"Yo, can I be straight-up with you?" That's what we used to say to each other when I was growing up in my neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY. May I be upfront, honest and open with how I speak to you? May I call it as I see it?

This "straight-up" approach is how I interact with my clients. We make ourselves important to an organization by getting results. As consultants/trainers and speakers, we are hired to make our clients look good. There is no hidden agenda. Our clients' success is our success. We are measured by our results. Did we provide quality service and value? Did the client get what was promised, and more?

In order to achieve our mutual goals, it's imperative to develop a "straight-up" relationship with our clients. Everything starts with trust. Like a child learning to walk, we, the consultant/trainers, must take baby steps; and, along the way we take another step and then another. We become, in time, their trusted advisors and confidantes.

This all sounds like "vanilla ice cream." How do we do this? Slowly and with much patience and perseverance. People often buy on emotion then justify that decision by logic. It's no different in consulting/training. Just as we have to connect with our audience when speaking, we have to have an emotional rapport with our clients.

In India, there is a greeting, "Namaste." Loosely translated, it means "when I'm in that place in me and you're in that place in you, we are one." In other words, do our clients understand that we're committed to their success in an ongoing relationship? By developing this harmony and rapport, we will be able to really assist clients to solve problems, add value and get the results for which they hire us. All this works very well, if and only if, we deliver the goods.

Before we can develop harmony, we have to do our homework. Homework comes after harmony only in the dictionary. The more we know about our prospects...their likes, dislikes, goals, family, hobbies, company, reporting line, products, competition, immediate plans, long-term career goals...the more help we may be to them.

So do your homework. Do your research. Request company literature. Ask the clients and their co-workers lots of questions. Be a detective. With the same fervor you use to prepare and deliver your materials, do the same to discover everything you can about the company and the client. As an outsider, you can see their organization with "fresh eyes." So, make sure to keep your eyes open.

We always ask clients: What do you want to accomplish? How are you going to do it? Do you have a follow-up plan for long-lasting results? In other words, Commitment (What?), Clarity (How?), Consistency (Keep on, keepin'on). As a consultant and trainer in presentation skills for over 18 years, with the last three years doing 20% keynotes, our approach has been to get to the core of what the clients really need, tailor our materials, then provide them with an action plan for ongoing return on investment (ROI).

Most times the clients don't have a clue as to what they want. They say they want training, then ask how much we charge? Sometimes we have to "teach a class." We do the best job we can; we give value to the client. We, as consultants and trainers, are in the education business. The word "education" comes from the Latin, educare:, to bring forth. Our job is to assist clients to develop, to bring forth, their people. Not just to teach information, but to get their staff to think differently, creatively, to develop their confidence and self-esteem.

"Yo, can I be straight-up with you?" Training without preparation doesn't work. Training without intervention is a bandaid. Training without follow-up is throwing money away. Our job is to get clients to see the bigger picture. We have to change their mindset, their functional fixedness. In reality, we have to get them out of the box of thinking that doing a single training session is the answer. How?

To be successful, in the long run, whatever "teaching" we do must be positioned as a customized, integrated, comprehensive, on-going process. Everything that we do for the client is related and inter-related to everything else. We must create an action plan that combines consulting, training and educational products specially customized for our clients. "The magic,"as Nido Qubein says, "is in the mix."

It's a given that we must provide quality in what we do; that the work we do gets the results and value that we've agreed upon. The client's professional reputation, as well as our own, is on the line. However, for us to be successful in establishing on-going relationships, it is imperative that there be rapport and trust between us and our clients. We're helping clients handle whatever situations they face, both personally and professionally. We're guiding them, one step at a time, to see the bigger picture by being their trusted ally and giving them reflective feedback. "Yo, can I be straight-up with you?"

200 West 90th St., NY, NY 10024
Phone: 212/580-7406
Fax: 212/580-0957
R@SpeakingForResults.com