Articles
Explore over 350 articles that will help you grow your client relationships and improve your personal effectiveness.
Great Relationships Start With Great Client Selection: Three Filters You Should Use
What percent of your most vexing problems are created by just a few of your clients? It’s probably a high number. Let me put this more positively: Have you noticed that if you start with the right client, everything is easier? The sale goes faster. The client is more trusting. You partner well together. You’re […]
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Technology and Relationships: Where Should You Spend Your Time?
Reframing Work and Life #4: The Intimacy Matrix For many years I have avoided the topic of technology and relationships. Partly, because often the “hot” technology this year becomes a dinosaur next year…yes, I still remember MySpace, which was going to take over the world. And partly, because the basic ingredients of trusted relationships have […]
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How to Reframe Client Problems
Reframing Work & Life #2: Putting client problems in a new light The physicist Albert Einstein reputedly said that if he had one hour to solve a problem on which his life depended, he would spend 55 minutes studying and defining it, and 5 minutes solving it. Often, a client (or, your manager or a […]
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How to Manage Small or Transactional Clients
Small and/or transactional clients can pose many problems. In fact, dealing with these types of clients is a vexing issue for many companies. Here’s why: Small Clients: Are costly to service—they can use up senior time (partners, senior executives) with little return Often have limited budgets, and any one small client can only make a […]
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Do Clients See You as an Expense or as Part of Their Growth?
Ellen and Peter are both partners with large, well-known public accounting firms. They both went to good schools and have years of experience in auditing the financial statements of Fortune-500 companies. That’s where their similarities end. Ellen is a trusted advisor to the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of her largest client. In contrast, Peter’s principal […]
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Build Your Network Before You Need it
I get a lot of requests. Very rarely—almost never—the person writing me asks a simple question: Is there anything I can help you with? Those get my attention. Although the last one like that was years ago. One morning, while scanning my email, two in particular caught my eye. They illustrated the importance of investing […]
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A Pure and Selfless Motive Can Move Mountains
(Note: This true story, told by my co-author Jerry Panas, was published as a chapter in our book Power Relationships) In Oswego, Kansas, people are mighty proud of their twelve-bed community hospital. There are other hospitals in larger neighboring cities. But people in Oswego wouldn’t think of going anywhere for their healthcare other than their local […]
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The Secret to Making People Root for You
The US presidential campaign is now in full swing. I won’t comment on this campaign, but I will describe something fascinating that happened in a very important presidential race from the last century. It illustrates the power of self-disclosure and the importance of what I call “emotional resonance” in relationships. It was September 23, 1952, […]
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