Real People, Real Trust: A CEO You Should Know

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Chip Grizzard (@chipgrizzard)is the CEO of Grizzard Communications Group, a nonprofit marketing and fundraising agency. Chip is the fourth-generation member of the Grizzard family to work at the 91-year-old company. Discover Chip’s candid replies to questions about what it really takes to be a Trusted Advisor and how to create a company that leads with trust, every day.

Seven Key Traits of a Trusted Advisor

I first met Chip in January of this year when he brought me in to teach his top 35 leaders about Trust-Based Selling. It was clear from the moment we met that he’s a very principled man with a real commitment to being the kind of leader that others want to follow.

When I interviewed Chip for this article, I asked him what he sees as the fundamental attributes of a Trusted Advisor. His answers highlighted seven key traits:

  1. Keep your promises. “You gotta do what you say you’re going to do. So many times people will casually say, ‘I’ll send you that’ or ‘I’ll call you about this.’ I routinely make mental notes about how often people follow through on their promises. It’s about 50% of the time or less. That drives me nuts and definitely impacts my perception of someone else’s trustworthiness, so I work hard to be sure I keep my promises. I watch my words a lot and don’t make off-hand comments. If I say it, I’ll write it down or get a text message to help me remember. And then I’ll do it.”
  2. Focus on others’ success. “The only way I’m successful is if I make others successful. You can’t fake caring about what others think or what’s important to them.”
  3. Stay in it for the long haul. “You can’t look for a short-term gain; you have do to what’s right for the long-term. We have a 60-year client relationship in one case; other clients have been with us 20 and 30 years. This is unheard of in our industry. We give them all we have and they know we’re in it with them.”
  4. Treat people right. “It really is so simple. Just treat people right. It doesn’t get any simpler. If you do that, then great things happen. The day we’re fired from one client is the day we start working to rebuild that relationship and win that business back. We always end a relationship as positively as we can. Any time you take a hard approach, you burn a bridge. Some agencies in our space take the harder approach. They carry that with them forever. We always strive to be fair—to ourselves as well as our clients.”
  5. Persevere. “It might take ten years to fix something, or to win someone’s business. So be it.”
  6. Never compromise. “Compromise is not negotiable. It’s not even something I think about. Our industry is very small and people move around a lot. News travels fast about how you treat others. Personal integrity matters.”

Here’s the seventh, which I’m adding to the list on Chip’s behalf:

  1. 7. Modesty. Chip didn’t speak of this trait directly; he demonstrated it. At the beginning of our interview, this very confident and highly successful leader said, “I hope I can help you. Please don’t feel like you have to use my answers if I don’t give you exactly what you need.” An hour after the interview was over, he emailed me a note to thank me for my time.

Moments of Truth

I asked Chip to talk about tough times in Grizzard’s very long history of exemplary client relationships. He shared one particularly poignant story.

“We made a big mistake once. Our client had big media plan that coincided with our direct mail drop. Because of our mistake, the mail arrived in homes before the big media push. In the client’s mind, this hurt results. He called and said, ‘This is very disappointing. We’ve done all this planning and you’ve let us down.’ I asked him what would make him feel like we addressed the situation to his satisfaction. He said, ‘I don’t think we should pay for this mailing.’

“There was a fair amount of money at stake. Right away, I said, ‘No problem, done.’ As painful as it was, it was the right thing to do. Ten years later, he’s still a client, despite having moved around to different organizations and locations. And every time I see him—every time—he says, ‘Do you remember when we had the problem with that mail drop and you took care of it?’ It had a huge impact on him, and he became a lifelong client as a result.”

Creating a Culture of Trust

Grizzard was recently named “Top Workplaces 2011” in Atlanta. The evaluation for the program was based on feedback from a survey that 94% of Grizzard employees completed (exceeding the average company response of 55%). This top honor is a direct result of the honest feedback in a number of areas related to Grizzard’s culture, such as organizational values, strategic vision, leadership, operations, pay and benefits and overall work environment and experience.

I asked Chip to share any advice he has for executives who are trying to create a culture of trust in their organizations. His response boiled down to one thing: being a strong role model. And from Chip’s perspective, it starts with him.

A Matter of Personal Integrity

“I never send a mixed signal related to integrity; my staff never sees me do it one way this way this time and another way another other time. Some people try to play both sides of the fence—to turn on the relationship charm and do the right thing at some points. But it’s not a part-time thing. You have to live it every day. It has to be real. And it’s not just a business thing.

“I just came back from a client conference where I saw people doing great things with clients during the day and crazy stuff at night with colleagues. Even if clients don’t see that, well, then your co-workers doubt your character. You can’t turn it on and off. You have to be consistent all the time—in your personal life, your social life, your professional life. I talk to my staff when I see them doing things outside of work that leave me concerned. Integrity applies to all aspects of your life.”

Teachable Moments

Chip made mention of a discussion his leaders were having during the program I led on Trust-Based Selling for Grizzard. The question on the table was, are there ever times when you shouldn’t tell a client the whole truth? Chip was in the room at the time (role modeling that he, too, had things to learn and it was worth his time to spend two days in a classroom). He reminded me what he said that day.

“My answer to that was simple: If you’re expending any energy on the debate, then it probably means you already have your answer about whether or not it crosses the line. I said it that day in front of all 35 of my leaders in the room, and since then I’ve heard two people repeating the same thing when talking to their staff. Teaching moments are key to living our values and our culture. They start with me.”

Recovering from Mistakes

I asked Chip what happens when he makes a mistake. Here’s what he said:

“I hope I’m not making a lot of integrity mistakes. I might make mistakes on how we’ve resolved a particular situation. In that case, I look back and acknowledge it, and apologize if necessary. I own it, try to explain it, and try to rebuild the relationship. I put in the time, the work, and the commitment to turning a situation around.”

Going the Distance

Chip is not only a leader with an impressive track record; he’s also an endurance athlete with a long list of sports accomplishments. Chip has competed in over 100 triathlons, including the Hawaii Ironman and Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon. I asked him what connections he saw between his athletic efforts and his success as a leader. His answer was inspiring:

“It’s very easy to not want to get up at 4 a.m. and go workout sometimes. If I stay up too late and do something dumb and I’m in the middle of training for an event, well, I get my butt out of bed and go suffer (laughing). On the endurance sports side, my work ethic and my passion make a difference for me. The same is true on the business side.”

May we all have the wisdom and tenacity to walk a mile—or run 26.2—in Chip Grizzard’s shoes.

Connect with Chip Grizzard on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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This is the first blog in a series on Real People, Real Trust—an insider view into the challenges, successes, and make-it-or-break-it moments of people from all corners of the world who are walking the talk of a Trusted Advisor. Know someone you’d like to nominate to be featured in our next article? Email Andrea Howe.

The Trust Reader volume 9

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Welcome to the April ebook, Volume 9 of the Trust Reader. We use the Trust Reader series to announce the publication of new articles on the Trusted Advisor website.

This month’s issue is made up of three articles, which share one broad theme: the relationship between giving and getting. This of course has implications for both marketing and sales, as well as personal relationships. We have always felt this link—between personal and business—is central to each.

We begin with a broadly theoretical article, first printed in RainToday.com, titled, “Reciprocity and Inbound Marketing.” The world of marketing has changed drastically over the past decade. The invention and reliance upon social media and the consumer’s drive to push out SPAM has forced marketers to find new ways of getting their message out. Inbound marketing is built upon reciprocity, and through that outlook, those who leverage it have found success.

Chris Brogan, of Third Tribe Marketing and author of Trust Agents, and psychologist and author Robert Cialdini both highlight the factor of reciprocity being the number one driver of influence. In this article I reveal 13 steps you can take today to think about applying the power of these concepts yourself.

The other two articles delve more into the reality behind what happens when we go for the sale and they touch on how to build trust through putting your client’s needs and wants before your own goal of making the close. They are given one-page summaries with links.

  1. What Your Client Really Means By Price Objecting, first published in SeniorMarketAdvisor.com sheds some light on how best to respond to a price objection while pitching a sale.

    2. And

  2. Why Closing is Hazardous to Your Sales Health first published in ProducersWeb.com, delves into the reasons why aiming solely for the close is unhealthy for your sales perspective. Focusing on building a trusting relationship with your client includes enhancing your Credibility, Reliability, Intimacy and Other-orientation in the eyes of your client. Instead of aiming to create a relationship focused solely on you making your sale, perhaps it’s time to focus on what your client’s needs are.

We hope you enjoy this new material.

Get the Trust Reader volume 9 here

Doctors and Lawyers: Consumers, Patients and Clients

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Q. What do Paul Krugman (Nobel-prize-winning economist) and Scott Greenfield (criminal defense attorney) have in common?

A. Both are occasionally wrong, but never in doubt.

Q. What’s the difference between Paul Krugman and Scott Greenfield?

A. In the recent case of markets and professional ethics, one of them is wrong—and it’s not Krugman.

 

Krugman recently wrote in his NY Times column a piece called Patients Are Not Consumers, about how doctors and medicine (and patients) are being degraded by a simplistic emphasis on market ideology to the exclusion of ethics. Krugman is more right than wrong in this timely piece.

Politicians and supposed reformers talk about the act of receiving care as if it were no different from a commercial transaction, like buying a car — and their only complaint is that it isn’t commercial enough.

Krugman isn’t saying health care isn’t commercial; he’s saying it’s not only commercial.

Greenfield attempts to hijack the medical metaphor on behalf of lawyers in a post called Take the Lead, saying that lawyers and the law (and legal clients) are also being degraded by a simplistic emphasis on market ideology.

But Greenfield, by contrast, is more wrong than right. He confuses professionalism with witch-doctoring, and does his cause no good.

Doctors, Patients and Consumers

Market-as-solution is increasingly being exposed as an imperfect ideology except on the political fringes. (You could say that about government-as-solution too, but it’s a straw dog with no teeth—socialists are polling badly in the US these days).

This is legislatively relevant today, as Krugman points out, in the program put forth most recently in Congressman Ryan’s economic proposal. Here’s Krugman:

The idea that all this can be reduced to money — that doctors are just people selling services to consumers of health care — is, well, sickening. And the prevalence of this kind of language is a sign that something has gone very wrong not just with this discussion, but with our society’s values.

Krugman is an economist; but one who does not believe homo sapiens is equivalent to homo economicus. He’s an economist who believes in ethics, which makes him both interesting and relevant in my book.

Of course, that’s not the whole story. There are reasonable claims to be made for consumerism in healthcare. HBS’s Regina Herzlinger has for years argued—very cogently, e.g. in Who Killed Health Care?–that the entire US system desperately needs more consumer–and market–orientation. As someone with recent experiences of loved ones in hospitals I can attest to the need for intelligent process design and change management skills.

Yet Krugman’s no absolutist. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit to find that he’s familiar with Herzlinger’s work and that he favors it. He doesn’t say that health care isn’t commercial—just that it’s not only commercial.

He’s talking about the excess that comes not from reasonable people applying reasonable market principles but from ideologues.

Lawyers, Clients and Consumers

Which brings us to Mr. Greenfield. Trying to hitch a ride on Krugman, he says, “Doctors don’t have consumers. They have patients. Lawyers don’t have consumers. We have clients.”

“All marketers lie,” according to Greenfield, “because without lies they would get no leads.” Which may be your first tip that we’re in true-believer territory.

In particular, Greenfield finds the term “leads” a morally offensive term.

“…I was offended by his characterizing clients as leads, that this was a marketing term and it fundamentally conflicted with what lawyers do. Lawyers do not seek ‘leads,’ I told him. We seek clients. I thought it was outrageous.

“We don’t sell used cars. We are responsible for people’s lives. We used to be, anyway. And people who are responsible for the lives of others don’t think of them as leads or consumers.”

Witch-Doctoring

When someone starts talking about being “responsible for the lives of others,” get your megalomania sniffer out. Greenfield’s parallel here isn’t with doctoring—it’s with witch-doctoring.

In my experience, most law firms are still a long way from being touched by market forces, much less dominated by them. The idea that marketing is in fundamental conflict with client service makes as much sense as an Ayn Rand Daycare Center.

Krugman integrates ethics and economics. Greenfield is anti-integration when it comes to law and economics—there can be no compromise with the devil. Such intolerance, I find, is closely correlated with cases of the Hammer-Nail Syndrome.

The Hammer-Nail Syndrome

All professions are prone to the hammer-nail syndrome; if I own a hammer, you must be a nail. And Greenfield is a poster child. Consider a case from his own files.

You may recall about 18 months ago Tiger woods got into major PR trouble for backing a car out of his driveway and allegedly being on the wrong end of a 3-iron from his wife? Greenfield’s advice at the time was crystal-clear (as always—sometimes wrong, never in doubt):

“Even worse than the civil lawyer is the flack, whose only concern is how things will play out in the media. ‘But it won’t look good for you if you don’t meet with the police, Tig.’ And it won’t look good if he’s arrested based on his statements to the police either, but the latter will go on much longer than the former. Flacks tend to be more concerned with appearance than reality. [italics added]”

In Greenfield’s world-view, Woods should have ignored the PR “flacks” around him and immediately gotten not just a lawyer, but a good criminal defense attorney. Because what ol’ Tiger had was not a communications problem, but a legal problem.

Really, Scott? Is that how we’ll remember the Tiger Woods fiasco—as a case in criminal law? Would you have coached him to just say, “I didn’t do anything illegal, I didn’t break any laws?”

Being blinded by antipathy to marketing means you can’t see a marketing issue when it hits you like, well, a hammer in the head.

What Real Professionalism Looks Like

This is not what real professionalism looks like. The legal profession should reject the ‘high-priest slash witch doctor’ view of the law as being apart from the rest of human commerce, just as I think Krugman does.

Professionalism must include ethics. To me, that means treating our clients and patients as intelligent equals in a joint search to make things better in their part of the world. Your expertise is not a license to bloviate, much less to be respected for doing so. Your expertise is an attribute that, if you treat clients decently, will be perceived as such and rightly so.

That means—let me spell it out—if you’re not proactively seeking opportunities to improve the world via your expertise, then you’re not behaving as a professional.

  • If you have a cure for smallpox and you just sit in your office aggressively waiting for the phone to ring from enlightened smallpox victims—you’re unprofessional. Go look for “leads,” preferably in places where you’re likely to find smallpox victims. You might save some lives.
  • If you’re a lawyer doing corporate work for a client and you see a real estate issue, but choose not to mention it because ‘you don’t sell’—you’re unprofessional. That’s a ‘lead’ and you’re not unethical for pursuing it—you’re unethical if you don’t.
  • If you refuse to treat your client or patient as an intelligent adult consumer by insisting they first respect you for your black-robed witch-doctor status—you’re unprofessional. Go look for leads, defined as people whom you can help. Don’t demand respect; earn it.

Scott says he’s responsible for his clients’ lives. I suggest that’s a bad rule for the rest of us.

We’re not responsible for our clients’ lives; they are. Our job is to help them—not live their lives for them.

144 Tips on Trust: The Great # Countdown

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Last week we announced “The Trusted Advisor FieldBook: A Comprehensive Toolkit for Leading with Trust,” a new book written by myself and Andrea Howe in partnership with Wiley Books.

As part of the build-up to the book, we started a series of Daily Trust Tips, one per business day, counting down until publication day, October 31. You can access these daily trust tips on Twitter, by using the hashtag (or pound sign) followed by TrustTip. Like this: #TrustTip


Andrea Howe and I alternately publish the tip du jour every weekday at 8:30AM EST; then whichever isn’t tweeting will re-tweet within the hour. You find us on Twitter at @AndreaPHowe and @CharlesH.Green. Or, you can simply do a twitter search on #TrustTip. That way you can easily spot the whole series at any time.

The Tips

We try to stay away from platitudes. They’re meant to be precise and provocative, things you can apply today to enhance your trustworthiness and build stronger, more trusting relationships.

And if that still isn’t enough to motivate you to get on twitter, then every two weeks or so we’ll publish the most recent TrustTips here on this blog. Here they are, plus a few bonus thoughts.

Trust Tips Redux: #144 – #135

#144 Find out what your client’s customers like best about your client.

#143 Subscribe to 7 Google Alerts: some about your customers, some about their industry.

#142 Develop 5 great customer questions: Ask a partner to pick the top 3 from your list. Use them.

#141 When you present, practice in front of the mirror 4 times. Seriously! 4 times! You’ll get more relaxed.

#140 How much personal time: Hours, $: will you invest this year in you?

#139 Find out where you best customer went to high school. Don’t flaunt it; just learn it.

#138 Host an event that brings key stakeholders together; you be the moderator.

#137 When the customer asks you the price, tell them. Straight away. No hem, haw, wait. Answer the question.

#136 When you tell a story: refer to 3 of the 5 senses in telling it. It’ll make it more memorable.

#135 Don’t walk in without a point-of-view. It doesn’t have to be right; it does have to be thoughtful.

Here’s a couple of my favorites:

# 140, for example. Part of Google’s success clearly lies in happy, engaged employees. If you don’t work for Google, that doesn’t mean you can’t get a little google for yourself. Reinvesting in yourself gives you a break from the daily grind. Feeling comfortable with your position, your team, and your bosses allows you to be more relaxed when faced with difficult situations. When your job is more than where you punch in and punch out, you can be there for your customers. Customers will then look to you as someone who has their best interests in mind—and begin to believe that you might actually care about their goals.

# 137. Almost all price problems are of our own creation. Every reason we concoct for being reticent—don’t quote price until they’ve heard value, etc.—just resonates with the client as obfuscation and avoidance. What’s he hiding? Why can’t he answer a direct question? Any financial planner will tell you, clients find it easier to talk about their sex lives than to talk about money; and any salesperson who appears hesitant is immediately causing suspicion. It’s so easy: just answer the question, and if they don’t ask it, put it out there. It’s a relevant fact; and oddly enough, you get credit for being forthright in mentioning it, simply because no one else will!

Which ones did you find most meaningful?

We’ll be publishing more #TrustTip next week and every week to book publication. Share the wealth; tell others about #TrustTip—new tips posted every weekday at 8:30AM.

Asking for Fees and Root Canals

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When my coaching client Craig returned from the dentist following his unexpected root canal, he didn’t complain about the pain. It was the sign in the reception area that got him: “Payment Expected at the Time Services are Provided.”

“I was wondering why the dentist doesn’t have any trouble insisting I pay him now,” he told me. What he didn’t understand is why some lawyers and consultants, including him, feel they have to tip-toe around the issue of discussing and collecting fees.

There are plenty of other professionals who don’t have trouble asking for fees. Think about those in medicine, and people like the snow plower, your car mechanic, real estate broker, plumber and your electrician.

What’s So Hard About Asking?

Why is it that lawyers, consultants and others often have so much difficulty talking about fees? Why is it that with us, we act like we’d rather get a root canal than discuss fees? Clients expect us to be assertive when helping them – so why do we dance around when it comes to talking about fees?

How To Make it Easier

Here are three tips that just might help you ask for and collect client fees:

  • Believe in yourself. Acknowledge that you are good at what you do, and that your fees reflect the value of your work in the marketplace in which you are working. If they are not, you’ll find out soon enough. And if you want some ideas on pricing your services, here’s a great compendium of short articles, thanks to Rain Today via Michael McLaughlin.
  • Deal with the topic sooner rather than later. Transparency helps. Don’t hesitate early on in the conversation to discuss your fees with a prospective client. Waiting too long may appear as if you’re hiding something, and certainly makes it more awkward. Try saying something like: “I’m delighted to talk more about this. Let me give you an idea of costs so we’re on the same page.”
  • Get personal. When you send a bill, don’t hide behind your firm’s invoicing systems. If the bill seems higher than expected, let the client know in a separate note or call – that reduces surprises and increases your reliability. If it’s lower than expected, that’s worth a call as well. Good news is appreciated. And, the personal touch will go a long way toward growing trust in the relationship.

Meanwhile, Back in the Dentist’s Chair

We all need to take our cue from those who don’t mind asking for fees. As for Craig, he’ll get another lesson when his dentist, without hesitation, tells him the cost for the cap to cover that root canal.

Two New Sales Books Reviewed

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The field of sales produces a lot of books. Inevitably, a few are better than most. Given my own biases–thoughtfulness and action orientation, I like to believe–here are two new good ones.

Making Rain

Rainmaking Conversations: Influence, Persuade, and Sell in Any Situation, by RAIN Group co-Presidents Mike Schultz and John Doerr, was just published by John Wiley & Sons. Yesterday it made #1 in the Sales category, and reached at least as high as #21 in all book sales on Amazon. Which suggests the authors know a little something about selling. (Disclosure: I read this book in draft and wrote a blurb for it, and I’m a contributing editor on affiliated RainToday.com along with author Doerr. Am I biased? Yes.)

RAIN, just to get that out of the way, is an acronym for Rapport, Aspirations and Afflictions, Impact, and New Reality. It’s one of several acronyms the authors use to provide a roadmap around pretty much the entire territory of sales.

The concept of a “rainmaker” is one that derives mainly from complex sales, often professional services sales—it’s the person who does the dance to heaven to bring down the rain; a revered talent in both native cultures and national corporations. Despite the complex sales heritage, there is much in here as well to support the solo, simple product salesperson as well.

What has always impressed me about Schultz and Doerr’s work is that it integrates the ‘soft’ stuff and the ‘hard’ stuff so well. For example, the “R” in rain is unabashedly about the good old “people don’t care what you know until they know that you care” stuff. You know—Zig Ziglar, even Dale Carnegie. They give ‘motivation’ a good name among the kind of people who mock it in Chris Farley SNL reruns.

But RAIN also performs the same role that SPIN did so powerfully in Neil Rackham’s formulation of SPIN Selling (or for that matter ELFEC in my own Trust-Based Selling)—it’s a powerful prescription for sequencing conversations.

Finally, the authors are equally at home in the world of value propositions and risk assessment; in process as well as principles and psychology. They have a nuanced view of influence—the balancing of inquiry and advocacy. Basically, they cover the field from all angles. If you had to buy one book on sales as a salesperson or sales manager—this would be a top candidate.

It’s a good book, folks. Check it out.

Selling from Strengths

From the good people at Gallup, there is the new book Strengths Based Selling. Tony Rutigliano and Brian Brim have taken decades of Gallup research info (and Gallup is Research R Us) to integrate some personality profiling around sales skills into a book that looks systematically at what accounts for high performing salespeople. Compared to RainMaking Conversations, which is about sales process as well as the act of selling, Strengths Based Selling is on the face of it more focused on the introspective, i.e. about who you are.

Rutigliano is the author of a previous book called Discover Your Sales Strengths. He describes this book as being more tactical, in the sense of giving the individual salepeople specific ideas about how to conduct themselves at various steps in the sales process. And while that’s true, the sales process is really more the bread surrounding the meat of determining of just who you are.

To that end, the book comes with a complimentary self-assessment test, the Clifton Strengths-Finder Assessment. There are 34 broad talent themes in this rubric; take the test and it will tell you your Top Five themes. The bulk of the book is about how different types deal with different parts of the sales process. (I took the quiz and no surprise–this is Gallup after all–it was dead on for me–Intellection, Input, Strategic, Adaptability, Ideation).

Despite this apparent psychological and tactical approach, the book is very strategic in two critical ways. First, the authors point out that a great component of your success comes from creating and putting yourself into positions and situations that leverage your strengths.

That means not just knowing who you are, but constructing the world around you in ways that make your strengths resonate. It means things like identifying complementary resources, and letting others know your strengths and asking for their help in leveraging them. It means finding out how to design your job around you. It ultimately means facing whether you’re in the right job.

The authors also have an audacious take on ‘work-life balance.’ They suggest it’s a myth, and that we’re all better off talking about work-life integration, that the term ‘balance’ itself suggests an uneasy and moving trade-off. I think they’ve got a great point.

But the most basic message of Strengths Based Selling is: there is no one type of successful salesperson, and there is no one methodology. Not everybody can sell, but there are a hundred paths to get there–not one. I find this remarkably parallel to the point made in my interview with Richard Osborne on therapy and sales, coming from a psychological perspective.

Biology is not destiny, and there is no one answer. Rutigliano and Brim help you intelligently navigate the wide degrees of freedom available to those who don’t need the comfort of a faux one-size fits all ideology.

 

 

Sales, Narcissism and Therapists

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I recently had some back and forth emails with Richard Osborne. Dick has 30-plus years’ experience as a therapist. His credentials[1] include a PhD in Clinical Psychology from Harvard where he studied under, among others, Chris Argyris.

We covered a lot of ground, starting with the idea of narcissism, but ending up talking about sales and about change: personal change, corporate change, and the role played by leaders and coaches.

Following are some excerpts.

Sales readers: hang in there—the good stuff’s coming.

RO: I read your article in Trust Primer Vol. 10 about sales and narcissism with interest.

CHG: Good. I should have asked you before I wrote it—is there a guru of narcissism?

RO: You mean, as opposed to narcissistic gurus? OK, that’s just my cynicism showing. But, having seen one self-proclaimed Holy Man after another come and go (often in riches or scandal or both…), I admit that I’ve developed a certain skepticism towards the type.

CHG: Scandals aside, can’t a guru say anything important about narcissism?

RO: Sure. Some raise some interesting questions about it–specifically, the phenomenon of charisma (which I’ll define as interpersonal presence and power). Some who are charismatic are also narcissists — but not necessarily all.

The true charismatic knows what he or she is about and is naturally confident. That clear belief in oneself and one’s role (or mission or product, for that matter) is powerfully attractive because we all suffer from what William James called “the will to believe.” Most of us feel less than fully whole or confident. The charismatic therefore represents a level of confidence and a wholeness that we lesser beings admire and desire; they believe in their ability to lead and influence us and we are grateful to follow.

The narcissist, on the other hand, may project charismatic qualities but, at his core, is wounded and insecure. He seeks praise and/or followers to reassure and shore up his shaky self-regard. But he also tends to use these people and even to hold them in some contempt because, not really believing in his goodness or rightness, he believes he has manipulated and even fooled others into becoming his devotees and sycophants. He has a tendency to shore up his own self-regard up by devaluing others. He also is much more sensitive to — and sometimes explosively reactive to — criticism. The true charismatic is solid while the narcissist is brittle and reactive.

CHG: How many of each type are there?

RO: Well, there are few pure types in the real world. Many people have genuinely charismatic qualities — but are a bit narcissistic too (i.e. a little too focused on kudos and competition with peers and a bit too thin skinned). Politics is full of these types. Hitler and Khadafi are probably as close as you can get to pure narcissism. Bill Clinton and Elliot Spitzer are charismatic — but a little narcissistic too.

CHG: I bet most people would buy that.

RO: So, back to your article: certainly the fear of rejection is powerful — and potentially debilitating. I understand what you are getting at with your advice to avoid becoming a “narcissist” — i.e. to stop personalizing sales encounters as a thumbs up or down on one’s core worth and, instead, cultivate an attitude of genuine interest in learning more about what works and what doesn’t and why. That is, to become an observer and student of one’s own behavior and its effects on others and on the sales process.

In therapist-speak, you are reframing the issue so that sales encounters are not seen as a test of one’s sales “mojo” or basic worth, but to develop a process of study and mastery — or learning how to learn. (This idea harks back to Gregory Bateson, cybernetics, and “second order learning” which Argyris pushed in his books and classes. A variant of that line of thought is expressed in books like “The Talent Code: Greatness Isn’t Born. It’s Grown. Here’s How.” by Daniel Coyle and “Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else” by Geoff Colvin which discuss and promote the concept of “deep practice” and the like).

CHG: Shrinks have their own issues with this, don’t they? Are shrinks any better at it than salespeople?

RO: Sure, it’s the same struggle. It’s a profession in which a majority of clients drop out quickly without explanation, leaving a lot of therapists puzzled and scratching their bruised egos. [Sales folks: sound familiar?] There’s a wide spectrum with therapists who build successful practices with waiting lists at one end, and those who struggle to maintain a quarter time or third time practice with constant cancels and no shows at the other.

So, back to my quip about narcissistic gurus. Many of the very successful therapists are undoubtedly charismatic. Some are also narcissistic, the most egregious ones being those who sexually exploit clients to stroke their own egos (and raise malpractice insurance premiums for the rest of us!).

CHG: How does a therapist evolve past this? Perhaps even more than a salesperson, a shrink has to get beyond the self-centered crap. How have you done it?

RO: I don’t think I’m very charismatic as a person or as a therapist. I know that there are clients who are disappointed with that. They are willing potential believers in search of a therapy guru. Temperamentally, I’m too skeptical and philosophically savvy to have a true belief in any one school or technique. I am an eclectic by default because any other position is intellectually and professionally untenable to me.

But I am not flying completely blind. What little science there is in my field has repeatedly yielded the following robust findings:

Schools and techniques account for a very small portion of therapy outcome. Instead, the biggest sources of variance are:

a. What the client brings to the party

b. The person of the therapist and his/her ability to form an effective therapeutic relationship.

CHG: OK, this is getting very cool. I believe the therapist-client relationship has a lot of parallels with the salesperson-customer relationship. So let’s make the translation. If the metaphor holds true, that would suggest that:

The methodology of sales you choose accounts for a very small portion of sales success. Instead, it would be driven a lot by the buyer’s predilections, and by the salesperson’s ability to form an effective buyer-seller relationship.

Does that make sense to you?

RO: I’m no salesperson, but yes.

CHG: OK then, the obvious question—and you can answer this from within the therapist metaphor—are therapists made, or can they only be born?

RO: I used to believe that the ability to form successful therapeutic relationships was simply something you had — or not; i.e. the innate talent that Coyne is referring to. For some, natural charisma is part of it.

But I have come to believe that wherever one is on the innate talent/charisma continuum, one can improve significantly through the sort of process that you are recommending to sales people — becoming a student of the interpersonal process.

CHG: We at Trusted Advisor Associates also believe that trustworthiness—which includes a lot of what we’re talking about here—can be learned. On the therapy side of the metaphor—what does it take to make it work?

RO: One key ingredient is, of course, getting feedback. Therapy research has produced another repeat finding: therapists are often poor judges of how their clients feel and react to them.

We believe we are being effective when we are actually missing the boat; and we often wrongly assume we have failed when clients drop out when some of those clients have actually gotten a great deal out of that limited therapeutic encounter.

In other words, we’re often simply clueless, groping in the dark because we’re not asking for feedback and using that to self-correct.

CHG: So: let’s review the bidding. Don’t be a methodology ideologue. Get over yourself. Learn how to relate to others—which can be done. And learn how to seek, and learn from, feedback.

Dick, what with insurers cramming reduced fees down your throat for everything you do in your profession–have you considered going into sales training? I have a sense you’d be good at it.

RO: Only if it includes trout-fishing on the Battenkill on Thursday afternoons.

[1] Dick’s also my brother in law, but don’t hold that against him.

Let Your Doing Do Your Talking: Five High Impact Tips

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It seems only natural. We rehearse, over and over, what we say and how we say it. “Put the em-pha-sis on the right syl-la-ble.” “Po-ta-to, po-tah-to.” “Take my wife—[wait for it…] please.” And so on.

What you say and how you say it is indeed critical—especially if you’re a stand-up comic or a keynote speaker.

But when it comes to sales and client relationships—what drives impact is not your saying—it’s your doing. You sell by doing, not by telling.

Behaving Trumps Talking

How often have you heard:

– Actions speak louder than words

– What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say

– People will judge you by your actions, not your intentions

-Walk the talk

-Talk is cheap because supply exceeds demand

-You have two ears and one mouth for a reason

There is much wisdom in folk wisdom like this. We over-emphasize content, over-analyze our words. Worse–our actions can contradict our words. If part of your spiel is that you’re client-focused—in that moment, you’re not.

It’s your actions that will sell—or not.

Five Opportunities to Replace Talking with Actions

You can read elsewhere tips about your demeanor, look, body language. Here are five ways you can design your actions to help your customers experience what you’re about.

1. When you illustrate a point through an example–make the example about this client, not your other clients. Everyone’s favorite subject is—themselves. Indulge them.

2. Offer free samples. It works with ice cream, but ice cream has color, taste, texture. Tax advice doesn’t. It becomes tangible only when the client gets some. Give some samples.

3. Work side by side with your customer. Don’t waste time back at your office pondering what your customer might want—ask them.

4. Put potential clients in touch with past clients–let them talk directly. They each learn a lot, and you get the credit for the introduction.

5. Ask for advice, not feedback. You can replace a hundred customer-sat written surveys with one serious, face-to-face meeting asking your customer to help you redesign your processes.

And one final bonus tip: Don’t say ‘trust me.’ Let your trustworthy actions do your talking for you.

 

The Trusted Advisor: Still a Top Ten Business Book After Ten Years!

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Late in the year 2000, The Trusted Advisor was published. It was my first book (Galford’s too), and lead author Maister’s 3rd. We had high hopes for it–but so does every author.

It did well over the years. I think somewhere around senior associate level in accounting firms, 6th year associates in law firms, 5th year managers in consulting firms, some old partner takes the youngsters aside and says, “You should go read a book called ‘The Trusted Advisor.’ You’re ready to need it.”

How else to explain that, 11 years after initial publication, the estimable 1-800-CEO-READ book seller rated The Trusted Advisor number 7 on the March 2011 list of Top 25 Business Books.

And that’s not all. March 2011 was not a fluke. That number 7 ranking was in fact an increase from 2009, where it ranked #12–for the entire year 2009.

Today is typical: it ranks number 4,229 on Amazon’s all-book list as of 9PM. That’s pretty good for any business book, up against Harry Potter and Tina Fey. For a ten-year old business book, it’s quite unusual. Cialdini’s book on influence is of the same vintage, and does even better. And of course Steven Covey’s Seven Habits is a Monster.

But that is nosebleed territory company to be in.

I am humbled and honored to have co-authored The Trusted Advisor. I hope you’ll forgive me a little crowing about it, and I hope the upcoming Trusted Advisor FieldBook can achieve a fraction of its success.

Upcoming Events and Appearances: Trusted Advisor Associates

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Join us at one or more upcoming Trusted Advisor Associates events. This Spring, we’ll be hosting and participating in events in Washington, DC; Fargo, ND; Boston, MA; London, England and through globally accessed webinars.

Also, a word about the Trusted Advisor Mastery Program.

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Fri. Apr. 15th Global Charles H. Green

Charles H. Green will be a guest on Office Hours at the Future Selling Institute, with David A. Brock and Anthony Iannarino; today, Friday April 15th, at 11 AM EST. Access is members only; more information about Office Hours is here.

 

Wed. Apr. 20th Washington, DC Andrea P. Howe
Andrea will be speaking at the Washington DC Chapter of the Project Management Institute on “Trust and Influence: What Every Successful Project Manager Needs to Know.” Paolo’s Ristorante, 11898 Market Street, Reston, VA, 11:30am. Open to public: Sign up here. PMIWDC Members $30; Non-Members: $30; lunch will be served. PDUs will be available for Project Management Professionals (PMPs).

 

Wed. Apr. 27th Fargo, ND Sandra Styer

Sandy Styer will be presenting “The Heart of Trust: Keys to Becoming a Trusted Advisor” at the Tristate Trust Conference of the North Dakota Bankers Association on April 27th.

 

Wed. May 18th Boston, MA Stewart Hirsch

Stewart Hirsch will be a guest lecturer at Emerson College, speaking on “Becoming a Trusted Advisor.” The class to which Stewart will be addressing is a part of a professional services marketing course taught by Prof. Silvia Hodges, Ph.D.

 

Tues. & Wed. May 24th-25th London, England Julian Powe & Charles H. Green

In a highly interactive, practical and lively day-and-a-half program, TAA will be offering the opportunity to accelerate your professional growth, identify and strengthen the outstanding practice you already have, and address areas for improvement. This is the first time these two extraordinary presenters have offered this program together! Our early-booking price for the program will be $2200, with discounts available for group participation. For more information or to register contact Julian Powe or Tracey Del Camp, respectively.

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The first tranche of the Trusted Advisor Mastery Program has completed the 19 modules in the program, individual coaching calls and its third group call, and the members have agreed to keep up lively discussions on the online Forum. Here’s what one participant has to say about the program:

“The Trusted Advisor Mastery Program delivered professional and personal results beyond expectations. The first coaching call was worth the whole price of admission.” (Virginia Sambuco, Sr. Director Marketing Services, Enterprise Solutions, Harland Clarke, San Antonio, TX)

To be notified of the next available program, email us at: [email protected].