I recently learned how a management consultant I had worked with four years ago (I will refer to him at the New Rainmaker or NRM) brought in almost $20 million in new revenues in one last this year. This was ten times more revenue than he had produced in any other year and at a firm where a million dollar project is considered big. Many factors contributed to the spectacular increase. Let’s look at one.

Over two years ago NRM went to firm management and said he wanted to devote his full attention to one client where he was working on a small matter and where he saw huge potential. He had a number of reasons for assessing it a good opportunity. He saw focusing his attention on one account as his best chance to bring about a major jump in sales. Management cautioned him that if he focused exclusively on this client and it didn’t give him more work soon, it would reduce his bonus. He took the risk.
The prediction came true; his bonus declined for two years. When I saw him a year ago, things weren’t looking good. He had several proposals in to the client and no one was acting on them. Unbeknownst to him, the client was planning a major change that captured everyone’s full attention. He continued to invest time and effort in the client.The client’s big change was announced and work on it completed. Management returned its attention to the issues addressed in NRM’s proposals. They signed these proposals and asked for more. The dam had burst. The bet NRM had made on getting work from this one client had paid off. It had paid off big.

NRM had been able to make this bet, because he recognized that he had crossed a major financial inflection point. Most people are in a poor position to absorb a major drop in income. If you live in an expensive city and earn $80,000, a thirty per cent drop leaves you with $56,000, a sum that would be hard to live on for, say, a family of four. People whose living costs are high relative to their incomes are naturally income risk sensitive. This is where most of us start our careers.

This isn’t true of someone who earns a lot of money and has kept family spending under control. So, a person earning $800,000, who takes a 30 percent cut, still gets $560,000. If she lives on $200,000 a year this results in no reduction in life style. It just reduces the amount she saves. Wealthier people can accept risk that results in a short-term decline in income but offers a huge payoff a few years later. They are more likely to become risk takers with at least some of their income.

NRM had figured this out and realized that (though he earned nowhere near $800,000) the level of his income relative to his living costs had risen to a point where he could risk a decline for a year or two, if he could get a large enough payoff in the end. Though there were unnerving moments, he won the bet and will reap a stunning financial reward. A lot of people never recognize when they no longer need to be so income risk adverse and make bets accordingly. They sometimes miss big opportunities.

Actuaries and engineers aren’t known for their sales ability. They are seen as an introverted lot, more comfortable crunching numbers than with the kind of socializing that selling requires. Though there is limited truth to this stereotype, we have found that some actuaries and engineers quickly become effective business developers. This is true of some quite introverted and technical ones. Some outperform professionals one might expect to have greater interpersonal skill and so more of a sales bent, such as strategy consultants or executive recruiters. Some become rainmakers.

Professionals are smart people and run the risk of confusing understanding with mastery. Once they understand something, they want to move quickly to the next challenge. Though understanding may equal mastery in some areas, it’s not true of selling. Selling is a performing art, more like playing the piano. Understanding how a piano works is easy, but mastery requires practice. It requires going back to basics again and again. Engineering and actuarial sciences require a similar discipline. While there is room for creativity, rigorous attention to procedure is also essential if the actuary is to make sure that his numbers add up and the engineer that his bridge won’t fall down. They aren’t above doing routine and repetitive activities.

Selling requires meeting and a call discipline, which is also based on routine and repetitive effort. Some groups, which are perceived to be more dynamic than actuaries and engineers, are put off by such routines or feel compelled to vary and reinvent them. They require constant mental stimulation, if they are to remain engaged. Lacking that, they quickly abandoned their efforts. But the actuary and engineer keep at it, with a routine of calls and meetings, which eventually leads to a sale.

Let’s hear it for old fashioned hard work and those willing to do it to find a new client!

When selling, professionals have an annoying habit of trying to show how smart they are.  Instead of letting the client talk uninterrupted about her problem, the over-eager professional interjects ideas, anecdotes and other commentary designed to show off his intelligence.  Instead of trying to look so smart, he would be better served by appearing wise.
 

Think about the words associated with “smart:”
 

• Sharp—Ouch!
  Bright—Light draws attention to the source (and away from the client)
  Clever—Too clever by half!
  Quick—Perhaps even quicker than the client.
   

There is a competitive aspect to smartness not associated with wise and which is not appropriate.  We see people compete on the basis of their smarts in school and on game shows.  (The thought of a game show to see who is wisest is almost comical.)  To show how smart they are, professionals, at the very least, compete with the client for air space.
 

It’s not that brilliance is unwanted.  As a client I certainly want smart professionals working on my matters, but I want them working for someone who is wise.  I need smarts every day to get work done quickly and well, but at critical moments I need wisdom to make sure the right things get done.  I don’t want my business to end up like Enron; built with smarts and then brought down by lack of wisdom.  I want to work with smart people, but I might be willing to bare my soul to a wise one.  And that is the person I am most likely to hire.
 

Words associated with “wise” are reassuring in a tentative ally.  They show the traits we need to appear wise:
 

• Disinterested:  A wise person gives me advice that is based on my needs rather than hers.
  Prudent:  By being discreet and by avoiding undesirable consequences during the sale, she shows me what it would be like to work with her.  For example, she asks in preference to telling.
  Patient:  She listens patiently and attentively, so that when she does talk, she says just the right things.
   

From rainmakers and other senior professionals, clients expect wisdom, and rightly so!
 

Yesterday I debriefed a client who had lost out to a competitor on the chance to work for a prestigious client. When the client gave him the bad news, she said that his presentation didn’t seem as attuned to her company’s needs as the competitor’s. Specifically, he had said almost nothing about what she considered a major issue. I asked how he had made such a mistake, and he responded that he knew a lot about the industry in question and thought the client was misreading the issue’s importance. It was clear that he hadn’t asked a critical question: What are the major issues you expect to face in getting this problem resolved? (more…)

Welcome to my blog.  It is designed for professionals who must both deliver their firm’s service and also sell those services, i.e. for seller/doers, for aspiring and actual rainmakers.  These include many attorneys, architects, actuaries, engineers, executive recruiters, management consultants, publicists and those who work with such professionals on marketing and selling. I hope it will:

• Provide a regular reminder of the need to stay focused on business development, even though you are faced with pressing client work. Many of the professionals we have worked with have commented on the value of regular reinforcement.  This blog will provide it to those who want it in what we hope is a lively, short format.
• Provide a forum for the exchange of ideas and information about rain making.  I hope that the blog helps you exchange ideas with other professionals who also must develop new business.
• Help me stay in touch with people Harding & Company has worked with as clients and friends over the years.  All of us at Harding & Company would like to hear from you.