In our quest to become better professionals we encounter four types of clients. One is ideal, another is a good client, a third is probably a good client for somebody else, just not for you, and the fourth is just all around bad news. Let’s examine these folks in the light of the Alignment Doctrine….
I have a certain amount of respect for truly skillful professional thieves. The Great Train Robbers, for example, pulled off a heist that required imagination, finicky planning, luck, and nerves of steel. They also didn’t make up a story that they were entitled to the money. But for the band of low-grade pickpockets called the…
Interior designers say the funniest thing: “Let the room speak to you.” Now, of course, they don’t mean that you should sit in a room and listen for voices. Well, not in that sense, anyway. They mean that you need to put aside your preconceptions and prejudices, and wait quietly until everything that the room…
Some years ago Karen and I were visiting her sister and brother-in-law in New Brunswick. The ladies wanted to do some shopping in Fredericton, which is surely one of the planet’s most pleasant very small cities. It was a gentle early summer day, the streets all leafy and sun-dappled, with most store and coffee shop…
Spoiled brats get older, but they never grow up. And when they get older, and mommy and daddy aren’t there to coddle them, they’ll turn to you. They will need professional services, and they will show up at your office. And they will arrive at your office already knowing the following: 1. This is a…
For whatever reason, I was recently thinking about five dear friends of mine and about what they had in common (other than being my friend). All of them are at the top of their game, all of them are self-employed, all of them are high earners, all of them enjoy highly satisfying family lives, all…
I once knew a man who decided he wanted to enter a certain profession, and after he had gained entrance, decided he would get every designation possible in as short a time as possible. By dint of hard work and aggressive planning, he soon had the entire alphabet after his name. Quite impressive, if you’re…
You get back from lunch to find a genial middle-aged gentleman in your waiting room, apologizing for just dropping in, but wondering if he might have a few minutes of your time to see if you could help him. You oblige, usher him into your office, where he lays out his plans for a ten-unit…
When’s the best time to bill a client? Well, obviously, that’s very situational, but it should never be haphazard or ill-timed. There are right times, and wrong times. In my opinion, one of the biggest PR disasters for professional firms is the monthly billing blitz, when clients are billed solely to enable the partners and…
It was my good fortune for several years to attend a little rural high school in New Brunswick. Happy times with good friends, exceptional teachers, and a principal of enormous foresight. Grade Eleven was an important enough year, focused on preparation for the Provincial Examinations. For those of us academically inclined, the “Provincials” carried enormous…