The New Business of Consulting

7Building a Client Relationship

Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody expects of you. Never excuse yourself.

Henry Ward Beecher

Eliana could feel the perspiration trickle down her back. Wow, this was one long sales call! She’d been meeting with the CEO, Nicholas Marino, and his senior level staff for almost 90 minutes now. She had been fielding questions for the last hour. She wasn’t sure whether she should be feeling good about the questions or not. This was a big project: It would last about nine months. She was excited, because she was certain she knew how to take the company from where it was to where it needed to be.

She had a fleeting thought about all the preparation she’d done for this meeting. Did she do enough? She reviewed her mental checklist: confirmed she understood the RFP, met with the COO to identify his thoughts about measurable outcomes, spoke with the talent development director to review the engagement study results, and analyzed the evaluations of the project she’d completed with the company the previous year. Had she missed something?

Maybe they didn’t like how strongly she declared the commitment that would be necessary? Maybe she shouldn’t have been so adamant that their culture would not support the intensity the plan required? Maybe she should have used their names more often? Maybe she had scoped the effort wrong? Ah! She could reframe the plan with less emphasis on operations. “So what you’d like me to do, Mr. Marino, ...