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Explore over 350 articles that will help you grow your client relationships and improve your personal effectiveness.
Ask and Listen: Insights from my Recent Trip to Moscow and St. Petersburg (Part One of Two)
These days, Russia may not be a favorite destination for American businesspeople, but I just returned from a very interesting trip there. My trip was fascinating and I learned a lot. I learned a lot because I asked a lot of questions and I listened carefully. I asked about Stalin, the Soviet Union, Perestroika, Putin, […]
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How to Radically Reframe Client Issues For Maximum Impact (Part II)
Reframing is the art of identifying the right problem, the total problem, and the total solution. It is one of the most powerful techniques available for making your work more strategic to your clients and, often, broadening your engagements. In this two-part article series, I take you through a comprehensive set of strategies for reframing to achieve maximum impact […]
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How to Powerfully Reframe Client Issues for Maximum Impact (Part I)
By Andrew Sobel Many years ago, a large, global company called me and said they wanted to create a cadre of client relationship managers in order to help grow their most important accounts. They asked me to help design the structure and train the chosen individuals. I quickly discovered that a powerful group of geographically-focused […]
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Relationship Building From the Client’s Side of the Desk
Thoughtful client feedback is always illuminating. Of course, you have to be careful about taking what just one client executive says works or doesn’t work when it comes to building long-term relationships, and generalize it to all clients. But, having interviewed over 1000 senior executives on this topic, it’s remarkable to me how consistent the […]
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Move In With Them Until You Love Them
The New York Times Science and Health Editor Barbara Strauch recently passed away at the relatively young age of 63. She was a brilliant journalist who, according to the article about her death, led a Newsday team that won a Pulitzer prize in 1992. I’ve always found the science reporting in the Times exemplary and illuminating (less […]
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How Much Are You Willing to Pay for a Bottle of Mineral Water?
I was at a concert the other night at Avery Fisher Hall at New York City’s Lincoln Center, and decided to buy a bottle of mineral water at the bar. An 18-ounce, medium bottle was $4.00. I really didn’t think twice about the price (hey, this is New York!), although my wife suggested that the […]
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If it’s Legal Is it Right? The Five Pillars of Integrity in Business
Just because something is legal doesn’t mean it’s right. And conversely, some things that are right aren’t legal. Clearly, we don’t need a bookshelf full of legal tomes to tell us how to behave. We know in our hearts when we’ve acted ethically and with integrity, and so do our clients. For example, I watched […]
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The U.C.L.A. Uproar: Don’t Kid Yourself–We all Have Biases
The New York Times reported today on the troubling case of the U.C.L.A. Student Council. A Jewish student at U.C.L.A., Rachel Beyda, was being interviewed for possible membership in the council. According to the Times, the first question she was asked was this: “Given that you are a Jewish student and very active in the Jewish […]
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