend, Michael Sheargold, discusses letting go at the peak of the Piton Mountain in St. Lucia and at the peak of Alan Weiss’s Million Dollar Club. Prior to playing the video and by looking at the picture below, can you tell who is the member of the million dollar club and who does not care if he is?

These are the first words I’m writing from my brand-spanking-new MacBook Pro, with it’s cool anti-glare screen, recessed keyboard area, Snow Leopard OS, and enough media stuff to launch an independent film. The transfer through firewire took 20 minutes, and it set itself up in perfect harmony with my older one, which now becomes a gift to The Lovely Maria, where it will rapidly become filled with granddaughter photos. Small wonder why Apple is just so addictive (and I bought the stock at 17!).

More to come from the edge of the technological universe.

Amidst a fabulous setting, the Million Dollar Consulting® Graduate School is
in its final day. Yesterday featured presentations by uber-literary agent
Jeff Herman and technology genius Chad Barr, followed by a loud dinner at
“Delicious.”

It’s easier to carp than to improve. It’s easier to blame than to take accountability. It’s easier to be pessimistic and justify your lack of success than to be optimistic and work at success.

I admire people who join mastermind groups because these usually aren’t people who sit around bemoaning their fate, but rather who hold each other accountable and permit no whining. The whiners tell you in good times that things can’t stay this way, and in bad times that any hint of improvement is false and things will only get worse. In the cosmos of the cynical, down times never end and up times are ephemeral. They remind me of the old definition of Puritanism: The dread fear that someone, someplace, is enjoying himself.

It’s easy to take shots, especially if you use a shotgun. The trouble is you have neither the greatest range nor accuracy, but you can be really annoying.

If you get up on Monday morning with the endemic belief that things are bad and will get worse, you’ve got one hell of a week staring you in the face. But if you get up and feel like there’s another week of opportunity, contribution, and success out there, then you can’t wait to get out the door.

Life is what you make it. Take your best shot. Just don’t shoot yourself in the foot. And if you choose to do so deliberately, stay away from me.

© Alan Weiss 2009. All rights reserved.

Alan has just conducted his monthly teleconference series while dedicating this one to questions sent and asked by various members of his community.

Click on the excerpts below to listen to some great sample questions and outstanding answers from Alan, or Click here, then scroll down and order your copy of the September 25th Teleconference in an MP3 format so you may listen to the rest.

Ever had a client not pay?

How do you price a three-options proposal?

How have you changed your opinion on blogging?

What can we do this holiday season to prepare for next year?

The names of everyone and everything except my wife and me are changed for obvious reasons!

As we’re driving out of the house to dine last evening, we realize that we have no dinner reservation in New York for the next night (tonight). We stop on the bridge, I use my Iphone to call via the car’s Bluetooth, and this drama ensues between us and over the speaker:

ME: Where should we go?
The Lovely Maria (TLM): What about that new restaurant owned by Tom Jones, whose kids went to school with ours? I think it’s on about 48th street. Remember, your driver told you to be sure to try it, since he also drives him down there all the time.
ME: Let’s see what Google says. (I plug in a misspelled name, Google says, “Is this what you really want, fool?” and I hit the phone number which accompanies some rave reviews.)
Restaurant Manager (RM): (Very haughty.) Yes?
ME: We’d like a reservation for tomorrow night, please, two people at six.
RM: Impossible.
ME: Well, what can you do?
RM: Perhaps I can fit you in at 5:30.
ME: (I confer with TLM.) Well, okay.
RM: Very well, your name? (I tell him.) Your phone number? (I give him my cell number.)
RM: (Now a tad more friendly.) Is that a Rhode Island number?
ME: Yes.
RM: (Now friendly and cautious.) May I ask how it is you’ve heard of us?
ME: Sure. One of your owners is Tom Jones, and his kids went to school with our kids, and we have the same limo driver. He’s also opening, as you probably know, another restaurant up here.
RM: (Now bowing and gracious.) Why didn’t you say so to begin with? We are happy to have the two of you at six tomorrow!
ME: I think that was 5:30, right?
RM: NO, no, you wished for 6 and that is fine. We will see you tomorrow. My name is Alfonso if you need anything further!
ME: Thank you, ah, Alfonso.
TLM: (Rolls eyes.)
ME: (Put car in gear and head to dinner and martini, laughing loudly.)

We all need to turn cold calls into warmer encounters.

© Alan Weiss 2009. All rights reserved.

I always learn more than anyone when I conduct these sessions, and here is what strikes me, either as new learning or validation of best practices:

• Existing customers may love you, but that doesn’t translate to prospects unless you provide value that meets their self-interests.

ª We tend to overemphasize delivery. Marketing and business acquisition are the key skills, and finding delivery people is easy. (These are the people who are good at what they do, but can’t market themselves.)

• Somewhere around 99 percent of the time, it’s death to deal with the human resources department. They are paid to conserve budgets and are seldom respected elsewhere in the organization.

• The use of powerful language (metaphors) and images (process visuals) accelerates your ability to attract, involve, and partner with true buyers. This creates the gravity which attracts and entrances buyers.

• You must convert intellectual capital (intangible) to intellectual property (tangible) in order to diversify and magnify your offerings and your value.

• Occam’s Razor: The easiest route is usually the best. Analyze the gestalt of the situation to choose effective solutions and improvements. “Performance problems” may actually be structural issues, for example.

• Never assume your client is somehow damaged. Use observed behavior and empirical evidence to drive your work. Don’t superimpose arbitrary models, tests, or belief systems.

• Try to be diagnostic in the marketing of your services, but prescriptive in their delivery. You want a partner in making the buying decision, but you’re the expert when it comes to execution.

• Expertise, consulting practices, partnerships, and all the elements of successful business engagements are transnational, trans-cultural, and trans-industrial. All of us can be global consultants with current technology.

• Mastery of time use and mastery of relationships are the keys to self-esteem. Try to be selfish about your time, and discriminating in your relationships.

• If you’re spending more time worrying about the best software to use to contact prospects than you are actually calling prospects, you’ve lost the point.

• The first sale is to yourself. You have to believe you have value, and you’d be remiss in not offering it to people who can be helped.

© Alan Weiss 2009. All rights reserved.

I have three openings in a maximum four person version of the Workshop Workshop, which I’m running at my home in one intensive day, October 22, 2009. You can find the write-up here for the original multi-day session:

The fee is $7500; $6500 for SAC members; $5500 for Mentor Program members. The fee includes all meals, lodging nearby, plus local transportation. Learn to create and market a workshop of any length which will provide huge revenues in this novel, “total immersion” single day approach for a very, very small group. Register with me directly, not on my site: 800/766-7935 (401/884-2778); alan@summitconsulting.com; fax: 401/884-5068.

In 1882 the first Labor Day parade took place, an assemblage of thousands of people taking an unpaid day to celebrate the worth and value of their work. In 1894, Congress, with its usual speed of a decade having gone by, got around to making it an official day of recognition (meaning for most people, it’s now a paid holiday).

As entrepreneurs (the usual denizens of this blog), I’d like to suggest that there is a fundamental difference among “work,” “job,” and “career.” You can substitute whatever words you prefer, but here are my definitions (which I’m sure wouldn’t stand the rigorous validity tests of, say, Wikipedia):

Work: Temporary provision of physical and/or mental labor for compensation. It is transient by nature. (This is the problem with many “stimulus” plans for public works, for example. They are temporary and disappear.) You can work as a subcontractor to a consulting firm or a building company, until the project is over or your particular contribution is fulfilled (or no longer required). You “work” on a problem or an assignment. The focus is on your input, and the work is often singular, e.g., doing taxes, painting a building, writing a program. The pay reflects the time that is put in.

Job: Organized contributions which are continually (one hopes) required, normally involving diverse work. One can have a job as an accountant, consultant, plumber, radio talk show host. Our accountant’s job may include this kind of work: tax planning, investment advice, payroll services, and so forth. Jobs can be organized by others, or one can be self-employed. They are also usually input-based, commonly compensated by a time unit or event or task, and are featured by a title or description of the tasks: Your job is vice president of retail banking; your job is to drive the bus; your job is to sell insurance.

Career: Contribution of value which constantly evolves, expands, and extends one’s impact on customers, clients, and others. A career is not dependent on job title and can readily change to suit the times or to help change the times. People with careers tend not to identify with titles (and, hence, are never crushed when their title may be taken away by others), but with output and results of their talents. They will easily change the work, and alter the jobs, to create the desired outcomes. You may “work” at drafting, or have a “job” as an architect, but the career would be improving urban aesthetics or creating higher quality family interactions. People with careers are entitled to earn compensation based on the value of their contributions (though many tend not to do this, having been influenced by their former “work” or “job”).

As a consultant, for example, I’ve improved organizational and individual performance. As a mentor and coach, I build communities of learning and growth for the members. I’ve never seen myself as “producing reports” or “running focus groups” or “conducting a training” (a locution which is as bad as “gone missing”).

We’ve all experienced doctors, lawyers, designers, accountants, engineers, consultants, coaches, and other professionals who see themselves doing a “job” (filled with jargon, concerned about their own time, and focused on the next task), or even worse, merely “work” (just fill out the forms and see the secretary). Yet I experience postal workers, for example, who, despite some of the worst management in the history of public service, still see themselves making contributions (“I put some extra postage on this, you can pay me when you see me, because I knew you wouldn’t want it to be delayed”), rather than merely going through the motions of their work. My plumbers make contributions, they don’t just “work.” This isn’t about class or education or position. (Yes, good plumbers do not charge correctly!)

It’s about attitude.

So, despite the connotations of college kids looking for jobs, let’s call this “Career Day,” and start considering our own careers, and what they should be looking like starting tomorrow.

I don’t know about you, but work boors me.

© Alan Weiss 2009. All rights reserved.

Agenda: A list or outline of things to be done, subjects to be discussed, business to be transacted; a program. — Webster’s Third New International Unabridged (For those of you lost in Wikipedia, that’s a “dictionary.”)

You have to beware of people with an agenda. It directs all of their speech, their conversation, their philosophy, their outlook, their debate, even their reasoning.

When I finished a very well received speech at GE one time, two women approached me five minutes apart. The first said that I used equal numbers of masculine and feminine pronouns and examples, which was, to her, the mark of a good speaker. The second told me that I made light of women’s questions and didn’t give them as detailed answers as I did for men’s questions, which was the mark, or course, of a poor speaker.

I ignored both. Two agendas. One was a noncom in the infamous “pronoun police,” where content takes a second seat to form according to the evaluator. The second was the “timing terror” where content is totally ignored so that “equal time,” on her conditions, was provided.

I’ve read inputs on my private chat room (alansforums.com), on this blog, and on social media platforms where every comment is prefaced by or captive of a political, religious, or conspiratorial belief system. An example: “It may be unfair for some athletes to use steroids, but don’t forget that George Bush left National Guard training early.” (I have no agenda, except against agendas, so fill in whomever you would like for George Bush in the example!)

Clients will have agendas about any number of things. Many think that every single issue can be addressed through a “lean” approach, or Six Sigma, or Nine Delta. It’s nothing more than Maslow’s old “hammer/nail” analogy. Others will begin with a question about how to achieve consensus, or engage existing teams, or involve the customer, as though those alternatives were Holy Writ. One woman (oops) famously asked me, “Can you describe the binders you’ll be using because we win awards for our materials.”

People approach almost any issue with a certain, personal worldview, created by their education, acculturation, nurturing, experiences, family, associations, and so forth. That’s normal. But healthy people are flexible, learn, and add to those formative factors through interactions with others. There is an old, extreme rubric which maintains that a conservative is a liberal who’s been mugged. On a softer note, I find intelligent people are constantly changing views as they grow, learn, and interact. Note that President Obama has been both praised and condemned for such change and learning. It depends upon the observer’s agenda. (I’ve noted for years that I’m constantly surprised by how stupid I was two weeks ago.)

It’s tough to argue with an entrenched agenda because the other party has a list of points that must be covered, a tight parameter around the issue, and a tendentious adherence to the program. I remember pointing out to a Loch Ness Monster advocate that the toys and photo equipment used for the most famous, faked shot were turned over to authorities on the perpetrator’s death bed. The Monster Man told me that it was a conspiracy, and the toys and photo were created to discredit the “real” photo of the “real” monster. Okay, agenda item number 14….

Beware of “agendanomics.” It’s an approach with admirable rigor and discipline, but not much fresh air or intellect. And it’s been around forever. As Oscar Wilde reported during a visit to the American South in the late 1860s, during the aftermath of the Civil War, his hosts were bemoaning the fact that everything was better antebellum.

To try to break the morose mood, Wilde commented, “But what a beautiful moon tonight!”

“You think so?” asked his host. “Well, sir, you should have seen it before the war!”

© Alan Weiss 2009. All rights reserved.

You may have seen these, but if not, they’re good to cheer you up!

http://mashable.com/2009/08/22/youtube-fail/

I know it’s unfashionable to report good news, but someone has to do it.

The stock market is hovering around being in the black for 2009.

Government indicators are cautiously positive on trends in unemployment, housing sales, and trade. That is, things aren’t as bad as feared, or are slowing their slide, or are actually stabilizing.

Of course some things never change. Insurer AIG, after a mega-massive government bailout, is now stonewalling over paying property and medical claims to the passengers on the US Airways flight that ditched in the Hudson River. You just can’t make that stuff up. And banks, themselves the recipients of massive tax payer funding (some of which are proudly claiming they are starting to repay the loans) are still not providing mortgage loans and consumer credit.

Nonetheless, as I’ve been suggesting, the inevitable rebound will be sooner, not later, and economists in the Wall Street Journal this morning are starting to talk about early 2010 as the time of improvement.

Last night the coauthors on my newest book, “The Power of Strategic Commitment” (Amacom), Gershon Mader and Josh Leibner, threw a huge launch party at The Campbell Apartments in Grand Central Station. They invited clients, friends, and press, and taped a great deal of the proceedings. They understand that you invest in marketing and promotion, and that you don’t grow through cutting. Their clients clearly understand that, as well. We all had a great time.

The guy who coauthored my very first book, “The Innovation Formula,” is Mike Robert. He used to say to anyone who would listen, “If you had a dollar left, would you feed your family for a day, or invest it to market yourself so that you could feed your family forever?”

What investment are you making in optimism, courage, growth, and most of all, yourself? Not just for now, but forever?

© Alan Weiss 2009. All rights reserved.

I’ve been telling consultants that this is largely a “perceptual recession,” and that stress is resulting from uncertainty, lack of trust in traditional people and institutions, and a feeling of powerlessness. I commend you to Daniel Gilbert’s piece today in the New York Times:

One of the most difficult positions to occupy and defend is that of being yourself. Every day, individuals, groups, and the mores of society are laboring to assault individuality and toss us into the blender.

Normative pressure—the impetus to be part of the “in crowd”—is pervasive and severe. We punish mavericks and those marching to the beat of that distant drummer. And then we often shoot the drummer. This tendency is insidious, and occurs even within those groups which consider themselves “outsiders,” whether beatniks, heavy metal, bikers, Goths, or Young Republicans.

There is no one as ardently conformist as the avowed non-conformist in our midst. When hundreds of thousands of people are wearing baseball caps backwards, and millions are listening to “alternative” rock, it’s hard to tell what’s mainstream and what’s not.

So most of us stagger along the shore, dragged by the wind and drenched by the spray, trying to find shelter, or at least the most comfortable route. And that desire—to belong, to take beaten paths, to avoid the backwash of those racing past in other directions—is precisely what dooms our best intentions and dampens our greatest talents.

A typically debilitating statement goes thus: “Well, I’ve heard from quite a few people close to you who prefer not to be named, that your handling of the committee is not inclusive. I’m telling you this for your own good and because I want to help.”

In actuality, you’re being told for the purveyor’s own good (“Gotcha!”) and because they are seeking to denigrate you. These passive/aggressive statements cause many people to lose their bearings, sleep, and good intentions. Of course, the correct response should be: “I never pay attention to anonymous feedback, and I’m surprised you’d stoop to being the middleman. If you have something to say yourself, say it. Otherwise, don’t bother me with rumor and hearsay.”

We refrain from making that last statement because we don’t want to offend, even though we’ve just been offended! This is not a situation where the “high ground” means staying out in the open and allowing ill-meaning people to shoot at you. The high ground here is the ethical and pragmatic high ground of named sources and observed behavior. (“Why do you start the meeting 15 minutes late every week? Many of us are having trouble maintaining our schedules.”)

Oscar Wilde said that “Just because a man dies for something doesn’t mean it’s true.” No matter what the passion or claims made by others, take the time to evaluate whether the point of view, critique, or suggestion is valid based on logic and evidence.

Like your mother used to say when you claimed you had only run into the street because your friend did so first, “And if she jumped off the cliff first, would you do it?!”

Herd behavior is for sheep. And yet the wolves still get them. Wolves, of course, run in packs.

But there’s always a leader of the pack.

© Alan Weiss 2009. All rights reserved.