Articles
Explore over 350 articles that will help you grow your client relationships and improve your personal effectiveness.
Seven Ways to Connect With Someone Older Than You
It’s not uncommon to find yourself working with a client who is quite a bit older than you. You might be a 35 year-old woman, for example, who needs to build a relationship with a 60 year-old chief financial officer who is male. It may seem, on the surface at least, that you have very […]
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The Final and Most Important Step in any Relationship
In December, my father went to bed and did not get back out. He was 96—about to turn 97. He was in fairly good health and of sound mind. No, better than that: His mind was still razor sharp. He was a decorated WWII combat physician and a noted pioneer in 20th century psychiatry, his […]
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From Impossible to Loyal: Seven Types of Difficult Clients and How to Win Them Over
Early in my consulting career I had a client who slowly became downright abusive. When we first met he was relaxed, confident, professional, and even charming. But underneath that veneer he was a mean-spirited tyrant. As time passed, he became every-more demanding and even vicious. One day, I walked into his office with a three-page […]
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This Move Can Transform a Client Relationship
On November 26, 2008, Citigroup executive James Bardrick was having dinner with the CEO of a major client at the Royal Oberoi Hotel in Mumbai, India. At the time, Bardrick, an old client of mine, was one of the heads of Citi’s European and Middle Eastern banking business. He and the CEO had traveled there […]
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The Seven Deadly Sins of Client Advisors
Executives tell me it’s not easy to find an advisor with the right balance of experience, expertise, relationship skills, and client orientation. That’s not surprising. It’s a difficult role to pull off well. There are also lots of bad habits that professionals fall into when it comes to serving clients. Here are seven types of […]
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The Ten Habits of Terrible Listeners
You’re probably not as good a listener as you think you are. In fact, most people are poor listeners. What’s worse, as we get older and more experienced, it actually gets harder to listen. In any area you may work in, there are a limited set of problems that you will encounter. Once you’ve seen […]
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Follow the Person, Not the Position
A client of mine was promoted to a very senior position in a large, Fortune-100 company. She had been the deputy in her area, and was now at the top. She told me that the day her promotion was announced in the newspapers, she got dozens of calls from suppliers wanting to do business with […]
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Peter Drucker’s Five Magic Questions
The management guru Peter Drucker framed his consulting advice around five critical questions. With the answers to these five questions, you could run and grow your business. Peter Drucker is considered the leading management thinker of the last century. He wrote 40 books on management, including several when he was in his 90s. He coined […]
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