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Defining the Context of a Negotiation

May 11, 2022/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Leadership, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

chess

Understanding the strategic environment of a negotiation can help you achieve the outcome you want.

The first step in any negotiating process is defining and understanding the context you’re operating in. You have to understand the strategic environment of the negotiation in order to be successful. There are several elements to defining this context.

First, who is the decision maker, and why are they doing this? The better you understand these players and what they’re trying to get out of the negotiation, the more successfully you’re going to be able to approach them.

Second, define your goals. What are you interested in, and what do you need? By laying out these objective functions, you can focus on achieving them during the negotiation and make sure that you don’t accidentally give them up.

Third, what are the outcomes that are in play? What’s at stake? When you look at the final negotiation, what are those possible end states? What do you risk losing? What do you risk gaining?

Next, define the other options you’re considering. Many negotiations have many different outcomes that you can pursue. By defining what these options are, you’re better able to determine which one you should pursue.

And last, what will it take to close the deal? Trying to get a clear understanding of what’s going to lead the other party to say yes, and what’s going to get approval on your end for the negotiation is critical.

An example of a negotiation I went through where we had to clearly define the context was when we were trying to buy back a franchise operation. The owners were looking to cash out. They wanted to sell their franchise back to us as a corporation. Our goal was to buy access to their market but do so at a reasonable price. So these were the goals of the parties that were involved. Now, the options we had available to us were either a full purchase of their territory or no sale and they would retain it. We couldn’t buy a portion of it, and we couldn’t enter that market without making the purchase. So we had these two options that we had to think through and evaluate. We had to understand that it would take significant cash up front, and we had to look at our ability to pay that as well as what that offer would be worth to the franchise owners. By laying out this complete context to the negotiation, we made our negotiating position much stronger because we understood what we wanted to get out of the deal.

As you look at negotiations you enter, make sure you take the time to define this context and document it so you can go back to it on a regular basis, test your assumptions, and stay on track to achieve your goals.

Want to learn more about strategic negotiation? How about taking an entire course on it? Go directly to the course and start learning how to negotiate. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

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Resolving Team Conflicts

May 4, 2022/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

office discussion

Keep your team performing well by quickly identifying and resolving conflicts.

Conflict is inherent in cross-functional team structures. Be vigilant about identifying and resolving conflict before it severely impacts team performance.

To identify conflict, monitor both project milestones as well as team member metrics. Talk with your team members frequently to suss out issues. If a milestone is missed, or a metric is off, get to the root cause quickly. When talking with your team members, ask them directly what conflict or issues they see. Don’t overreact to every little complaint but do look for trends. If everyone on the team is complaining about one individual’s behavior, you have an issue you need to resolve.

I was working as a consultant at one point, and the client had a cross-functional team. The team seemed to be working well, but we sensed a little bit of tension. We sat down with each individual client, and we asked what’s going well and what’s not. Every single one of those conversations involved one person’s name. They were a problem and there was a massive problem boiling underneath the surface. We sat down with that individual and we gave them very clear feedback. We also let them know what needed to change. By getting to that problem quickly and understanding what the conflict was, we were able to resolve it. The team worked much more effectively after that.

Team leaders need to resolve conflict both within the team and between the team and external stakeholders. External stakeholders often have resources the team needs or they have other priorities that team members need to work on. To resolve this type of conflict, go back to the project charter. Go to the conversations you had with that person’s manager or those external stakeholders about how much time and energy that person was going to put on your project. If you have a mismatch there, try and resolve the conflict quickly. Get your resources dedicated to your team and try and mitigate some of the concerns that that stakeholder has.

The more effectively you find what the conflict is, whether it’s internal to your team or with a stakeholder, the more effectively your team is going to function. Instead of focusing on conflict, your team can focus on the work.

Want to learn more about managing cross-functional teams? How about taking an entire course on it? Go directly to the course and start learning how to manage a cross-functional team. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

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Common Types of Conflict on Cross-Functional Teams

April 27, 2022/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

birds fighting

Your biggest challenge as a cross-functional team leader is in identifying, managing, and resolving all the various types of conflict that will arise, making sure the team delivers on its objectives.

Cross-functional team leaders will experience many common forms of conflict.

Conflicting priorities

Conflicting priorities occur when people have their regular full-time jobs and they’re working on tasks on a cross-functional team too. While both sets of tasks have to be completed, prioritization isn’t always clear.

Conflicting ideas

Conflicting ideas are common on a cross-functional team. One of the beauties of these teams is people bringing different perspectives and ideas. What gets problematic is when people disagree on which idea or approach is best. At the very least, people don’t like having their ideas challenged or criticized by colleagues.

Conflicting styles

Conflicting interpersonal styles come up when some people like working from home versus working in the office. Some people like coming in late. Some people like staying late. Some people like sending email on weekends. And some people don’t even want to see their computer. There are a lot of different stylistic differences out there. Given you’re leading people from all different functions, styles are definitely going to clash.

Conflicting personalities

Conflicting personalities are caused by mixes of introverts and extroverts. Or risk-takers and risk-averters. You may have optimists and pessimists. You may have the logical and the emotional. There are all different combinations of personality types. And there’s a lot of potential conflict there.

Conflicting performance

Conflicts over performance crop up when someone is perceived to not be pulling their own weight. When one person fails to deliver, it tends to have knock-on effects that affect other team members. This is especially sensitive if someone’s failure to perform negatively impacts the results of someone whose doing a great job.

Your biggest challenge as a cross-functional team leader is in identifying, managing, and resolving all these various types of conflict while at the same time, making sure the team delivers on its objectives. Learn how to sense when these types of conflict are likely, or even present. Take action quickly to resolve them. And get the team focus back on the cross-functional teams objectives at hand.

Want to learn more about managing cross-functional teams? How about taking an entire course on it? Go directly to the course and start learning how to manage a cross-functional team. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

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Facilitating Communication on a Cross-Functional Team

April 20, 2022/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

meeting computer

Effective communication is crucial when you’re leading a cross-functional team. Here are a few communication vehicles you can use.

A cross-functional team leader has a lot of communication vehicles at their disposal. These need to be used effectively. Here are some of the most common ones and a few suggestions on how you can use them.

Steering committee meetings

There are steering committee meetings. These are the most formal, and usually the least frequent. They involve senior stakeholders from multiple functions. You’ll provide a formal team progress update. You may conduct deep dives into specific areas of concern. Sometimes you’re coming to the steering committee for a major decision. These occur on a monthly, bimonthly, or even quarterly basis, depending on the size of the project.

Team project updates

There are team project updates. These are conducted with the entire cross-functional team. Every team member reviews their progress, shares concerns and needs for assistance, and team decisions are made here. These generally occur biweekly or monthly since they can be big and they’re very involved.

Regular team meetings

There are regular team meetings. Those involve the entire team, but they focus on specific upcoming deliverables or specific issues that need to be resolved. These are usually manage by exception types of meetings. They generally occur every week. Individual or subteam meetings involve a portion of the team. These occur on an as-needed basis. They focus on resolving a particular issue or making decisions that don’t affect the broader team or broader project.

Other communication vehicles

Other communication vehicles you can use to keep the team moving forward are project plans and update emails or calls. Keeping a project plan posted somewhere it’s accessible all the time enables team members and stakeholders to get a quick look at progress. They can see what the upcoming deliverables are. This can be posted either on a bulletin board or shared online. Update emails and calls can be sent to the broader team, or they can be used with specific team members. You can even target specific stakeholders to notify them of progress or issues. Make the update’s purpose clear up front. Is it just an FYI? Do you need a decision made? Is it a request for assistance?

All these means of communicating do take time and effort, but that’s the leader’s job on a cross-functional team. Make sure you invest the time keeping the team informed.

Want to learn more about managing cross-functional teams? How about taking an entire course on it? Go directly to the course and start learning how to manage a cross-functional team. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

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Leading Effective Meetings

April 13, 2022/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

meeting

Unproductive meetings waste your team’s time and energy. Here are five ways to make your meetings more effective.

Meetings can be powerful communication tools or a dreadful waste of time. To make cross-functional team meetings productive, specify the meeting purpose, have the right people in the room, but maybe not all the people, manage by exception, identify sources of conflict, and be clear with the accountabilities and next steps.

Specify the meeting’s purpose

The meeting’s purpose can be to update or share information, make a decision, resolve an issue, solve a problem, or celebrate success. Let people know what the meeting is about beforehand and specify if there is any preparation required on their part before the meeting.

Have the right people in the room

Meeting attendees should be driven by the purpose of the meeting. If you’re sharing information, ensure that the people who need that information are invited. If you’re making a decision, have all the decision makers and people providing input into the decision in the room. People have a bias to invite everyone. Be thoughtful about who you invite and let the meeting’s purpose dictate who needs to be there.

Manage by exception

Managing by exception means only covering topics that are outside of expectations. If you have 10 work streams and eight are on track, you should only discuss the two that are off track. It saves time and focuses effort on the most important issues. I worked on one leadership team where we had a 10-hour update meeting. 10 hours. The reason it was so long was we went through every project and every deliverable that everybody was working on even though most of them were on track. Eventually we moved to a manage by exception process. That 10-hour meeting went down to 90 minutes.

Identify sources of conflict

Make sure you identify sources of conflict when you lead a meeting. While you should be listening to the content, look for body language that indicates conflict. Listen to what’s being said or not said. Many times, disagreement comes in the form of silence. When you see this happen, either invite the person to share their thoughts directly in the meeting or approach them after the meeting and ask what’s on their mind.

Be clear with accountabilities

Define accountabilities and next steps coming out of the meeting. Make sure everyone has an open task list and that the owners are clearly identified. Set agreed upon timelines for resolution of those open issues. Document these accountabilities in a follow-up email to the team. Be sure, if you need to, to add these items to your project plan and review them at the next meeting.

Meetings are the most common communication vehicle out there for sharing information. If you lead them poorly, they’re just a big waste of time. If you lead them well, your team is going to be that much more efficient and effective in its communications.

Want to learn more about managing cross-functional teams? How about taking an entire course on it? Go directly to the course and start learning how to manage a cross-functional team. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

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Motivating People on a Cross-Functional Team

April 6, 2022/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

 

sunny office

Leading a cross-functional team involves learning what motivates each individual on your team.

Motivating a cross-functional team requires the leader to set goals that inspire people. They have to connect each team member’s work to the project’s success. They also have to understand people from different backgrounds.

Goals need to be ambitious but pragmatic. Consider setting a commit goal and a stretch goal where it’s appropriate. A commit goal is the basic expectation of what somebody’s going to deliver. A stretch goal is if everything goes right and we do all the right stuff, and we get a little bit lucky, here’s what we can achieve. People want to know their work matters. You have to make the linkage from their task to the broader project objectives.

One technique I love for doing this is sitting the team down in front of a whiteboard. We write down all the tasks they’re responsible for on the cross-functional team project. Then, we write the broad project objectives at the top of the board. We spend time linking every single task they’re working on to those broader goals for the project. Once they see that their work is really critical for driving this big project objective, all of a sudden their work is more meaningful.

Everyone on your team is an individual. They all have different things that are going to motivate them. For some people, it’s getting a great review. For other people, it’s about getting a great bonus. Still others just want recognition or they want to overcome a personal challenge. Some people on that cross-functional team see it as a great developmental opportunity to build a new skill. Sit down with each team member. Understand what motivates them. Do your best to connect project work to these motivators.

On one team I ran, we were replacing our phone system. I had somebody from telephony, operations, and project management on the team. The person from telephony was really excited about getting a new phone system. That’s what motivated them. They were tired of fixing the old system and having it break. This was an opportunity to get something cool and new for them to play with. The person from operations was excited about the project because it was a developmental opportunity for them. They normally worked the day-to-day operations. This was going to give them exposure to an area they knew nothing about. They’re working with technology and they thought that was pretty cool. The project manager on the team also saw this as a developmental opportunity. She had never worked on a big cross-functional team across a division. There was great visibility here for her and she was motivated by that.

When a cross-functional project has a crisis occur—and they will—the leader has to pull the team together and motivate them to overcome the challenge rather than playing the blame game and breaking the team apart. It’s easy to blame other people for failing to deliver. Once the blame game starts, the project is at risk and team dynamics can get very unhealthy after that. To resolve this, hold a fact-based review. Focus on what happened instead of saying whose fault it was. Understand why it happened. Look at the impact of the incident to time, cost, or quality for the project. Most importantly, sit down with the team and say, “What’s it going to take to fix this?” Casting blame doesn’t get you any closer to a solution. Instead, by focusing on the solution, you can reassign tasks, adjust deadlines, and change budgets accordingly.

On that same phone system project, we went live with one of our biggest locations. It didn’t work. We flipped switches and the phones didn’t come on. Instantly, everybody was saying, “Oh, it’s his fault. No, it’s her fault. No, it’s your fault.” Everybody was blaming each other. I said, “Team, we need to stop. Let’s understand why isn’t it working. Let’s understand what it’s going to take to get it working and then let’s look at who’s going to do what work to fix this issue.” By seeing that the blame game was starting and immediately cutting it off to get the team focused on moving forward, we were able to resolve the crisis pretty quickly.

The better you understand what motivates people and the more effectively you can avoid the blame game and manage crises, the better your cross-functional team will perform.

Want to learn more about managing cross-functional teams? How about taking an entire course on it? Go directly to the course and start learning how to manage a cross-functional team. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

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The 3 Challenges of Leading a Cross-Functional Team

March 23, 2022/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

number 3

Leading a cross-functional team involves learning how to deal with competing demands and conflicts.

Cross-functional teams can be really challenging to lead. There are three major challenges you’ll face when leading these teams. But if you plan for them, you can overcome all of them. 

First, team demands compete with the day-to-day demands of the team member’s day job. It’s pressure they’re going to face from their own department. Their daily responsibilities don’t go away. Their project responsibilities on the cross-functional team typically get added to those day-to-day responsibilities. Their reviews, in terms of their end-of-year review, are more about their day job than their participation on your cross-functional team. So the project might not get as much attention or priority from that person.

The second challenge you’ll face is that the team will have natural conflict in its structure due to competing goals, perspectives, styles, and personalities. Some people may be driving one function in their day job while your cross-functional team is trying to drive another. I led a major cost cutting project. On that cross-functional team, we had some people from sales and marketing. They were responsible for driving revenue. We were focused on cutting costs. There was a lot of conflict inherent in that situation. Different perspectives, styles, and personalities are going to be challenging. Any time you get a bunch of people working together, especially in a high-stress environment, there’s going to be conflict. And you’re going to have to resolve it.

Finally, the team leader has to rely on influence more than direct control. Your team members on a cross-functional team typically don’t formally report to you. You don’t write their annual review. You don’t determine their bonus. They have their daily responsibilities that are higher priority and you’ll have to influence them to contribute to the team. Just getting the right people involved, getting their attention and making sure they work well with the rest of the team to achieve your goals is a full-time job. But if you invest time in it and focus on it, you’re going to make that team work well together.

The better you recognize these challenges going into the project, the more effectively you can mitigate them by setting proper expectations at the beginning of the project and getting agreement with the person’s manager in terms of how much time you’re going to get from that person and the relative priorities of the cross-functional teams’ work and their day-to-day responsibilities. 

Think about these challenges if you’re asked to set up a cross-functional team. If you think about them, document them, and then actively work to resolve them, that team is going to be that much more successful.

Want to learn more about managing cross-functional teams? How about taking an entire course on it? Go directly to the course and start learning how to manage a cross-functional team. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

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When to Use a Cross-Functional Team

March 16, 2022/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

 

question mark

Learn about the types of situations that call for a cross-functional team.

Cross-functional teams should be built when a project has a defined scope, the scope impacts multiple functional areas, and when the expertise required to successfully complete the project is not available only in the group leading the project. Scope determines which functions are or are not impacted. Without a clearly defined scope statement, it’s going to be hard to gather resources since people can claim they have higher priorities and their area isn’t in scope. With a well-defined scope, it becomes clear whether or not you need a cross-functional team. If the scope calls for skills your team lacks or requires working with other groups, you’re going to have to build a cross-functional team. It’s rare for a team to have all the support functions and perspectives it needs for every project it works on. Let’s take a look at a couple of examples.

I was working on a major technology replacement. This required technology changes. It had telephony impacts. This project was going to change our financial reporting. It would have impacts on our call center, on our associates and their workflows. It was going to change the associate desktops. It was going to fundamentally alter our operations. We needed a big cross-functional team in that situation.

I had another project where I ran a strategy and analysis team. We were going to make changes to the commissions we paid to some of our external agency partners. We own this function. We own the call center. We had the agency management function. The reporting was already built, so there would be no changes there. We didn’t have any technology changes we needed to make. We did not need a cross-functional team in that situation since we had all the resources we needed to make those changes.

The easiest way to determine if you need a cross-functional team or not is to ask if your team has all the resources and expertise required to carry out an initiative. If the answer’s no, you likely need to build a cross-functional team.

Want to learn more about managing cross-functional teams? How about taking an entire course on it? Go directly to the course and start learning how to manage a cross-functional team. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

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What is a Cross-Functional Team?

March 9, 2022/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

hands in circle

Learn what a cross-functional team is and why they can be so rewarding to manage.

Imagine an orchestra made up of nothing but trumpets. Imagine a baseball team of all catchers. Imagine a medical team that’s nothing but radiologists. Those aren’t good situations.

A cross-functional team is a group of people with different functional expertise working toward a common goal. It can include people from finance, marketing, operations and HR, and other key functional areas. Employees from different levels usually participate on a cross-functional team. The team might include frontline operators, managers and directors, and you may have analysts and project managers on the team. There may be other job families involved. These teams can also include people from outside the organization like suppliers, customers, or consultants. Read more

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Breaking Big Problems Into Small Problems

March 2, 2022/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

 

puzzle

Big business problems are overwhelming. Using a logic map to break a big problem into its smaller components can give you the clarity and understanding you need to solve it.

At one point, I worked with a financial services firm and we had a program where we were making offers to consumers. When that program first launched, we were making about $5 million a year. The problem was, after a few months, we started losing $5 million a year. This was a huge issue and there were a lot of things that could have contributed to it. So we used the problem-solving process to get a better understanding of the issues that were really driving the problem before we rushed off to solve it. We broke the problem down by using what’s called a logic map. We looked at technology, training, systems, hiring, and processes. The good news is, once we broke the problem down, we identified the core issue. We followed the rest of the problem-solving process and turned that program around from losing $5 million a year to actually making $20 million a year a few years after that.

Let me walk you through what a logic map is and how you can use it to break down your own problem solving. Let’s imagine we have a problem where profits are down. In the logic map, what we’re going to do is take profits and break it down into its component parts of revenue and cost. By doing so, what we’ve done is taken a larger problem and broken it down into smaller components. But those are still large issues to try and solve, so let’s use the logic map to break it down even further. We’ll break revenues down into volume and price and further break down our volume into current customers and prospective customers. We’ve taken a really large item that we wouldn’t be able to solve easily and broken it down into smaller parts that are going to be much easier to figure out.

To make your logic map complete, you can’t stop there because we want to identify what all the possible issues are. So we need to look at the cost side of things. In terms of costs, maybe we’re buying more or we’re paying more for the things that we’re buying. And in terms of paying more, that’s potentially an issue where we’re getting fewer discounts or base prices have gone up. By breaking that logic map down and saying we had a profit issue, and really walking it all the way through the smaller and smaller components, the problem gets a lot easier to solve.

There are multiple ways you can break your logic maps down. It’s not always about revenues and costs. Sometimes you’ll break it down and it’s a sales problem. You see you have product A, B and C and that may be the first level of your logic map. Or, you may break things down in terms of short-term, medium-term and long-term challenges. Just break your problem down logically and blow it out to a level where you can start seeing some of the smaller solutions emerge.

Want to learn more about solving business problems? How about taking an entire course on it? Go directly to the course and start learning how to solve business problems. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!

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Scaling Up From Individual to Team

February 16, 2022/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Communications, Entrepreneur, Sales, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

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When scaling your consulting firm up from an individual to a team, you’ll have to decide whether to hire contractors or employees. Learn the pros and cons of each.

When you want to grow your consulting firm, you’re probably going to have to bring on additional people. There’s only so much of you to go around. Make deliberate choices about whether the people you bring on will be contractors or employees. Ensure those individuals’ interests are aligned with yours.

If you’re going to bring on contractors, you don’t run into all the employment and tax issues and they’re going to be a more flexible workforce. The downside is they can leave suddenly and they don’t always share your personal interests.

If the people you bring on are employees, they’re dedicated to the work, but they come along with a lot of administrative issues you’re going to have to deal with. If you need someone who’s fully committed to building your firm but that person’s only interest is part-time work to supplement their income, you’re not going to be happy with that result.

Ensure interests are aligned between you and the people you bring on. A lot of times I get people who say they want to work with me, and we run a training firm. They’ll tell me, “Well Mike, when you can’t do the training session, just throw me that gig.” The problem is, I don’t need people for bandwidth to do the training. I need salespeople. That relationship won’t work out, so I have to hire different people.

I’ve chosen a structure where I have contractors. I don’t want to deal with the overhead. I don’t want to deal with the administrative issues. It’s great that I have contractors because I don’t deal with those issues. The downside is, sometimes I struggle to get my contractors’ attention and have them focus on building my business versus other interests they’re pursuing.

Know the different benefits and drawbacks of contractors and employees. Make sure you choose deliberately to drive the outcome you’re looking for.

Want more weekly consulting tips? How about taking an entire course on it? Go directly to the course and start improving your decision-making strategies. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

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Staying Connected With Clients

February 9, 2022/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Communications, Entrepreneur, Sales, Strategy /by Trevor Jones

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As a consultant, your relationships with your clients are invaluable. Learn a few strategies for maintaining your client relationships. 

Client relationships are the lifeblood of your business. Be deliberate about maintaining them. Regular contact will keep you top of mind. Beware of excessive contact; they’re going to ignore you or block you if you’re in their inbox too much. Find excuses to reach out to them like, “Hey I read an article and I thought of you,” or “I heard about a cool new technology and I thought you might be interested in it.” Send these notes and leave it at that. Don’t try and sell during these interactions. They know you eventually want to sell them something. Just focus on being helpful and good things are going to come.

I have one client who Read more

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