Have you ever been in a meeting with a client who seemed distracted? Perhaps you noticed her eyes wandering, or saw him reach for his smartphone. Or have you tried to get an appointment with an executive who just wouldn't make room in the schedule for you?
In both cases, the problem is the same. You're not compelling enough. You're not showing how you are relevant to the client's agenda of critical priorities.
How would you react if your plumber called you and suggested you get together for lunch so you could get to know each other better? How about if you got a call from your doctor, who asked you to come in to discuss your latest test results? Who would you make time for?
Clients are like the rest of us—they open their schedules for their most essential priorities.
If you want to be seen as integral to your clients’ growth and profitability, you have to demonstrate that what you do is strategic to their business. You must show that you are proactively focused on their most important goals. You need to demonstrate you can help them see around the corner and anticipate important, future influences on their business.
Do you really understand your client's agenda?
Every client has an agenda of three to five priorities or goals that they are focused on in their organization. It's rarely more than five, because after four or five they tail off ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month, and much more.
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
