Most of us are afraid to turn down a client, fearing that if we do, we will never have another chance. I did, too, until David told me the story of the Amazing Flip.

David worked for a creative firm that I will not describe in detail, in order to protect its identity. I will call it Cool & Awesome. The firm was founded on the belief that to have the best firm you had to hire and retain the best people and that to get the best people you had to offer them the most interesting work. This belief was put into practice by allowing any professional in the firm to turn down work she disliked. This meant that before anyone sold a project to a client, he had to make sure he could find people willing to do it. Each project had to be sold twice, once to the client and once to the firm’s professionals.

David, who is among the most accomplished rainmakers I know, was new with the firm and still adjusting to this peculiar two-way selling, when I first met him. One day an executive from a Fortune 100 company called to discuss several projects he want David’s firm to do. As he listened to the descriptions of the projects, David realized that he wouldn’t be able to sell them inside. Still, it wasn’t everyday he got a call from a company that big from an executive that senior. So, instead of telling him no over the phone David flew to the client’s city and took him to dinner.

Over dinner he told the client about the firm’s unusual practice of letting its professionals turn down work. “For any of them being willing to do it,” said David, “it either has to be technically challenging, have high visibility, or do significant good to society. I don’t think I can sell your projects internally. I think you would be better served by going to another . . .” Here, the client interjected, “Are you trying to say that our projects aren’t cool enough?” All David could do was shrug his shoulders.

A week later the man called David, asking to meet with several of the key members of the Cool & Awesome professional staff. The day of the meeting the man stood before the Cool & Awesome talent and put up his first slide. It read:

Why XYZ Corporation
Wants to Work With
Cool & Awesome
And Why
Cool & Awesome
Should Want
To Work With XYZ

That was the Amazing Flip: Roles had reversed. The client had become the seller and the professional firm had become the buyer!

Having learned that saying no can make you more attractive, rather than less, the very next week, I called a client and told them we would not be pursuing work with them that they had asked us to bid on. The client paused for a moment and then responded, “Well, if you don’t want to work with our New York teams, let me tell you how it would work in Boston.”

Flip!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 11th, 2007 at 5:16 pm and is filed under Rain making, Rainmaker, Rainmaker Story, Selling Professional Services. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.