Articles
Explore over 350 articles that will help you grow your client relationships and improve your personal effectiveness.
How to Transform Good Questions into Great Ones
How do you improve a fair or even a good question—possibly turning it into a great one? It takes hard work to come up with really strong questions. In this newsletter I’d like to give you a set of criteria and a process that will make it a lot easier for you. Here’s how it can work […]
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Seven Questions That Can Transform Your Next Client Conversation
Just as some medicines, depending on the patient’s condition and health, can be either helpful or deadly, the power of any particular question will depend on the context in which it’s used. So whenever people ask me, “You wrote a book on questions—okay, so can you give me an example of a great question?” I […]
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Nine Warning Signs Your Client Relationship Is Unhealthy
A CEO I was working with noticed that year after year, they were doing slightly less business with a major client. The partner in charge of the account, however, insisted confidently that all was well and that he had a great relationship with the client. So the CEO visited the client and met with their […]
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Nine Strategies to Accelerate the Sales Process
How long is your sales cycle? How many months does it take to go from first meeting to a paid engagement? Your answer probably will be, “It depends!” But whatever your answer, you no doubt wish that your sales process would move more quickly. Since the 2008 recession, many of my clients report that, especially […]
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Six Advisor Mindsets that Change Everything
Most corporate training focuses on imparting knowledge, improving skills, and changing behaviors. But the most fundamental impact on your performance and success comes, arguably, from changing your mindset. Mindsets drive your outlook. They can bottle you up and restrict your freedom, or, they can free you to accomplish great things. I know some professionals, for […]
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How to Beat an Incumbent Competitor: Advice From a Military Genius
By Andrew Sobel Most large corporations already have well-established relationships with advisors and service providers in major areas such as banking, consulting, accounting, IT services, legal services, and so on. Because of this, it’s not easy to gain a foothold. If a client is happy with your competitor, they need a compelling reason to choose […]
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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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