RSSHappy Story For Friday – Revisiting The Dutch Uncle And My First Blog Post Ever
Although this post has nothing to do with information technology, CIOs, or the like, this post reflects persistence, integrity, and the essence of blogging. I think these traits are important for technology leaders. That's why I thought it would be good to post here.
At my old blog last year, I recounted a story about losing a management consulting deal. Some key snips setting the context for the Dutch Uncle (emphasis added):
- Today I lost a freelance consulting deal to another consultant. Of course I'm disappointed, but once a deal is lost, it is lost …
- I think the most important things to do after a lost deal are to
identify learnings with respect to your company's product offering and
sales processes and to preserve prospect relationships … - Now I am not going to go into all of my learnings here, however, I
think it is useful to consider a concept I learned in Ford Harding's
book, "Rain Making: The Professional's Guide to Attracting New
Clients". You need to ask as many people as possible (client prospects
included) to be straight-up with you. No silverlining. Why did I lose
the deal? This is the concept of getting the prospect to talk to you
like a Dutch uncle. To quote a passage from Harding's book, "The person
who talks to you like a Dutch uncle does it for your own good … At
its worst … [problems are] like a cheating spouse; friends know but
don't tell you about it. "
Well, as it turns out, I actually won the deal. The client prospect came back. That's the happy story for Friday.
To change gears a bit, I actually started blogging probably back in 2003. I had one post up there for about a year on a Blogger account which I eventually deleted. I like to think that I won the deal above in part because what was embodied in my first blog post ever. The essence of what was there was (to my recollection):
- my personal mission statement as a business development professional
- my utmost goal to help people and not to sell to them
- my commitment to safeguard one's confidential and competitive information as a business partner
- my goal to even help you find an alternative source for your problem if my company's solution was not a good fit.
It probably went on and on for a bit, but you get the idea.
