Articles - Page 20 of 48

12 Common Business Development Mistakes You Cannot Afford To Make

By Andrew Sobel The other day a client called me for advice about an important sale he was involved with. His firm was making its final presentation that very week. I did my best, but the problem was that he and his team had made some important mistakes much earlier in the business development process. […]

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Six Rules for Evoking Curiosity

In the 1987 movie Wall Street, Charlie Sheen plays a young, ambitious broker named Bud Fox. He goes to see Gordon Gekko, a renowned financier–played by Michael Douglas—to pitch him stock ideas. At every turn, Gekko rebuffs him, telling him his ideas are either old news or just plain bad. Rejecting his final idea, Gekko […]

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Are You Truly Independent From Your Clients?

How would you handle this situation? A client asks you to undertake a project that isn’t in your sweet spot of capabilities. It’s something you don’t have quite the right skills for. OK, that’s easy. You probably are able to say “no” to the request and recommend someone else. And in doing so you’ll deepen […]

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Do You Treat Your Old Clients As If They Were Brand New Ones?

A marriage requires constant work and investment—just ask any couple that has successfully been together for 15 or 20 years. When a couple divorces, the partners will often look back and describe a long period of mutual neglect prior to the eruption of real acrimony. The basis for successful marriages and successful long-term client relationships […]

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Why You Must Increase Your “Live Performances” with Clients

Data and information are, by themselves, commodities. What matters is insight. And that’s why the live performance still reigns supreme. I recently asked a lawyer to draft a contract document for me. In truth, I was tempted to cut corners, and find something on the Internet that I could adapt. Or, to ask a recent […]

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The Secret to Turning Every Prospect into a Paying Client

One of my clients wanted to do business with a major prospect. It was an important company which would be seen as a valuable, marquis client. The company told my client point-blank, “We’re not going to do business with you. We are already well-served.” For one year they kept calling on this prospective account. They […]

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Does Money Make You Collaborate?

I once had a client whose leadership constantly talked about teamwork. They wanted professionals from disparate areas of the organization to work together in unison in the service of their customer base. They even installed monetary incentives for better “Teaming.” But, the same leadership group got along very poorly. They were rarely seen together. In […]

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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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