8. Don't pander — ponder! Showcasing your wisdom without taking time to probe causal factors can be insulting. Instead, honor the complexity of client issues. Be inquisitive about their goals, frustrations, hopes, and struggles. Then construct a matrix of options and augment this with the advantages and disadvantages of each.
9. Prepare to bend by predicting the trends. Be vigilant about monitoring relevant trends, since they're always in flux. Even more importantly, anticipate and maintain an awareness regarding forces that could affect the trends you're monitoring. Doing so enables you to foresee and adapt to emerging trends before your competitors do.
10. Don't defer getting referrals. If you're not comfortable asking your satisfied clients to provide referrals, do it anyway! Once you've delighted them, conduct a brief interview to learn what they valued most about working with you. Using this information, draft a brief testimonial for them to edit and print onto their letterhead.
11. Publicize or perish. Both credibility and sales increase from publishing articles or books, and speaking on your area of expertise. It's not that hard! Every time you solve a problem for a client, produce an outline of the process from start to finish. Then fill in the outline, and voila, you have an article or a speech. Multiple articles can comprise a book. Writing a book is less daunting if you write only one chapter at a time without thinking of it as a book.
12. Value for free, service for fee. Consider providing an educational session to prospective clients at no charge, but structure the delivery so that they want more. For example, deliver the information you promised to deliver, but make reference to additional, high value information your clients receive.
13. Don't attend conventions without clear intentions. Recoup the opportunity cost of attending conventions. Get an attendee list in advance of the meeting, identify and research your targets before you even leave town. Then make it your mission at the meeting to establish contact and engage them. Remember: Attendance is not an outcome. Make your attendance result in new business by preparing in advance.
14. Break it down to build it. Identify key result areas of your business, such as prospecting, delivery, marketing, speaking, new product development, etc. For each, write out measurable goals each quarter. Break these down into component parts, and include them in your calendaring tool.
No matter how many of these tips you implement, your own outlook and attitude can diminish their effectiveness. Those who prevail in difficult times are the ones who steadfastly refuse to allow negativity to form a barrier to their success. They instead deliberately and diligently take constructive action, thereby refreshing and reinvigorating their minds and their spirits, enabling them to take more action, which refreshes and reinvigorates.
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