80% Ready: Move
Alan Weiss
APRIL 11, 2024
When you’re 80% ready, move. You can fine-tune after that. You’ll never be 100% ready, and that final 20% represents most of your labor and is seldom ever appreciated by a reader, an audience, or a client.
Alan Weiss
Time Out!
Alan Weiss
MARCH 26, 2024
It’s interesting how much more effective college ongoing coaching direction is in basketball than football. I think it’s because fewer players are involved, the coach is closer to the action, the coach has usually been a former player, and they can set strategies against individual strengths and weaknesses of the opponents. And, of course, it’s not the pros where you’re dealing with players who are mega-wealthy prima donnas who feel they come first.
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What’s in it for Them?
Alan Weiss
MARCH 24, 2024
Behind every corporate business objective are personal objectives of the person or people advocating the goal. Find out what they are (reduced stress, shorter hours, higher visibility, larger bonus, etc.) and you’ll achieve an important emotional connection that will enhance your chances to be selected for the engagement.
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Anticipation
Alan Weiss
MARCH 20, 2024
I love the server or bartender who says, “Would you like your usual drink?” One guy sets up my martini when he sees me parking my car outside. Or when they automatically bring my wife a diet soda refill when the class is two-thirds empty. There are people in many stores waiting to help you, and approach you when you seem like you’re trying to find something.
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Of Course You Have the Time
Alan Weiss
MARCH 18, 2024
Time and money are not resources, they are priorities. That is, a buyer can “reallocate” them to higher needs. We do this all the time, deciding to spend money on an unanticipated opportunity and spend time at a newly-scheduled event. Hence, “We have no budget” and “I have no time” are specious arguments, so stop packing your tent and leaving when you hear them.
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Maybe THIS Is “Digital Transformation”
Alan Weiss
MARCH 5, 2024
Once upon a time, people bought newer cars (used or brand new) based on improved performance and more modern styling. The technology wasn’t greatly advanced. Push-button radios and automatic transmissions were hardly world-shaking. Today, cars that are very well built and highly safe, with ageless design, are traded in because of advances in technology.
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Are You A Guest or an Expense?
Alan Weiss
FEBRUARY 22, 2024
I can tell how well a hotel is managed by the staff, and whether they greet you in the halls or avert their eyes and pretend they don’t see you. It’s pretty obvious when a hotel (or restaurant) is trying to please people and generate repeat business or just trying to reduce expenses.
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It’s “what,” not “how”
Alan Weiss
FEBRUARY 8, 2024
The best way to avoid questions about your methodology instead of your results is to stop talking to lower level people, especially HR. Talk only to true buyers. They’re interested in outcomes. If you keep encountering this obstacle, it’s you, not them.
Let’s Find Out Who Did This!
Alan Weiss
FEBRUARY 5, 2024
One of the problems in problem solving in organizations is that people aren’t seeking the cause of the problem, they’re seeking blame. The problem with this is that, whether this is actually the “guilty” party found or not, penalizing that person or removing that person usually doesn’t solve the problem. You can’t remove the adverse effects of a problem until you remove its cause.
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Root Cause
Alan Weiss
DECEMBER 8, 2023
An executive at Merck once told me: “If I see an employee performing poorly, I go immediately to his or her manager and ask how that could be allowed and tolerated. That’s where the root of the problem is.
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Familiarity
Alan Weiss
NOVEMBER 27, 2023
I coach people all over the world and we all adjust for the time zones. I’ve found that I’m far more comfortable and effective having visited others’ countries at some point. I know what the surroundings are like, the food is like, the traffic is like. I’ve been an observer of local customs and mores. It makes me far more effective, just as physically visiting a client provides more effective coaching (in person or remote) than never having been there.
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Filtering
Alan Weiss
NOVEMBER 22, 2023
During an “open house” at my kids’ school on evening (do they still have these?) the fourth grade teacher, who must have been 24-years-old, said, “Here’s the deal: If you don’t believe what your kids tell you about me, I won’t believe what they tell me about you.” I have told this to every new client: “Your people will tell you that I’m an outsider who doesn’t know the culture and just wants to create change to earn money.
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Agility in Volatile Times
Alan Weiss
NOVEMBER 15, 2023
When I was doing primarily corporate consulting work, I learned that 3M had policy of a majority of its profits each year originating from products that hadn’t existed five years ago. I thought that was astounding. Today, two-thirds of my profits come from services that didn’t exist three years ago. That’s how fast conditions change today, and how fast we need to capitalize on them.
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Coffee, Cause, and Coincidence
Alan Weiss
NOVEMBER 10, 2023
The owner of the local coffee shop has never been able to master the modern cash register he purchased about a year ago when the old one broke down. He simply charges me a round number, like $4, and tucks the money away. I have no idea what he does about taxes. All of his employees can work the register perfectly. Yesterday, once again ignoring the machine, he told me proudly that the manufacturer had to declare bankruptcy, and is going out of business.
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Publishing Observations
Alan Weiss
OCTOBER 6, 2023
Using someone else’s quote at the beginning of each chapter makes it appear that your points require an expert’s credibility, which you don’t have. If your book has no index, it’s obviously self-published, and not with much care. Dozens of testimonials are, well, a dime a dozen. You’re not a “best-selling author” because your book, sold a couple of thousand copies.
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You Have Some ‘Splainin’ to Do, Lucy
Alan Weiss
AUGUST 23, 2023
Early in our marriage my wife and a friend ran a little business creating custom workout and running clothes. They would personalize the clothing with sayings, stitching, baubles, and so forth. They even did sneakers. I didn’t pay much attention. One day I found her working on a small, transparent cube that she was decorating. It looked quite nice and I asked the purpose of it. “It’s a small piece of art for a vanity or desk,” she told me.
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Time Is On My Side
Alan Weiss
AUGUST 7, 2023
There are three key approaches to creating more discretionary time for yourself and decreasing labor intensity: Streamline your models. You may have been doing something extremely well for years with excellent results, but that’s no reason not to try to improve it. Reduce the number of meetings or sessions; reduce the duration of meetings; move from in person to remote; eliminate guest speakers and commenters; reduce the number of exercises; educate the client differently about how often y
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True Risk Management
Alan Weiss
JULY 24, 2023
People make decisions without the “if/then” dynamic in mind. They are happy to vote for investment in public school improvements, or infrastructure, or tourist campaigns. But if the proposition were, “If you approve $100 million in school facility improvements, it will mean a one percent increase in your property tax rate” (or you’ll be paying another $500 per year), the results would likely be different.
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Pay for Quality and Expect Quality
Alan Weiss
JULY 18, 2023
If you’re spending time obsessively checking the quality of the work of subcontractors, or looking into the legitimacy of their expense reports, or answering question that they should already know the answers to: Get new subcontractors. (And the same for “virtual assistants,” although I don’t think you need them at all.
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RFP
Alan Weiss
JULY 5, 2023
One of my clients asked for my help gaining a sole-source recognition with a government agency which has asked if she’d bid on an RFP (request for proposal). RFPs are terrible devices, produced and evaluated by low-level people who then select from the respondents and forward (usually he least expensive) proposals to the actual buyers. The questions asked are ludicrous and based on an hourly-payment mentality.
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Can You Hear Me Now?
Alan Weiss
JUNE 17, 2023
I’ve recorded a half-dozen of my books. But some of the publishers have hired actors —voice-over artists—to do this. I’m in the speakers hall of fame. People tell me that they much prefer to hear my voice. But some of the publishers have their protocols. Don’t get “stuck in systems.” Ask yourself, “What makes sense in this case?
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The Peerage
Alan Weiss
JUNE 8, 2023
A “buyer” in my terms is someone who has the budget and authority to give you money in return for your value. You need to find out if the person with whom you’re speaking can do that. If so, establish a trusting relationship and move toward a proposal or letter of agreement. If not, ask that person to introduce you to the actual buyer.
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Impressions
Alan Weiss
JUNE 5, 2023
The first and last person you meet in a good hotel is the doorman. It’s important that it be a positive experience. Guests don’t generally meet management on arrival. The same applies to a restaurant and the host, or the large company and the receptionist. What’s the first and last impression people have dealing with you? Speaking for myself, it will never be a virtual assistant.
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There May Be A “Magic Bullet,” but “There Is No “Magic Software”
Alan Weiss
JUNE 2, 2023
Of seven people I know who invested substantially in software creation for their businesses to sell to their customers and prospects, two did so successfully and one of those successfully sold her business with that increased value. Five abandoned the projects after at least a year. For the latter group, a great deal of their time and energy were absorbed by managing the project, dealing with people overseas who did not fully understand their intent, chronically missed deadline, and flawed softw
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The Folly of Hourly Billing
Alan Weiss
MAY 31, 2023
I pioneered value based fees for consultants in the late 90s and my book, Value Based Fees, (Wiley) is now in its third edition and on audible. I first published the concept in the original Million Dollar Consulting (McGraw-Hill) in 1992, today in its sixth edition and on audible. There have been three kinds of people I’ve encountered in consulting since I began spreading the word.
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Self-Interests
Alan Weiss
MAY 15, 2023
Whenever you find yourself uncertain about what action to take with a client, simply ask, “What’s in the best interest of the client?” You can’t go wrong with that. It’s not in the best interests of the client to hide problems and complaints in the organization, to lie about his or her actual performance, to support initiatives that the buyer favors but you know won’t work.
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The Secret of High Fees Is No Secret
Alan Weiss
MAY 14, 2023
I don’t mind paying top dollar for top quality. And neither do 90% of the clients and prospects I’ve encountered. But that means you must demonstrate top quality from the very first contact, and consistently: • Return calls within a couple of hours or better. • Return email within a couple of hours or better. • No typos or poor grammar in your communications. • High quality collateral material. • Immediate value and ideas expressed. • An impressive body of work in multi-media. • A s
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Speaking Candidly
Alan Weiss
MAY 8, 2023
Identify yourself as an expert—a resource—not as a speaker or coach or consultant—which are commodities. The former is of great valued worth high fees. The latter three are easily comparable and highly price sensitive. Case in point: You’ll hear people talk about how to make a lot of money “in the speaking profession.” If you were to charge $35,000 per speech—which is about the very top of the “non-celebrity” range, you’d have to speak twice a month to earn $8
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The Strategic Planning Oxymoron
Alan Weiss
APRIL 24, 2023
“Strategic planning” is an oxymoron. Planning kills strategy. Planning is bottom-up, with people trying to be very conservative making estimates about growth because they don’t want to endanger their bonus potential or receive quotas that are too high. Strategic is top-down, with executives attempting to paint an exciting growth vision of the future to fulfill the organization’s raison d’être.
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Give Yourself A Break
Alan Weiss
APRIL 15, 2023
A lot of us entrepreneurs are refugees from large organizations. Hell, maybe most of us. We viewed bureaucratic, hierarchical enterprises as unhealthy and unfulfilling (at least I did). To me they resemble prisons, with fixed hours, rules for behavior, penalties, and “guards.” So if you’re reading this, the likelihood is that you’ve made a jail break or are contemplating one.
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If Not You, Who?
Alan Weiss
APRIL 12, 2023
• You’re too young. • You’re too old. • You don’t have the right background. • You don’t understand the details. • You have no experience with this. • You don’t know the culture. Commonality? These are all excuses to protect someone from hearing a fresh, new, innovative idea to improve their or their organization’s performance because they are afraid to admit that they might be the cause of the problem.
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Yes, But Why?
Alan Weiss
FEBRUARY 16, 2023
When a client’s objectives are completely “internal” ask the question “Why?” to find out the business improvement (“external”). Example: The client says, “We want to improve communication among our teams.” Well, you can improve communication among teams until the cows come home without any improvement in the business.
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Learn the Newest Approach to Strategy
Alan Weiss
JANUARY 23, 2023
Sentient Strategy six weeks prior to release: #13 in Business Sales (Books) #57 in Business Development #119 in Quality Control (Books). Order here to receive bonuses: sentientstrategybook.
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Proof
Alan Weiss
JANUARY 21, 2023
If you want to prove a point, apply “social proof.” While this can comprise testimonials from others, it’s best to use contemporary (or even historical) examples. For example (!) I don’t believe that reputation alone is sufficient for the perpetuation of an enterprise. If you don’t believe that, then we’d all still be shopping at Sears Roebuck today.
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Doing It Imperfectly Is Better Than Not Doing It Perfectly
Alan Weiss
JANUARY 18, 2023
Every time I’m referred to a social media post on consulting written by a professor somewhere I’m aghast at the complexity and irrelevancy of the message. Professors who moonlight as consultants are like those LA waiters who tell you they’re really screenwriters. I was an expert witness at one point in an ethics case agains a Fortune 20 company.
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Do You See the Door? Use It.
Alan Weiss
JANUARY 16, 2023
You must know the story of the wolves who envied domesticated dogs—with their shelter, food, medical care, toys—until they asked what the collars were for. It’s the same being an independent, solo consultant as opposed to working for one of the consulting “factories.” Discretionary time is the real wealth, freedom from the “collar” someone else places on you.
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The Hit Parade
Alan Weiss
JANUARY 8, 2023
People learn in a wide variety of ways. And it often depends on the topic. I’m terrible at following oral directions, but I’m quite comfortable looking at a map. I prefer a video to an instruction sheet with any new piece of equipment. We need to help our clients (and attract prospects) with a wide assortment of delivery options. You can subscribe to this blog and be informed when I write something new (which is daily).
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A Cast of Less than A Thousand
Alan Weiss
DECEMBER 30, 2022
We went to an elegant restaurant last night in Newport. The website told us that there were no reservations available, but I know someone and we were able to get in. The first surprise was that there was no valet. Second, no hostess. A server was doubling as hostess and taking care of the largest of the two dining areas. Only five tables were occupied during our dinner, which leads me to believe that the reservations were limited because there was insufficient staff to service the entire place.
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Trends vs. Predictions
Alan Weiss
DECEMBER 28, 2022
A trend is a general direction in which change and evolution is taking place. “The statistics show a strong upward trend in sports betting online.” A prediction is a forecast (or guess) about the future. “The financial analyst for local television predicts a flat market for the next year.” While trends aren’t guaranteed to continue, they are based on current, reliable, empirical evidence.
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Talent, Too, Has A Shelf-Life
Alan Weiss
NOVEMBER 15, 2022
The half-life of the most common uranium isotope is 4.5 billion years. (That is not a typo, look it up.). The half-life of certain talents is about 4.5 years and descending. Don’t merely replace bodies when people leave— voluntarily or involuntarily —think about your needs over the next year or so. Is the position needed? And if it is, what kinds of talents will make it most productive?
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Incentives
Alan Weiss
NOVEMBER 13, 2022
I’m seeing new people being trained is many industries and professions, and many of then perform better than the people they replaced. There’s an energy and eagerness to learn. Apprise your clients that replacing people is an opportunity if they orient the process toward improving service and not just sustaining it. In Miami, almost every restaurant adds a 20% gratuity to the bill automatically.
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The TKO
Alan Weiss
NOVEMBER 3, 2022
I’ve been comparing notes with people who conduct live and remote sessions. There’s an across-the-board decline in attendance in the US. (I just drew 60 people to a live event in Brisbane.) There’s a lot of speculation about the causes, including people choosing not to travel, a reluctance to make investments (even in oneself), and a downturn in potential attendees’ businesses.
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Pay A Buck, Step Into the Tent, See the Wonders of the World
Alan Weiss
NOVEMBER 2, 2022
I find people investing in “lead systems” and “office support” in terms of “research” and providing “consulting models.” The only people profiting from this are the ones running these offers. This isn’t a cold call or direct mail business, it’s a relationship business. You don’t want “leads” you want referrals and evangelism.
Really? A Phone Call Instead of A Meeting?
Alan Weiss
OCTOBER 4, 2022
Do you notice we’re all talking about “remote” business as if it’s something new, engendered by pandemic restrictions? I’ve been coaching, advising, and hosting my Forums for decades, all remotely. When there were “teleconferences” they were remote! It’s like someone picking up an apple and saying, “Wow, this is edible!
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