Let me explain. By a consultative professional I mean someone who offers customized advice, direction and solutions to a specific problem. Here are a few examples of consultative professionals: designer, physician, architect, engineer, business coach, consultant, ad agency, chiropractor, attorney, financial adviser, accountant, etc...
They people are very knowledgeable about their given trade. They typically have years of education and experience and often a few initials behind their name. They don't just sell "what's in their briefcase," they uncover problems and issues for their clients and prescribe customized solutions to those problems. And they are very comfortable talking about their solutions. Herein lies the problem.
When asked to offer advice, a consultative professional often jumps right to their solution. They mentally cull through years of experience and similar situations and offer an amazing nugget of insight. Most of the time, their advice is spot on. But often that amazing advice is never acted upon by the recipient.
One of two things usually happens; if the other party acts upon your advice they are typically missing a few key ingredients to make the solution a success on their own because they do not possess your wealth of experience and knowledge. If they DO succeed, they often wonder why people would pay you if the solution was so simple that it came out of a 20 minute conversation.
But most of the time, they will not take action on your advice. And when you check on their progress the next time you meet, there's often an awkward moment where they feel like they have to explain why they sat on your golden nugget of wisdom. Here's why; you never took the time to fully understand the problem behind their request for advice. Solutions, unto themselves, are devoid of value without a problem to fix.
I talk to consultative professionals every week that feel like they give away golden nuggets of information only see them turn into lead balloons, because the prospective client's problem was never truly analyzed.
As a consultative professional, it feels good to offer advice. It's comfortable. It feels valuable. In fact, it's what we do best. But advice not tethered to a problem often causes more harm than good.
Offering solutions is an easy trap to fall into. In fact, almost everything a client asks of us begs for a solution. "Help us do...; We need a...; We want a better..." Most professionals respond to these questions by offering a solution. And we wouldn't just offer any solution; we offer a golden nugget because we perceive this as our chance to shine.
Most clients would like to believe that there is a magic bullet solution to their problem; but in reality it's often much more complicated than that. It's easy to jump right in with a solution (even one that would work); but you must dig to uncover the real issues behind the request. If you let the client get away with the original question, it puts all the pressure on you to come up with the magic bullet. As a consultative professional, you must get the client to fully describe the issue and its implications on their business.
Here are a few questions that I use to uncover & quantify the real issue:
* How do you know this a problem?
* Why hasn't this issue been addressed yet?
* How much is this challenge currently costing you in both hard dollars & soft dollars?
* What kind of results would occur after fixing this problem?
* Why is the future state better for you? What's it worth to you?
It's been proven that people (and organizations) move away from pain faster than they move towards a gain. Forget about your experience and solutions for a minute and take the time to fully understand the pain caused by the issue; or at least what type of gain they are expecting to see by engaging you.
If you continue immediately offer a solution,you'll continue to see your golden nuggets sink like lead balloons. In these initial conversations, you will garner more respect by uncovering the pain behind the request before offering a solution. I know it's difficult to put your knowledge and experience on the back burner for a little while, but if you're able to do so, you will move into bigger projects and bigger fees; and you'll be able to make a bigger impact-which is ultimately what we all want.
