How to Win Client Business When You Don't Know Where to Start

CHAPTER 9How Clients Tell Who the Real Experts Are : Clients Need Clues That We Are Really Good at What We Do

The fact that nearly everyone of importance in Wall Street could be found at the Waldorf made it a highly revealing laboratory for the study of human nature. The various “rooms” of the Waldorf – the Empire Room or Peacock Alley, the billiard room, and the Men's Café with its famous four‐sided mahogany bar – were exhibition galleries in which every human trait was on display. Sitting in these rooms, it was always an intriguing exercise to try to detect the doers from the braggarts, the genuine human article from the spurious.

—Bernard Mannes Baruch, America financier and presidential advisor

You may recall our simple thought experiment from the book's introduction:

Why is it that we have no problem whatsoever buying a home after an hour‐long walk‐through, yet will agonize for months in choosing an architect if building a custom home?

One of the key reasons is that prospective clients have a difficult time in identifying the true experts. Rainmakers are skilled at providing prospects with clues to their authentic expertise, signs that we are really good at what we do. I think of these clues as channel markers – the buoys that safely guide a boat from sea to harbor while avoiding hidden dangers.

In providing channel markers, we assist our prospective clients in avoiding the rocks and sandbars hidden in their decision‐making journey. And when we do this effectively, ...