About How I Work with Clients

So, what is it like working with the Bald Dog and Dynamic Innovations Squad? Here you learn what you can get out of collaborating with me, some sense of my philosophy of helping clients how I approach engagements and what makes me different from other consultants.

As the saying goes, if you want to eat an omelettes, you have to break some eggs. So, working with me is demanding, exhausting, infuriating but eventually fulfilling. Why? Because change is a pretty radical process. As the famous/notorious English freedom fighter, Guy Fawkes once said...

"A desperate disease requires a dangerous remedy", and getting stuck and being unable to change is a desperate disease.

Look, the butterfly is not pampered and sweet-talked out of the cocoon. It's hard work. It's quite a bit of toil, sweat and tears. Neither can people be just inspired to step up to the next level. They have to take the kind of action they haven't taken before and that's uncomfortable and inconvenient. Changing old deeply entrenched habits and beliefs is even more radical. And this is where we have to break some eggs for your omelette. But after the change come the fulfilment stage.

When You Work With Me You Can Expect...

...to see lasting positive changes in the way you run your business, focusing on one overarching question: "How can you offer more client value for higher fees using less of your time and effort?"

You can better leverage your opportunities. This includes the development and promotion of a broad range of information products printed, audio and video formats, joint ventures and strategic alliance opportunities.

You can better translate the features and benefits of your services into perceived value. Remember the client's perception becomes your reality. So, the better you communicate your services, the better you build your perceived value. The key is that you can charge premium fees and clients don't object because compared to the perceived value they receive their investment is merely loose change.

You polish the overall quality of your talent pool. In a professional service business it is the people who make the real different. It is like Formula 1 racing. The cars are similar. It is the drivers and the support team who make the difference. For this reason, you need people of the right character traits and skills on board.

You leverage your time and effort through cost-effective systems and processes. There is only so much your people can manually do, and if your way of growing your business is just hiring more people, than you are in deep trouble. You sell intellectual property, and this process can be automated and distributed through well-designed processes integrated into

You get more highly respected and compensated for your unique expertise. You are able to charge for the true value of your solution which has a direct increase in your profit margin since you can cut down on manual labour. You can achieve higher annual billing with fewer people. You can create an environment that naturally attracts great talents and great clients.

You can generate qualified prospects using multiple channels. You no longer have to "beg" for referrals because you have preponderance of leads coming through your sales funnel. You can also cherry pick your clients and go for the most exciting, and lucrative projects. This creates an upward spiral, so you can invest in growing your firm.

You have a strategy for balanced growth, but you also have your tactics and plan for execution. Inertia is permanently exiled from your business, and innovative ideas get promptly evaluated and implemented.

You overcome both the financial and emotional shortcomings of retarded fee structures that are based on dispensed time and poundage of deliverables. You learn how to best present the value of your contribution and how to get paid for it. Look, every Hi-Fi amplifier is advertised based on how much power it gives out to the listener, not how much it takes from the mains socket. See?

You have your people work together as a cohesive team regardless where in the world they operate from. We use some unorthodox approaches I've brought from skydiving and the military where even the smallest errors can result in lost lives. The good thing is that real "team" people will enjoy it, but the prima donnas and lone wolves get weeded out before they could cause any damage to the team.

You create a 80% automated client acquisition process that quietly works in the background while you are delivering your services. The great advantage is that you don't have to turn your existing gigs into sales pitches because your systems generates all the leads for you. This approach removes a huge pressure from you because you don't have to manually hunt for the next client.

If you find these outcomes would be beneficial to your firm, help may be closer than you think. Read on...

My Guiding Beliefs and Helping Philosophy

Once upon a time I tried to help people who had no intention to help themselves. They would throw up their arms in surrender and say, "Solve my problems for me." But as I learnt more about people and business, I realised that Albert Schweitzer got it right when he said this about patients...

"Each person carries his own doctor inside. Patients come to us not knowing that truth. We are at our best when we give the doctor who resides within each patient a chance to go to work."

And the same applies to consulting clients too. So, paraphrasing Albert...

Each person carries his own advisor inside. Clients come to us not knowing that truth. We are at our best when we give the consultant who resides within each client a chance to go to work.

After realising this one more amazing thing has happened: As I started working with better clients who were willing to pull their arses to create their own desired outcomes using my expertise to leverage their inherent greatness ("Let's create some amazingly cool shit together"), not as a crutch to hold up their disabilities ("Make me some money and hand it over"), I suddenly stopped working and started having more fun.

And then I've got used to it, and prefer to keep it this way until my crap-out day, which is planned to happen in 2091. So I just avoid stressful, rapidly sinking ships. So here are some of my ground rules...

My clients know more about their contents (law, information technology, medicine, accounting, etc.) than I will ever know, so they will have the last say on them. We may brainstorm here and there on minor issues, but essentially I don't have much to contribute to how to prosecute a rapist, how to do brain surgery or how to do a corporate tax return.

I know more about processes (consulting, coaching, conducting focus groups, acquiring clients, setting fees, firm management, building champion teams, formulating and implementing strategy, etc.) than my clients, so we jointly develop the best, most practical course of action. This is why I work only in collaborative relationships, and by pooling and pulling together our combined expertise and experience we are likely to achieve your objectives with the highest level of certainty and velocity, giving you the biggest return on your investment.

My relationships are about visiting friends and helping them along a bit. Since my life is fully blended without compartments, I have only one type of relationships. I regard my clients as my friends, hence choose and work with them accordingly. And since they value my contribution, they pay me for my help. We all have "friends" who ask for special favours "doing things free", but they are not really friends but bloody leeches. For your own sanity's sake, abandon them as quickly as humanly possible.

My life is too short to live with bad deals and people I can't stand. I work only on sexy, exciting projects with people I truly care about. I guess, I'm just too romantic to work for the sake of earning a living. I prefer to have more than a rat race to live for, so I treat my business as a well-paid hobby and put my heart and soul into it.

I can't teach you anything; I can only make you think. And if you think, you will discover what you are seeking is actually within you, or within your firm. There is nothing new under the sun. I don't have secrets for you. Nature is holistic. Where there is a problem, there is a solution. I can only help you to see both, but that requires a change in your thinking. So, the results you achieve is 100% in your hands. No one can do it for you. As the saying goes, you can take a horse to water, but you can't make him synchronised swim.

A good plan acted upon right now is better than a perfect plan acted upon some day. Procrastination kills people not only in the military ("If you want to shoot, then shoot, don't talk." said Tuco in the movie The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) or in skydiving (To pull the cord or not to pull the cord - this is the question. William, you're dead right). We will make mistakes, so instead of striving for perfection, let's go for excellence within a time frame.

Tough love is better than soft pity. Achieving high level of competency in any area takes more than motivational speakers, pampering and sweet talk. I have found that when I expose clients to the - often - harsh reality, they are ready and willing to grow. Otherwise they delude themselves with emotional candy. And I have my hard-arse, tough-as-nail approach because I care. "He serves the state the best who opposes it the most" - Henry David Thoreau once said. I believe there is something very serious in this statement.

My Approach

Whether you want to attract top-tier talents or "cream of the crop" clients and built a championship professional service firm, be it gigantic or microscopic, I may be able to help. I say "may be", because I don't know the details. Over years of dedicated learning and client work I have become a specialist in building premium professional service firms.

Since different people work differently with their clients, it is only fair to roughly outline how I work with my clients. I don't call it coaching, consulting, advising or anything. They are just labels. I guess the best label that describes my style is a drill sergeant, meaning that my style may not be eloquently polished and tactful, but, being true to my military past, I get the job done, so, if they do their ends of the agreements, my clients see significant results in their businesses. This neither the right way, nor the wrong way, just my way.

My idea of helping my clients is to bring out the best in them by any means we see fit. If it is doing 10 push-ups, then so be it. Let's not get bogged down in the method or the label, like coach, gravedigger or chimneysweeper. Lets focus on the end result.

My clients are great: I have the privilege of choosing my clients, and they choose me because of my unique ability and skills. What I offer is not the result of a weekend workshop and a certificate, but real life skills in areas of life where even the smallest error can result in fatalities. All in all, I know how to make things happen even when the shit hits the fan.

I work with clients not for clients: Everything I do is 100% collaborative, fully involving clients at each step of the process. That is, this is a "teach me how to fish" relationship. At the beginning of each project we jointly define what you want to achieve and what you want to learn from our collaboration, and we work on two plans: Achieving both your improvement objectives and your learning objectives. So, with some luck, you will never need my help again.

I expect more than your best: Because of my military and extreme sport background, people who work with me are very serious about making changes in their businesses, hence in their lives. I value my clients very high, thus my demands and expectations of them and very high. By default, people do their best every time. My job is to help you to move beyond the "I'm doing my best" type self-delusion. People can always do better than they're doing right now. This is what I bring to the table.

I make direct requests: I will make direct requests, like "Will you accomplish X by the end of the month?" You may accept the request, counteroffer (say what you can do) or decline (we will talk about this). I make you right whichever way you respond.

I don't miss much: I have had my fair share of life, so I have a sensitive bullshit detector. Just look at my picture and see that big nose. I call you on missed accountabilities, broken promises and self-delusions.

I am judgemental, provocative and confrontational: I respect my clients and the investments they make in their own growth (Be it personal or professional), therefore I don't give them much slack. As the saying goes, under heat and pressure coal turns into diamond. I am very good at providing the right amount of heat and pressure at the right moment because I believe my clients have the diamond within. We just dig it up together and make it shine.

I expect you only to leverage, but not to depend on me: As your advisor, I am a resource and presence for you to use to your best advantage. Depending on investment options, clients have unlimited access to me. And I respond pretty quickly.

Using Robert Kennedy's words, "Progress is a nice word. But change is its motivator. And change has enemies." In my opinion people cannot be pampered and sweet-talked into making lasting positive changes in their lives. They need heat, pressure and a fair amount of plain old proverbial arse-kicking to take action and move forward. Apart from all this, the process is fun-filled and jovial.

The Squad's Uniqueness

Over the years of military training and skydiving, I have learnt to deal with the greatest excellence-killer that forces so many great professionals to join the mediocre bunch. This is plain, garden variety fear. So, most professionals don't even try. Their greatest ideas and aspirations go by the wayside in quiet desperation because they are scared of failing and facing many of their mediocre peers' critical comments, "Son, I told you so! You can't do that!"

Probably the greatest benefit my clients have derived from working with me is a dogged determination to charge forward full throttle with the impact of a bulldozer, enabling them to live their lives and run their businesses to the beat of their own drums. We can also call it good old autonomy.

You've probably heard the phrase "Money makes you more of who you are." If you are generous, more money will make you more generous. If you are greedy, money will make you greedier.

So, now you know who I work with and how I work, so it may even want to know who who the cricket the person is behind all this mayhem, anarchy and pandemonium.