Rainmaker Story #9: The Recovery
A few years back a professional I was working with came to a meeting looking as if he had been rolled around in a cement truck for an hour. He had just returned from a client meeting from hell.
Every point the team of professionals had made before the client’s executive committee had been challenged, both facts and conclusions rejected. The team was virtually starting the project over again, but the clients they would be working with were now predisposed to be difficult.
Later that day, I ran into the managing partner of the firm, a prodigious rainmaker, and asked if he had heard about the meeting.
“I was there, through the whole thing,” he replied, his usual chipper self.
“Was it a bad as I was told?” I asked.
“Yes and no,” he answered, adding that it had come out all right in the end.
“I didn’t hear about a happy ending,” I said.
“Well, I’m referring to my quiet conversation with the CEO. I drew him aside and said that the meeting had been a bad thing for both our firms, and that he and I had to see to it that it didn’t happen again. He agreed to meet with me the evening before each Executive Committee Meeting to make sure that he and I are in agreement before anything goes before the committee.” His eyes twinkled, and I knew a punch line was coming. “So now I am meeting with him twice a month, both at the committee meeting and one on one the night before!”
The firm rebuilt the relationship, which, if anything, became stronger for going through a rough patch. And the managing partner used his time with the CEO to good effect, listening to the CEO’s plans, identifying areas where his firm could help and selling more and more work.
As I reported years ago in my book, Creating Rainmakers, most rainmakers are optimists. This is the best example I have seen of optimism in action. And I have remembered the rainmaker’s words to the CEO and recommended that others use them.
This has been a bad thing for both of our firms, and we have to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Optimists stress the one area of agreement with the client at such a moment. They note that what happened was a disaster for both firms, and focus the discussion on the future by stressing that it’s important to all concerned to get it fixed. I have had favorable reports from everyone who has used the rainmaker’s words when faced with a similar situation.
I hope you never find yourself in a difficult situation like this, but if you do remember the words the rainmaker used with this client.