I recently gave a speech to a group of architects during which I referred to a structural engineer, whom many of us knew. One of the architects corrected me, saying, “He’s not really an engineer, though. He’s a salesman.” “Yes,” I agreed, “he certainly is a big rainmaker for his firm. But why do you say he’s not an engineer?” “Because he’s not practicing his profession,” said the architect. To which I responded curtly, “Yes, he is . . . at the highest level.” We looked each other in the eye and then decided not to have that argument and went on to other subjects. Pity. If we had argued, we might have learned something.

So, instead of debating with the architect, I have done so with myself, as I often do. After winning and losing the argument from both sides several times, I called the engineer (or former engineer) in question and asked him what he thought. He was extremely busy and, I sensed, thought me either mad or with far too much time on my hands to be bothered by such an angels-on-pinhead issue. And he stunned me with his answer. He wasn’t sure, but leaned towards the view that he wasn’t a real engineer any more.

Instead of a definitive answer, I came away with a second question, is it important whether an engineer or actuary or architect or accountant or lawyer or consultant is practicing her profession when selling? I find it best to deal with these questions simultaneously.

The first question comes down to what practicing your profession means. The simplest definition is using one’s specialized education and training in a specific area to solve a problem. 

The answer to the second question—is it important whether or not selling is practicing your profession—depends, of course on your point of view. Here is mine:

One of the pernicious aspects of the professions is the pecking order among specialists. This is, arguably, most egregious among architects, where designers look down on project architects, who look down on construction administrators, who look down on specifiers. Name a famous architect and it will be a designer.

Pecking orders exist in other professions, too. Strategy consultants outrank all other types of management consultant, for example. Trial lawyers outrank other litigators, who are effective at negotiating settlements. Structural engineers outrank their more common brethren, the civil engineers.

In some professions, like architecture, the rankings remain rigid over time. In others, the rankings have changed. Over the past twenty years, the prestige of mergers and acquisitions attorneys has risen from the dregs of the profession to one of the most acclaimed specialties. The status of the general counsels, working inside a corporation, has also risen over the years, as the corporations have given them more power.

There are two strong arguments I can make for saying that a professional who sells her firm’s services is practicing her profession. First, she uses that education and the knowledge she has gained from experience to understand the client’s business issue, translate into a set of technical needs, assemble a team that has the right set of technical abilities to address those needs, and then with the team, develops an affordable solution to the business problem. She may not work at a drawing table or CAD machine, she may not write briefs or argue a case in front of a judge, or do many of the other tasks which she studied in school to earn a professional degree. To say that doing this is not practicing a profession is like telling a pianist that he is not really a musician, because he composes music.

The second argument for including rainmakers among those who practice their profession is based on an analogy. If a general counsel or in-house architect is still considered to be practicing her professions, then logic dictates that professionals who sell their firms’ services are, too. One is the buyer and one is the seller. Both buyer and seller use their technical knowledge to structure and negotiate the transaction. Why should the person on one side of the deal be considered to be practicing her profession and the other not? The general counsel doesn’t plead cases before a judge or write contracts and the in-house architect doesn’t design buildings any more than the professionals who sell do. But they do use the specialized knowledge in other ways.

To say that a professional is no longer practicing her profession, because she makes her contribution to the firm by selling, is not only inaccurate, it is harmful. It is pernicious, because the person who says that selling isn’t practicing a profession is attributing a professional inferiority to sellers and is most likely justifying his own sales ineffectiveness on the grounds of professional purity. He is saying, “I studied to be an architect and want to remain one, so, of course I can’t sell anything.” This form of elitism is not good for the speaker nor for the one who has supposedly given up his profession. Because I like a good rant from time to time and because I feel a passion about this subject, I want to say, :”Stop being such an ineffectual dweeb and be a real architect (or actuary, accountant, engineer …) and sell something.”

Maybe it’s just as well that the architect and I didn’t have that argument after all.

In his current post in his blog, Trust Matters, Charlie Green argues for listening largely so the client realizes she has been heard. He argues that you should “listen for the sake of listening.”

I am not sure whether we disagree or we use different words to say much the same thing. Your goal, I believe, is to figure what the client wants from you when she talks to you. If she wants to know if you can help her with a problem, tell her yes or no, and if it’s no, try to help her find someone who can. If she is trying to scope out a problem, help her do so. Hold the selling until you both have a clear understanding of the problem. If she simpley wants to vent or brag a little, let her do so.

Clients quickly catch on to the professional who claims to be able to help them with any problem. Saying that you can’t do something and refering the client to someone who can is both the right and professional thing to do and good business. If you have helped a client find someone who can solve Problem A better than you can, the client will trust you when you say you can help with Problem B.

Your first objective should always be to understand the client’s problem as she sees it, rather that as you think she should see it or would like her to see it. And once you do, if you can help her solve it, get on with the selling. That’s why she called you.

When a prospective client wants to know something that might hurt a professional’s chance of winning new business, many will finesse the answer by saying something that is true but misleading.  When employing one common form, the Rubber Ruler Finesse, the professional chooses a reference point or measure that makes the answer deceptively attractive.  For example, when a client asks how long a professional has been with his firm, the professional may say, “It’s my first year,” instead of the more precise, “Two weeks.” 
 

Or take this example:  “Do you do a lot of work with banks,” asks the client, and the professional responds, “Yes, a lot. Almost 30 percent of our fees came from that industry last year.” He doesn’t say that all of those fees came from one bank, the only one his firm has ever worked for.
 

Professionals at small firms often use this finesse when asked how big their firms are.  They give the number which includes the largest number of people, even though those counted include support staff and, sometimes, employees not related to the delivery of a professional service.
 

Though these answers are true at some level, they pass the definition of a lie found in Sisela Bok’s  Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life,  the classic book on the subject.  According to her a lie is “any intentionally deceptive message which is stated.”  So, is this type of truth stretching honest or not when selling a professional service?  I would like to hear from you.  Consider the following additional points:
 

¨      We will assume that the professional successfully deceives the prospective client in order to eliminate answers that deal with practicality rather than ethics.
 

¨      One only has to look at a few clients’ advertisements to realize that they commit comparable deceptions.
 

¨      No one considers it unethical to lie in an oriental bazaar.
 

¨      Professionalism requires a high standard of honesty with a client.