Week 11 Challenge: Bring Big-Picture Thinking to Your Clients
I hope you’re enjoying these weekly challenges, and have been able to apply the clients-for-life strategies to growing your relationships. If you have any examples of progress you’ve made–client relationship successes large or small–please share them with me. I’d love to hear from you, and will confidentially highlight these examples in future emails (write me at andrew@andrewsobel.com or just hit “reply”).
In Week 11 of your client growth challenge, you’ll begin the process of bringing big-picture thinking to a client.
To complete this week’s challenge, be sure to read or listen to Week 11: Be a Brilliant Big-Picture Thinker in It Starts with Clients (pages 173-188 in the hardcover version). (If you don’t have a copy of It Starts with Clients yet, please do buy one here, on Amazon. It contains all the detailed “how-to” for growing your client base. It is the foundation for succeeding at this Growth Challenge).
Big-Picture Thinking Is a Highly Sought-After Quality by Clients
I’ve interviewed thousands of top executives about their most trusted advisors and service providers, and one of the most common comments I’ve heard is, “He/She brings big-picture thinking to the table. That’s really helpful.” I also call this synthesis–the ability to see the overarching patterns and trends and to pick out the most important issues. Analysis is something of a commodity, but good synthesis is rare and consequently treasured by clients.
Tip
With each of your clients, get into the habit of climbing a tree (metaphorically!) to see the landscape that surrounds them. Do you understand the total organizational context they work in? Are you aware of the external, competitive, and market pressures they experience? What are the perspectives and needs of different stakeholders? What issues should your client be thinking about that day-to-day operational pressures prevent them from seeing?
Reminder: For every 10 ideas or suggestions you provide, a given client may ignore or reject five of them, agree to think about three of them further, and accept and act on just a couple. You need all 10, however, to arrive at the few that will be workable. So don’t just focus on finding the “one big idea” for your clients–give them a steady diet of ideas.
Your Week 11 Challenge: Bring Big-Picture Thinking to Your Clients
Here’s your Week 11 Assignment: Complete pages 38-39 in the Growth Guide. You can also click here to download this assignment as a separate PDF: Week 11 Assignment.pdf
In seven days I will send you your Week 12 Challenge: Create a Personal Promoter. So keep an eye out for the next email.
All the best,
Andrew Sobel
Founder and CEO