A Live Experiment

Yesterday, I introduced the book, Book Yourself Solid (head over there to catch-up quickly if you haven’t already done so). I promised that I would go through the exercises live here on the blog for my own consulting practice. For one thing, I need to do it and I hope that you gain something from the examples and that it inspires you to move ahead as well - so here’s goes.

That being said, there are some aspects of my business that are not going to apply to Michael’s method. For example, the first exercises has stuff about analyzing your current customer-base. I’ve been consulting for years, but since Stage3 is a new venture for me personally, I’m still in the phase of gathering my initial clients. His method is also specifically geared towards consulting and coaching practices, but I will attempt to translate what he’s saying into more generic business concepts where I can.

There Are Shortcuts to Business Success

Everybody should know Pareto’s Principle…80% of outputs come from 20% of the inputs. In business, this is often attributed to something like - 80% of your revenue comes from 20% of your clients. While that is an accurate use of the principle, one of the interesting things about Pareto analysis is that you will find applications for it nearly everywhere.

A big part of Michael’s book is making sure that as a consultant or business coach that you have a lot of energy and passion for what you do. To translate that into other businesses, you have a set of core competencies and a corporate culture. Whether you’re a solitary consultant or a 50 person business, the truth of the matter is that your competencies and almost more importantly your culture and personality are going to mesh with some customers and clash with others.

The principle being taught is that 80% of your anguish and loathing for your job, 80% of the “work” or at least what feels like work can be attributed to 20% of your customers. Those 20% of your customers are a bad cultural/personality fit for you and your business. If that’s true (and I believe that it more or less is), then you’re short-changing the bulk of your customers of your energy and passion.

Shedding Bad Karma

So, what are you supposed do with these bad customers?

Fire them. That’s right. You fire your “bad” customers. I use the term “bad”, but they’re not really bad…just a bad fit for you and your company. Well, that’s according to Michael anyway. I say if you’re in a relatively short-term engagement with “bad” customers then suck it up, finish it out and try not to engage with that type of customer next time. Otherwise I think his premise is a sound one.

How do you know what a bad customer looks like?

That’s the point of the exercises which I’ll post next time. We need to find out what my ideal customer looks like so I know them when I find them (or according to Michael, they find me because I’m in my element this way and will naturally attract the right kind of people for me to work with or as he puts it, that I was “meant” to work with).

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