The Desert of Arizona
Sunny 41 Degrees
You probably wouldn’t last long as a waiter in the restaurant business if, every time someone ordered a bacon cheeseburger, you politely asked them to reconsider.
I can just imagine how crazy that would sound…
“I’d like the bacon cheeseburger please, medium rare,” says the customer.
“Sir, may I first ask you the reason you most want that bacon cheeseburger? Are you sure that’s the best choice for you?” Like I said, talking like that would probably get you fired pretty quickly.
When you’re in an order taking business, doing anything but taking orders just doesn’t fly.
But as professionals in the service industry, we’re not order takers. Especially if we care about the future success of our clients.
What professionals do doesn’t fit with the order takers of the world. The bacon cheeseburger example shows you that.
The flip side isn’t quite as true though. You can be a professional and spend your life taking orders quite easily. Your clients won’t look at your funny, and they probably won’t complain.
But you’ll be shortchanging them and you’ll be shortchanging yourself as well.
Always question what your client is asking you to do.
The point isn’t to be difficult, the point is to use your expertise to see solutions your client might not see. That is extremely valuable.
As it turns out, this behavior also tends to have a major positive effect on your fee levels.
But you’ll never find out if you keep acting like a waiter or a waitress.
Making this transition is a process not an event. That’s why something like The Rainmaker Letter exists. Each month, you get a demonstration of what this looks like in the real world, from people who are actually doing it.
Life is too short to take orders. Leave that to the folks who are actually in the order taking business.