Clients Teach Vendors

You know I am fond of looking beyond the obvious. Here's a sampling of that in an excerpt from an excellent ezine published by Robert Middleton. Robert previously commented in his ezine that "The greatest contribution you can make to others is allowing them to contribute to you." His readers responded. Here's one response I feel is worth sharing, especially for the coaches, speakers, and consultants who read this blog.

From Sue Edwards (a client of Robert's)

A year ago I approached a recruitment firm with a suggestion that they align themselves with a professional coach (guess who!) to provide coaching to the candidates that they place to truly set them up for success in their new job. I saw this as a fantastic way of differentiating the recruitment firm's service. (I'm a leadership coach who specializes in working with leaders taking on challenging new roles or moving to new organizations and experiencing enormous pressure to perform.)

What was transformative for me was this... as excited as I was about MY vision of what the service would look like, after I gave my pitch I simply listened and allowed the leaders of the recruitment firm to contribute their own ideas. As they expressed their resistance... talked about their own immediate needs... conveyed their understanding of their client's needs... I ended up with enormously valuable gifts of contribution.

This one conversation literally ended up defining much of my business development strategy for the subsequent year and has formed the basis of my core plans for the next two years.

Initially, their contribution was one powerful question... "How can you make your coaching more accessible to more people?"

Before I knew it, the list of marketing contributions they provided for me grew to...

1. Posting a regular column of articles that I write on their website which has a much wider audience than I would ever reach on my own. The column generates client leads.

2. Publishing and printing a book I wrote (involving a significant financial investment on their part) and providing it as a gift to all candidates they place, reaching hundreds of different organizations each year.

3. Inviting me to meetings with decision-makers in their client organizations.
The beauty of it is that in making these contributions to me, they are giving value-added contributions to their clients and are, of course, providing a contribution back to themselves. And so the collaboration ripples outward.

"By Robert Middleton of Action Plan Marketing. Please visit Robert's web site at http://www.actionplan.com for additional marketing articles and resources on marketing for professional service businesses."

Until next time,
Paulette
http://www.tipsbooklets.com