Commando Consulting, February 2010

By Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan

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So much for the curse of good ol' King Tut. Despite reports that all 22 people who were present at his exhumation kicked the bucket, 21 were still happily kicking 10 years later.

And this is exactly the same disease that ails so many consulting firms. Let's say Rampaging Rabbits Consulting Group has 22 problematic clients that constantly pay late and are prone to scope creep, but the partners have decided that tolerating shitty clients is financially better for the firm than getting rid of them, and losing the revenue.

Well, financially it may seem better to keep problematic clients, but considering the psychological havoc they wreak on your people, and that emotionally drained and frustrated people hardly ever do their best on client work, you may want to reconsider the firing of bad clients.

Quite often the biggest progress we can make in business is when we remove the obstacles we have got used to dodging over the years. We have the potential to do great, but some fiendish obstacles slow us down. Today we discuss how to remove some of these roadblocks.

At some point in our lives we all accepted projects with clients who seemed to be quite nice at the beginning but then turned out to be ticking time bombs. Typically what happens is that we try to pick up the slack and take on more and more to keep the client happy. But certain clients just can't be kept happy.

A few years ago I worked with a company, and after three months - for some mysterious reason - the client's monthly sales went up by 27%. Next time I showed up with a bottle of champagne and suggested a celebratory glass after our session. The client looked at me and said...

"Never mind that! You still have a lot of work to do before celebrating anything."

Shortly after this little incident, the client went off for a two-week vacation and then for another one, having left me with a message...

"I expect you to get these done by the time I return."

At one point he even demanded me to get rid of all my clients and dedicate my full attention to his business. And for that he offered me a monthly fee about 15% of what his monthly personal income was.

He started regarding me as his subordinate, just because he paid me. My mistake was that I waited a bit too long before walking away. And five years later he sued me for breach of contract.

So, every now and then we have all come across asylum escapees from some of the most pestilential pits of hell, and the sooner we can recognise these SOBs (Seriously Obnoxious Buyer), the less damage they can cause to our workflows, cashflows and sanity.

So for a start, you have to define what "Nightmare client" means to you. So, here I just give you some "Nightmare client" traits to get your brain started. Use it as a template and based on it develop your own "Nightmare client".

Some Warning Signs Of "Nightmare Clients And Prospects"

1. They want to keep you under their thumbs: They believe since they write your cheques, they are your bosses and you are their subordinate. That reminds me of a caricature sketch in a magazine: The orderly tells one of the residents in the lunatic asylum...

"Put down that toy sword and get off that rocking horse, Napoleon. It's time to go to bed."

Make sure your buyer doesn't go Napoleon on you, and don't give in any kind of hierarchical structure.

You are peers, and if buyers don't like it, they can either take a running jump at the nearest freight train or, as Adrian Gurwitz suggested on the 1969 Gun album, Gunsight, they can do to the river and drown themselves.

Some clients expect you to dedicate your whole life to them and demand your full attention 24/7. They fail to realise that you have several clients but only 24 hours a day.

Besides, who the cricket wants to work 24 hours a day. Especially male clients need lots of micromanaging. For example, many women have heard this from their spouses...

"Honey where are my socks?"

Or...

"Which shirt shall I put on today?"

Interestingly, most women know where their knickers and bras are without asking their spouses, and they know which shirt to put on. Just a thought on micromanaging. Watch out with male clients.

And the flipside of the same coin is that, on a percentage basis, more men love micromanaging others than women. And more men love being micromanaged than women. I reckon, they are pretty much the same men.

2. Clients move their projects' goalposts: This can happen especially if you work on fixed fees. They try to squeeze into their projects' scopes as much as humanly possible. They have no respect for what changes you have to make in your schedule to accommodate them. Their mantra is...

"Since we pay you anyway an obscene amount, why don't you clean the toilet as well?"

Make sure you have the scope of the project on paper and keep to it.

3. They put you down for every little mistake: These people don't accept the fact that you are not a magician. They simply can't fathom the basic fact, that when we are aiming at a change of some kind and some significance, we simply can't get it right the first time. Nobody does. They expect perfect performance and what's even worse is that they blame every mistake on their consultants.

We know from MIT Sloan School of Management Professor Edgar Schein that some 95% of consulting projects fail because clients don't act on the advice they have just paid for, yet a large chunk of this 95% blame the lack of results on their consultants.

Can you imagine an athlete coming second in a race and blaming the coach...

"You failed to train me to be good enough to win. I demand my money back."

Any sensible coach would get on the phone to the nearest lunatic asylum requesting the immediate admission of the idiotic athlete.

4. They advise you how to conduct your business: Instead of working with you to improve their own situations, which they hired you for in the first place, clients gradually become your, unwanted, consultant...

You may have to be pretty assertive with these clients and tell them that you run your business the way you see fit, and they should redirect their energy to the project. Of course, at this point some of them may decide to get offended (I believe only you can offend yourself, nobody else).

5. They treat the project as a "backburner issue" in their lives: The project is not regarded as top priority. Here you just have to remind them that the project is getting closer and closer to the projected completion, but unless they pull their acts together, the project will expire without completion, and you are only willing to extend your help and support for an extra fee.

The next step may be that you ask them to sign a document which declares that the project has fallen behind because they have failed to keep up with the timeline. This document acts like a bucket of icy water. On presenting this, some clients recover, some get extremely angry and may even demand your head on a silver platter. At this point some wimps may say that the client is always right, and good luck to them.

I see it differently. As a result of their righteousness, clients created various problems, and hired us to help them solve those problems. In my experience, every business problem is a personal problem first, that is, habits and behaviours. And this is why we do clients a great service when we chuck a bucket of proverbial icy water into their faces. Sometimes you may even have to wallop them over the head (not literally of course) with the bucket to make them see things from a different perspective.

6. They treat you as a commodity and have little respect for your unique expertise: This is the contractor syndrome. They regard you as a contractor (outsourced labourer, situational elbow grease, etc.) to perform activities they have neither time nor inclination to do in-house.

This is where so many consultants turn into "fish-catching", and "teaching how to fish" goes down the drain. Again, you have to be assertive and remind clients that they hired your brainpower not your brawn power. In case you do too much fish catching, make 2010 your first teaching-how-to-fish year.

You will see that great clients get better value and you can expect higher fees, while reducing your workload. You also reduce the number of demanding morons.

And here is one thing to consider. Imagine that you go to your accountant to discuss some tax strategies on your real estate investments and then asking your accountant to go to the tax office, queue up to get the appropriate tax forms and then bring them to your home because you are too busy and hate standing in queues? Sadly, this is what so many consultants do on a regular basis.

7. They put too much emphasis on references and testimonials: They don't care what they can achieve with your support and guidance, but blindly focus on what you have achieved with others and what others think of you. They fail to realise or simply deny the fact that in each equation you are the constant and the client is the variable, and, using basic maths, the outcome is the function of the variable, not the constant.

A relationship with a consultant is not only intellectual but also highly emotional. Just like a marriage. Let me ask you this: Did you marry or start dating your spouse because references and testimonials from previous boyfriends and girlfriends said...

"She is amazing in bed."

Or...

"He is brilliant at fixing cars, TVs and lawnmowers."

80% of a relationship with professionals is visceral, thus can't be put into a testimonial, but this is what the success of the project stands or falls on.

And the other 20% (the intellectual stuff) is just a small contributor. However, this only applies to truly collaborative relationships. For a moment parenting comes to mind. You don't have to be a child psychologist to raise great kids.

As long as you offer the visceral stuff, like love (in a professional sense), care, challenge, guidance, protection, high expectation, openness, etc. (just like in a consulting gig), you are on the right track.

8. They repeatedly violate your time by calling you at socially unacceptable times: My clients have unlimited access to me, and since, instead of a balanced life, I live a seamlessly blended one, they can call me anytime.

But if a client repeatedly called me at 11PM and got outraged because I didn't pick up the phone (because I am asleep), that would be a bit of a problem. I believe in giving clients unlimited access to you, provided your fees are high enough to justify this level of access, but I don't believe in being on call. When I happen to be awake I answer that 11PM call (advantages of the blended lifestyle), but also tell clients not to expect me to sit by the phone at 11PM. There must be some ground rules here, so create some for yourself.

9. They keep reminding you how generously they "overpay" you: They keep repeating that your competitors could probably offer more value for lower fees. They keep telling you they are with you just as a favour and expect you to lower your fees if you want to keep them for future engagements.

Yesterday I was watching House on TV, and in this episode (5 to 9) the viewers have a chance to see the operation of the hospital from Dr. Cuddy's perspective. Dr. Lisa Cuddy is the Dean of Medicine at the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital.

On this day the shit really hits the fan for Cuddy. An eager insurance salesman tries to undercut the previous insurance coverage applied to the hospital. Cuddy puts her career on the line by pushing back and telling the salesman to keep the normal coverage rate. The salesman plays tough but when Cuddy threatens him to dump his insurance company altogether, the guy gives in and keeps the existing coverage rate.

Then she has to deal with a long-time pilfering employee who threatens to sue her and the hospital.

And of course, she has to deal with the ultimate problem, Dr. House himself.

And just as in Dr. Cuddy's hospital, in consulting work too, the most problematic people are the most demanding.

The lowest paying client demands the highest value and the most of your time and attention.

As the saying goes, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. I suggest that we give the settling torch to the squeaky wheel, chop it up into little pieces and put it out of its misery once and for all.

With problematic clients you may choose not to use the settling torch, although it may have crossed your mind a few times, but you can fire their demanding arses.

And here is a clarification that can be important. I believe in challenging work but don't believe in high-pressure work. Challenge comes from the work itself but pressure comes from other people.

10. They expect you to offer favourable payment terms or chase them for payments: Well, you are not supposed to pay the role of the bank. If they need a loan to pay for what you can bring to their tables, then they should take a loan through the proper channels, that is, banks.

Again, in yesterday's episode of House, there was a guy with dodgy insurance cover. He cut off one of his fingers, and the doctors re-attached it. Now it was payment time, and, to avoid payment, he decides to sue the hospital for misconduct.

His lawyer threatens Cuddy with a lawsuit, saying the guy has nothing and can't pay for his part of the surgery. Then Cuddy makes a comment to the lawyer, that the hospital is not a charity institute and of she has to take the guy's house for payment, she will.

Yes, from time to time we all do pro bono work. Right now I'm working with a company, a former client that has hit some bumps on the road. And I volunteered to help him for free. First he was against it, and then he reluctantly agreed.

That is, he didn't ask for free help. I suggested it, saying that when I was down on my luck, I appreciated the help I received, and those helpers asked me to help other sincere people who've hit some hard times. And they don't mean street beggars and the homeless.

And with sincere people, you have to convince them pretty hard to accept your free help. But they never expect it.

11. They keep threatening you with lawsuits unless you dance to the beat of their drum: Quite often (hey, almost always) we work with companies significantly larger than our own firms. And sometimes these companies sharpen their legal claws to make us do things that are not part of the agreement.

No doubt, they can be intimidating. What I have found is that saying that "I plan to publicise my experiences with you" can usually take care of the situation. You basically don't say anything nasty but present the facts. As I have found out from a friend in Germany, if you mention you plan to keep the press posted on the issue, the client goes quiet.

Sometimes I feel like using some skills I learnt in the military, but then I realise that it wouldn't go down well, so I find other options.

12. They frequently miss, cancel or reschedule your meetings: Again, we are talking about diminishing commitment.

Yes, unexpected events do happen but when they happen too often, there is a problem. I also believe that people who are bravely brandishing their mobile phones, Blackberries and other electronic devices, actually expect problems.

The other day I had tea with James Scott, a consultant from a local consulting firm, FirstBase. We spent just over five hours chatting, and never once his phone rang. I was totally impressed. This guy was fully present in our dialogue. It was truly enlightening to meet such a professional.

Based on my experience, I've concluded over the years that major league professionals allow themselves to be present with you and have the inner security and self-esteem to lock out potential interruptions. Only, low level, minor league professionals with self-esteem issues answer their phones or send text messages while engaged in face-to-face conversations.

I've also concluded that people that carry their mobile phones in their hands, so they can instantly answer them, should be avoided because they are too low both on the social and commercial totem pole for any useful purpose.

Most of them are typical big hat no cattle (all right, maybe a few heads of skinny cattle) people. They can talk big but their actions are less than desirable.

13. They expect you to pick up their slack: Some clients take vacations in the middle of projects, resulting in a similar email or phone message...

"I am on vacation in the next two weeks, and this is what I want you to do by the time I return."

The funny thing is that when you indicate that you go on vacation for two weeks, these same people get outraged and demand their money back.

I believe consulting is not about doing things FOR people but working WITH them to empower and enable to do it FOR themselves. All in all, they do the work under your care, protection and guidance.

A nutritionist can give you advice on weight loss, can help you to create a weight loss plan and can coach you to execute the plan, but clients can't expect their nutritionists to go on diet and then pass on weight loss to their clients. Clients must implement their plans under the care, protection and guidance of their consultants.

That way the improvement and the capability for even further improvement stay in-house and doesn't walk away with the consultant's disengagement.

So, in March, tune in to the next toe-curlingly exciting episode of Commando Consulting, and we continue our journey to the land of the problematic client.

And let's remember that consulting is neither slavery nor martyrdom.

It's 25 January 1995, and Manchester United pays against Crystal Palace. The United's captain is the French soccer genius, Eric Cantona. At one point Cantona is sent off the field for kicking Palace defender, Richard Shaw, for having pulled his shirt.

As Cantona is escorted out, he breaks away and kicks and punches a Palace fan, Matthew Simmons for abusive language and threatening behaviour.

Simmons, who turns out to be a known criminal with repeat offences, receives a seven-day prison sentence, but is released after 24 hours.

The aftermath was interesting. I was listening to LBC radio's phone-in programme with straight-talking host Mike Dickin, in my view one of the best talk show hosts planet Earth has ever experienced.

One caller was very upset with Cantona, and said that since Cantona was so well paid as a professional soccer player, he must tolerate any abuse that is thrown at him, and had no right to retaliate.

Personally, I think Cantona did the right thing.

Later at a press conference Cantona, referring to the media, said in a deliberate tone of voice...

"When the seagulls follow the trawler, it's because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea. Thank you very much."

Similarly, some clients are scanning the horizon to find consultants who can be kicked and punched to do the work clients' own people should do.

And while clients and consultants mutually decide whether or not they want to work together, once clients hire consultants, they'd better stop criticising how the consulting firm is run.

Come and let's discuss this newsletter issue on my blog...

"Dynamic Duo" Mentor Programme... ...has 0 opening for January and 4 for February 2012. Click here to continue to read the fiendish details.

Recommended Reading

The Power of Minds at Work: Organizational Intelligence in Action

By Karl Albrecht

Basic premise...

"Intelligent people, when assembled into an organization, will tend toward collective stupidity."

Chimpanzees have the largest brains among animals. But their group IQ is basically idiotic. By contrast, baboons have pretty low individual IQ but very high group IQ.

Humans seem to be the same. Put together some super-smart people in a group and their group IQ will be pretty mediocre.

Yet, when some mediocre people get together, they can create some amazing things. Don't tell me Ringo Starr was the best drummer or Paul McCartney was the best bass player, but together the Beatles created history.

It seems as companies grow in size, they lose their initial smartness, and bit by bit become dumber and dumber. The other indicator to this effect is that there are quite a number of solo consultants who make $1 million plus in annual revenue but larger consulting firms hardly ever make more than 1/3 of that in personal productivity, that is, revenue per employee.

In this book, Dr. Albrecht discusses 17 causes of organisational dysfunction, ranging from anarchy through geriatric leadership to testosterone poisoning.

It turns out that the more employees companies have, the more collusion is going on among them. People play their companies' political games for personal favours and advancement.

Think about sales in a typical company. Sales is a function that is compensated on an individual basis.

I've recently read a story about a superstar salesperson, so I try to relay the essence of the message to you...

Fred has been in the top 10% for the past 5 quarters at a large financial services company. He is a career salesman, always willing to put in the extra effort to deliver the most value to his clients, even when that means staying late at the office or working at home on the weekends.

Fred is the ideal peddler who bends over backwards if needed in order to keep clients, and is unable to fire problematic clients.

Fred is very competitive, and, while he believes in teamwork, he's reluctant to help other salespeople to succeed. "The less they produce, the more my performance stands out" - he thinks.

But this behaviour is just a tiny step away from proactively sabotaging other salespeople's performance, so Fred looks better and better relative to the others.

Fred wants to ensure he always remains the superstar of the sales team and the company, even at the expense of the company's overall success.

And this situation is more often the rule than the exception.

For me, the main message of the book has comes in two parts.

The first part is rather comforting, saying that we are smarter than we think we really are. That makes us feel good.

The second part can be a bit disturbing: People under our management/leadership may well be a lot smarter than we are. This is a problem for most micromanagers, but in my experience the desire to micromanage others is a clear expression of the micromanager's incompetence...

"I can't do the work (incompetence), but I still can closely scrutinize and criticize those who can."

But I may be wrong.

Anyway, if you run a truly knowledge-based business and want to create better harmony among your people, this book can be your roadmap to achieving it.

Place your order with Amazon.com for The Power of Minds at Work Organizational Intelligence in Action. You'll be glad you did.