How Do We Win If We Don’t Know the Rules?
We all know the benefits of expansion in a recession. The implied success of expanding when everyone else is contracting can be a seductive draw to a potential client. If you’ve got it, flaunt it just a bit, right? Social proof—everybody wants to go with a winner, so act like one!
I’m listening…
I recently got a lesson in humility myself, from a disagreement with an entrepreneur-friend of mine. My friend was thinking of changing his floorplan and removing his conference room entirely, forcing everyone to meet with clients in their own offices. It’s not a fancy conference room, but it is a nice place to hold a meeting. Or I should say, it was.
“None of my business,” I said, making it my business, “but that seems like a bad move.”
“I’m listening,” he said.
My advice
“The conference room says ‘business’ to clients. It sets the mood. Makes them feel that you value them enough to treat them to that comfortable space. Makes them feel they’ve made a rock-solid choice with you.
“If you’d never had it, meeting in an office would be okay. But making the change? What can they think, but that you’re not doing well? Even the owner has to sit down in the middle of his workspace to talk to clients? That’s a strong reminder of the recession. For folks who are on the fence, it could be an excuse to think maybe we don’t need this guy at all.
“Your staff are going to see you differently, too. Your desk crammed into a corner to fit a conference table—all of a sudden you look like some junior nobody, not The Guy In Charge. Seems like a recipe for disrespect.”
The results
You’ve guessed that my friend had already made up his mind, and he did it his way. I can’t say whether his staff are treating him differently, but I can tell you about his clients.
Clients love it.
“It’s so intimate,” one told him.
“Feels just right for the times,” another said.
“I feel like I’m part of your work,” said another. “You are my work,” my friend responded warmly.
“Like talking in your living room,” is how my friend describes it. Conversations with clients have become easier, just at a time when we are all having more difficult conversations with our clients. He couldn’t be happier, and I couldn’t have been more wrong.
So if you haven’t heard it enough, I will humbly submit my takeaway to you: In these times, forget everything you know.
We are all undergoing a seismic shift, both as providers and as consumers. It’s too early to see how it will all shake out, but I am jazzed by watching the changes take place. Your customer may want something new, something unexpected, something that breaks all the rules.
Like a little humility.
How are the rules changing for you? Do you “know” what it takes to win today?
Grow and be well,
Kelly Erickson
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10 April 2009, 8:14 am
Interesting. I don’t hold meetings with clients (not in the traditional sense of the word), just co-workers.
Whenever possible, I have tried to hold them in a space with no chairs.
Why? So that people don’t get too comfortable, and stray from the topic of conversation too much. If there’s an agenda with a timeline, it helps to keep things on track this way.
Now, of course this doesn’t mean I don’t think the watercooler type chat is bad, because I think that is good too. That stuff just happens by itself in hallways and coffee rooms.
For a “business” type meeting, best to stick to business I find and if people are on their feet the whole time, they’re likely to run out of the room right at the end of the meeting and do something!
Plus you can always tell who is falling asleep… just look for the guy who is weaving back and forth
Brett Legree’s last blog post…christmas promise.
10 April 2009, 8:23 am
Brett,
I love that—a no chairs meeting would certainly speed things up. Might make clients feel like they were getting the rush from you, LOL, but for interoffice meetings I think that’s brilliant.
Falling asleep in a Brett meeting would be awfully difficult!
Regards,
Kelly
10 April 2009, 8:36 am
Kelly,
We did do it that way years ago in another job – we were a small manufacturing firm (power electronics actually) and we would hold meetings in the shop.
Of course, it was really appropriate for that type of business as we could show them the machines, the parts, raw materials etc.
We actually hold a lot of meetings in our offices these days too – lack of space as they’ve turned conference rooms into cube farms!
It does have the same effect though, because there are not enough chairs and everyone has to stand
-Brett
Brett Legree’s last blog post…christmas promise.
10 April 2009, 9:21 am
Hehe, great post, Kelly. And when I read it, my first thought was, “What? That’s a great idea, more intimate, closer…” But I think I thought that because my philosophy is to get right down in the trenches with people as much as I can – part of our branding. I think. Maybe. Could be wrong, but…
You’re right, though. This would have worked well a year ago. Times, they are a-changing and very quickly.
Now, for the room with no chairs, I’ve had that happen to me – and it has always been in a “you’re in deep shit now” environment. When you cannot sit, you are uncomfortable. Lack of furniture signals cold. It’s a box – and you’re the experimental mouse.
Not something I’d try unless I was giving an employee a serious talk about performance.
James Chartrand – Men with Pens’s last blog post…Are You Afraid of Marketing or Do Sales Just Turn You Off?
10 April 2009, 10:17 am
James,
It depends. If you’re having an engineering “plan of the day” meeting when everyone is looking at drawings or blueprints, chairs are an impediment. They slow things down. It doesn’t have to be cold, or uncomfortable.
It works in the real world in certain cases (usually in places where real, physical work is done), but if it’s not for you, that’s okay.
We’ve both had different work experiences.
Brett Legree’s last blog post…christmas promise.
10 April 2009, 10:20 am
Ahhh. You didn’t mention that’s the type of meeting it was for. That makes sense.
James Chartrand – Men with Pens’s last blog post…Are You Afraid of Marketing or Do Sales Just Turn You Off?
10 April 2009, 10:27 am
Oh, for sure! I don’t think you’d bring in your soon to be new partners and not give them an inviting room
Brett Legree’s last blog post…christmas promise.
10 April 2009, 11:44 am
@Kelly – In other words, it’s not business, it’s personal…
There are several take-away messages in this story (a great one, BTW…!) but the thing I see most is that trying new things — even things that on the surface seem counter-intuitive — can help you move forward.
But on the flip side, what if clients hated the in-office meetings? Seems to me that the safer solution would be to implement and test a policy of in-office meetings before scrapping the whole board room.
Perhaps that is just being anti-counter-intuitive of me…
~Graham
10 April 2009, 3:11 pm
One big thing that has changed for me is being so much more online than before. But that is actually great. The reach is farther, the feedback faster. And the rewards of new horizons, fantastic people, and possibilities are so rich. But the rules of engagement are similar, in fact, emphatically so. Being authentic in tough times is even more important. People want to know that the value you offer is indeed the value they seek. So even though the medium or the meeting place may appear a little different, the actual brand, if you will, has to remain constant.
Janice Cartier’s last blog post…Being Present
10 April 2009, 4:17 pm
Very interesting post, Kelly. I could certainly see your points about keeping the boardroom, and was surprised by the results too. In the end, though, the place of meeting is much less important than the ability of the workers to connect with the clients. It reminds me of those debates people have about social media: “which tool is better?” In the end, it’s about connecting person to person. It can happen through any means.
Todd Smith’s last blog post…Can you help me choose the pictures for next year’s calendar?
10 April 2009, 5:25 pm
I always think that humility is meant to teach us to listen beyond our own greatness. It’s an important lesson to learn – one of my kids has the attitude that the world should be grateful for his presence. Slowly but surely, we’re working on his humility…but wow, it’s quite the challenge.
Love how you’re able to take away good lessons from it too.
Barbara Ling, Virtual Coach’s last blog post…BAM is the sound of your affiliate commissons scurrying away
11 April 2009, 12:23 pm
Brett,
Of course, the show-me-around meeting is great too. No chairs because you want an active atmosphere. I encourage those when I visit new sites. Better to show me than to tell me—and quicker!
James,
Much more intimate. It wasn’t so much the arrangement, as the switch to that arrangement that seemed unwise to me, but it turns out it was exactly that switch that worked so brilliantly.
Graham,
“It’s not business, it’s personal.”
Darn, I wish I’d said it that way. We’ve talked about increasing the personal touch here before, and that is it. If it’s not the cold big box discount atmosphere, more and more folks are clamoring for a very personal Experience. That’s exactly why it worked.
As to testing it, you know what Henry Ford said: If I’d asked people what they wanted, they’d have said “faster horses.”
I think this was one instance (and there are many) where if he was sure, going right ahead with it was the only way to make it happen.
P.S. Many layers of messages here. Yep.
Janice,
What I love about your comment is the combination—online more yet interacting more, and staying personal. This “cyberspace” is shaping up to be much less of an alien environment than it originally seemed!
Todd,
Another awesome point—the people involved have made this work. If it wasn’t in my friend’s nature to say, “You are my work” to his client, then maybe this would have been a big flop. Luckily everyone he works with has that same ability to connect, and to make folks feel happy they’re closer to the dirty business of doing business.
Barbara,
Hello and welcome to Maximum Customer Experience.
I laughed out loud at your first sentence. Maybe not “greatness,” ha ha, but beyond my own certainty. I surely got that lesson from this—always re-examine my assumptions, especially when the world is in such a state of flux. Intuition sometimes trumps education and experience!
Regards,
Kelly
16 April 2009, 2:31 pm
I wonder what the online equivalent situation would be to that. No idea…
As for changing rules – I find the rules change every day for me and what works for one person doesn’t for another, because the second person comes in six-months later and the rules have totally changed, or because the second person has a different type of Internet presence and so the way to interact is subtly but crucially different.
Alex Fayle | Someday Syndrome’s last blog post…Addicted to Downloading: Procrastinating with eBooks