I usually write strictly about professional relationships, but today, I want to share seven Valentine’s Day lies—and the relationship rules to replace them. Our culture promotes many misleading ideas about what makes for successful personal or ...
I usually write strictly about professional relationships, but today, I want to share seven Valentine’s Day lies—and the relationship rules to replace them.
Our culture promotes many misleading ideas about what makes for successful personal or romantic relationships. Popular concepts like the need to “just be yourself” or “move on if your needs aren’t being met” can actually be destructive.
Some of these seven rules apply to new relationships, while others are especially relevant if you have a long-term partner.
Lie #1: “Cleverness and charm are essential to attract others.”
Valentine’s Day Rule: Great relationships start with great conversations, not one person showing the other how much they know.
This may come as a surprise to many, but your date—or whoever you’re with over dinner—actually wants to have a conversation, not listen to you talk about yourself for two hours. A great conversation helps you learn more about the other person. It establishes commonalities, which drive rapport. It improves your understanding of the things in life or at work that are important to both of you.
Do you try to impress others with your facile wit, amazing job, and easy answers–or do you draw them into a vibrant conversation that leaves them wanting more, not less of you? (Of course, this rule applies to professional relationships–including with clients–as well!).
Lie #2: “Focus on your own needs, and make them clearly known to your partner. Ensure you’re with someone who will meet them.”
Valentine’s Day Rule: Know the other person’s goals and dreams and help them accomplish those aspirations.
Contemporary therapists emphasize making your needs known to your partner. That’s fine up to a point—you certainly don’t want to be a doormat. But relationship building really starts when each individual tries to understand the other person’s needs, priorities, and dreams.
Do you really know what’s on your partner’s agenda for this year? Have you spent a leisurely evening asking them about their dreams, hopes, and fears? Have you thought about how you can help them accomplish their most important priorities?
Lie #3: “You must believe in and affirm yourself.”
Valentine’s Day Rule: The greatest gift is to believe in the other person
Ever since the 1960s, it’s been a truism that you cannot love others if you don’t love yourself. That that’s probably true in the sense of having confidence in yourself, but our culture has pushed this idea into the realm of self-absorption. The fact remains that one of most powerful gifts you can give your partner is your unequivocal belief in them.
Ask any successful entrepreneur who’s had to claw their way to success against great odds—they will often point to a spouse or parent or mentor who deeply and consistently believed in them. Is it any accident that a handful of US Presidents were effectively raised by mothers who always rooted for them?
When the young Beatles faced stiff odds at getting a recording contract—they were turned down by almost every record company in the UK—they had one person who resolutely and totally believed in them: their manager, Brian Epstein, who told anyone who would listen that they would be ‘bigger than Elvis.” It’s a powerful gift to believe in your partner—or a good friend—and express that belief consistently and repeatedly.
Do those closest to you feel that you unequivocally belief in them?
Lie #4 “There’s something magical about first impressions–you can tell very quickly if the chemistry is there and whether or not the other person is for you.”
Valentine’s Day Rule: Don’t be put off by an awkward start—some of the best relationships may not appear promising on day one.
The things that attract us to someone initially are often quite superficial and rooted in outdated evolutionary needs. These factors, like physical attraction or the other person’s income level or job title, do not necessarily—by themselves—bode well for long-term compatibility and loyalty. Furthermore, if we don’t feel we “click” with someone immediately, we move on. Understanding whether real compatibility exists requires a deeper knowledge than just one dinner or cup of coffee.
The truth is many great relationships have an awkward start. I wouldn’t say the sparks flew when my wife and I met for the first time at graduate school–but they did once we became friends and learned more about each other! As you dig deeper and discover things you have in common—a similar upbringing, common likes and dislikes, shared values and beliefs, and so on—you can find that your mutual affection grows. Your compatibility can also grow when you discover that some of the differences which bothered you initially actually make you very complementary.
Have you met someone recently whom you may have misjudged?
Lie #5: “Don’t try and change your partner.”
Valentine’s Day Rule: To grow and reach their fullest potential, people need both truth and love.
Complete acceptance of another person’s behavior is not love.It’s abdication of your responsibility as a loving partner. Interestingly, a new study shows that constantly praising children can actually make them anxious and afraid, not confident! In fact, any parent can tell you that if children have no limits, no constraints, and are constantly told how special they are, they can become spoiled and self-absorbed.
Fact is, two people in a long-term relationship know each other better than anyone else in the world. They are in a unique position to provide the insights and honesty that can help each other become their best selves. Who is actually going to tell you when you’ve stepped over a line or acted selfishly? Your colleagues at work and your friends won’t do it. We grow and mature because we get feedback from the world around us. And when you’re older, one of the few people who will give you that unvarnished perspective is your spouse or partner.
But…be very careful how you do this. In isolation, constantly making “suggestions” or criticizing the other person doesn’t cut it. You have to first be seen as the person who utterly believes in them and loves them unconditionally.
Do you sometimes veer too far towards either abject acceptance of or frequent criticism towards those close to you?
Lie #6: “If you’re together with the same person for many years, the big problem you have to overcome is the lack of excitement and variety.”
Valentine’s Day Rule: A long-term relationship–be it with a spouse, partner, or friend–can continue to grow and engender passion even after decades have passed.
A recent article in a national newspaper bemoaned the difficulty of maintaining a long-term marriage, mentioning the possibility of “deadening routines, cyclical arguments and repetitive conversations” and the difficulty of maintaining “excitement and passion.” OK, these are real risks. They are problems, however, in great measure because our culture tells us lies about what makes us happy and what we should expect from romance.
It’s the setup that’s the problem—the unrealistic assumption that the ‘excitement’ in year twenty relationship must match the heat of the infatuation you experienced in your early courtship. Set that aside and you can enjoy a vibrant, interesting, and deeply loving relationship after many years together.
Here are just a few simple but powerful questions you can ask your partner. They will help you re-engage more deeply:
“What are you doing now that you are you most excited about?”
“What are your dreams?” (Be sure to shut up after asking this question!)
“So what do you think about….? (it could be almost anything)
“What can I do to help you this week?”
“What’s something you’ve always wanted to do, but you just somehow never got around to doing?” (a vacation, a hobby, a skill, etc.)
Lie #7: “Self-care is essential–you need to put your own oxygen mask on first in order to be able to help others.”
Valentine’s Day Rule: Just focus on helping and supporting each other, period–then you don’t have to remember silly clichés about oxygen masks on airplanes.
You should absolutely take care of yourself, but don’t buy into the self-care worship that is promoted by the wellness industry and some therapists. The point is not that self-care is bad, but rather that an excessive focus on it can turn into self-absorption. Healthy self-esteem that allows you to treat yourself well is different than the attitude that “once I’ve taken care of me, then I’ll think about you.”
These rules aren’t just for Valentine’s day, of course.
A client of mine dodged death twice. The first instance involved serendipitously avoiding what turned out to be an infamous plane crash caused by a terrorist bomb. The second time had to do with a seemingly innocuous spot on his arm. It looked like a odd-shaped mole, and he ignored it. As the CEO of a successful, global company, he was incredibly busy and hadn’t seen his doctor in several years. He felt fine and was in peak health by almost any standard measure.
His doctor looked at the mole-like spot on his arm and told him to see a dermatologist immediately. It turned out to be a large melanoma that was on the verge of metastasizing—it was going to kill him if it hadn’t been removed immediately.
Here’s the point: Your client relationship can seem healthy. Even radiant. But there may be something small bothering your client. It may be a benign issue—for now. But over time that concern may grow and fester, and it may even get conflated with other concerns. In other words, without regular communication and a regular, thorough relationship review process, you risk losing a client because you were unaware of their true feelings or worse, you were aware of them but didn’t take them seriously.
A small, unspoken dissatisfaction may grow into something more deadly. By the time you react to it, the relationship may be too ill to recover.
Here are 10 questions you should ask each of your clients, every year. You don’t have to necessarily ask them all at once–in fact, 10 may too many for one sitting. And, your firm may have its own year-end institutional review process. So think of them as a way to create a healthy conversation, or series of conversations, any time of year:
Questions about the quality of your relationship
1. Could you share with me your overall assessment of our relationship and the work we’ve done for you?
This is a general question that can help kick off the conversation in a non-threatening way.
2. What have we done this past year that you have found particularly valuable or useful?
We think we know what has “added value” to our clients. But often, they have experienced value from things we’ve done that seemed minor or insignificant. You need to find out, so ask!
3. If you could change or improve one thing about our relationship, what would it be?
If a client is not very forthcoming about the first two questions, this might spur a response.
4. Are there any individuals in your organization with whom we should invest more time and build a better relationship with?
This question is especially important if you work with large clients where you need to be developing relationships with multiple stakeholders
5. Can you give me any suggestions for improving the amount, timing, or format of our communications to you and your organization?
Ideally, you should co-create–that is, collaboratively define–the type of relationship management that suits the client.
Questions about your client’s plans and priorities
At this point, you may want to shift the conversation using several “agenda setting” questions to better understand your clients upcoming issues and challenges. After all, while asking about the state of your relationship is important, it’s`backward-looking. But asking about your client’s plans and priorities is future oriented, and most client executives are more excited about the future than gazing in the rear-view mirror.
6. What are your plans for…? How are planning to deal with…? (Tailor these to your client’s business and markets, and the challenges they face)
Remember, you don’t just want to ask open-ended questions about your client’s “issues”–you want to consistently demonstrate that you understand your client’s business environment and the key trends that are affecting them.
Another way of formulating these is to use the format of a “credibility-building question.” You state an observation and then flip it into a question. For example, I might say, “With other clients I’ve observed, there are typically three barriers to the internal collaboration required to serve clients…” I’ll list the barriers, and then ask, “I’m curious, in your organization, what do those barriers look like?”
7. As you look ahead to the next six to 12 months, what issue or potential challenges are coming up that we might helpfully think about for you?
This question may uncover more about your client’s agenda.
8. What are your most important priorities for next year?
This is a perfectly acceptable question, but it’s a bit general and clients get asked it all the time. A more personal version is,
“How will you be evaluated by your leadership at the end of the coming year? What are the key goals you’ve been asked to accomplish?”
9. As you think about the future of your business, and your various initiatives, what are you personally most excited about? On the other hand, what are you most concerned about?
I like this because it’s a “right-brain” power question. It touches on the right side—the personal and emotional side—of the Power Questions Matrix. It will help you understand what your client is truly excited and passionate about, and it can lead to a very interesting, engaging conversation.
10. Is there anything we could improve upon or change that would make doing business with us easier?
“Ease of doing business” is an underrated quality, and you might close your conversation with this one. I’ve even said to a busy top executive, “Is there anything else I can do to make life easier for you?”
Additional questions
There are a few other questions you might also ask, depending on the circumstances. For example, if this is a firm relationship and you have a designated relationship manager and team, you need to find out how the client feels about them.
Could you give me your assessment of our team? What have they done particularly well? Are there any areas for improvement or weakness I should be aware of? Are there any skills we should be adding to or strengthening in the team?
Could you give me your assessment of our relationship manager/account executive? What are their strengths and weaknesses?
What if the problem with the relationship is the relationship partner or account manager? This doesn’t happen every day, but I have witnessed this a number of times. An incompatible or poorly performing team member is certainly not good, but the wrong relationship manager can sink the whole relationship.
This question is also important in a B-to-B relationship:
If you need something from our organization, do you always know who to go to?
Do clients know how to navigate your organization? Do they know exactly whom to turn to? This question will help ferret that out, and what you learn may be critical information.
Some questions not to ask
Don’t ask “What’s keeping you up at night?” It’s a lazy cliché that salespeople have been using with clients for years. Plus, it’s a “problem” not an opportunity question. Other worn chestnuts include “What will success look like?” and “What question haven’t I asked that I should have?” Don’t ask leading questions, either—e.g., “Don’t you think you need more innovation in your organization?”.
Conclusion
There are some structured methodologies out there to help gage client satisfaction and enthusiasm—for example, NPS or “Net Promoter Score.” These can be very helpful. But nothing substitutes for a personal conversation with your client about your relationship, their priorities, and how you can have an even greater impact on their organization in the coming year.
One of my clients proudly served a leading Fortune-500 company. It was part of their key account program and often mentioned as a success story. Viewed from afar, it was a showcase relationship that generated significant annual revenues. However, when I reviewed the account with them, I realized that all was not well in Eden. I discovered several serious red flags—for example:
The company used their buying power and a merciless procurement process to constantly contain and drive down prices for my client’s services. As a result the relationship yielded wholly unsatisfactory profit margins.
Because there was no senior executive sponsor for my client, they worked on many small, transactional engagements that were often non-strategic. They were a vendor, not a trusted partner.
The company had a workaholic, command-and-control culture, and they were very tough on my client’s people. In fact, my client had trouble staffing the account, and had to periodically intervene with the client to set more humane boundaries.
There were some other dismaying aspects to the account which, taken together with the points mentioned above, painted a rather different picture then the internal PR. Given my client’s desire to develop fewer but more strategic client relationships, this so-called flagship client either needed to be renegotiated and turned around or de-prioritized in favor of more attractive opportunities.
In other cases, I have had clients who served a long tail of small clients that produced some net contribution to their overheads but consumed huge amounts of management time. The opportunity cost was not recorded in their accounts, but it was massive. People couldn’t get re-focused on their highest-value opportunities because they clung to the relatively paltry but “safe” revenues from these small relationships.
So how do you determine where to invest? On a practical level, if you are a client-facing practitioner, how do you choose where to spend your time to create the greatest value—both for clients and for you and your firm.
I have several lenses I like to use in assessing the attractiveness of different client opportunities. The first is a relationship health scorecard for evaluating existing client relationships. The second is a general set of criteria that will help you determine whether to accept new business to begin with. Use these lists in conjunction with each other as you decide where to invest and how to optimize your client portfolio.
Measures of current relationship health
Here are seven factors you should assess. Your answers will guide how and when you decide to invest or even disinvest in the relationship going forward:
1. Mutual Trust. Does each party believe the other is looking out for their interests and prepared to always come through for them and deliver on their promises?
2. Respect. Does the client treat you with esteem and regard? Do they make you feel like a valuable part of their team? Do they treat your people well?
3. Transparency. Does the client willingly and openly share their plans and priorities with you? Or are they a closed book?
4. Access. Do the right executives open their schedules to you and make time to meet and talk about their challenges and hear about your ideas for their business?
5. Loyalty. How loyal is your client? Will they always use you in your area expertise—or do they bid out every contract in an RFP? (I realize some organizations, e.g., government agencies, must do this by law…but loyal relationships are still important with these types of clients. They give you insights that can help you win the competitive bids).
6. Mutual value. Does the client perceive strong value from the relationship? Similarly, does it provide an acceptable ROI for you?
7. Overall role and positioning. Where would you place this relationship in the Client Growth Matrix, below?
Where would you position your client relationships in the matrix?
If you can answer “yes” to factors 1 through 6, you would hopefully see steady, positive outcomes in the relationship—e.g., a depth and breadth of relationships, steady or growing revenue and profit based on partnering with the client to address high-priority issues, unsolicited referrals and a willingness to provide strong testimonials about your work, and so on.
Criteria for accepting new work
Here are six factors you should consider:
1.Is this the right client—does it fit with your strategy? Is it in the right industry? The right size? Are they buyers of what you sell? Is it in the right geography? Does the client meet your firm’s criteria for client selection?
2.Is it the right issue? Is the problem or opportunity in your sweet spot? Has the client adequately defined the engagement in a way that will allow you to succeed?
3.Can you have a real impact? Is the client large enough? Does it have strong leadership? Are their leaders determined to effect real change?
4. Are you working with the right executive sponsor? Is it the right executive for this particular project/engagement?—someone who is respected and wants to drive change through to completion? Will they commit not just to buy the work but ensure it succeeds?
5. Is there relational fit? Is this a client who values long-term relationships with external providers? Is there the potential for a trusted partner relationship with this client—if you earn the right—or will they treat you like a commodity vendor? Will you be seen as an expense to be cut at any time, or a valued investment?
6. Are there other compelling reasons to work (or not) with this client? For example:
Is it a respected, marquee client who will enhance your own reputation?
Will the work strengthen your intellectual capital and capabilities?
Are there important, relational advantages to working with the client (e.g. you will get access to new, powerful networks and relationships)?
Would working with a particular client preclude you from serving a different, more attractive organization? (This is something law firms and accounting firms, for example, must carefully consider.)
You and your firm have limited resources. Limited time. Limited cash to invest in marketing, sales, and relationship development. Limited leadership bandwidth and attention. You must make choices, or you will be consigned to mediocrity.
Remember, when it comes to cultivating client relationships, intentional focus and investment in the right clients and opportunities nearly always yield growth.
Competition, commoditization, client sophistication, and transparent markets mean that few services can be truly differentiated in their own right. Strong, enduring client relationships, therefore, are the lifeblood of most organizations. Long term relationships serve another key function in today’s tumultuous markets: they reduce risk for both clients and service providers.
It’s not easy, however, to develop and sustain trusted client relationships. I consistently hear two major concerns from the leaders of service firms in a variety of sectors, from consulting to accounting to banking. First, “How can we improve the relationship-building skills of our front-line relationship managers (i.e, account executives, partners, managing directors, and so on) so that they are able to build deeper, more resilient relationships at senior levels; and second “How can we more effectively mobilize our complete capabilities, across the organization, to create enduring, institutionalized client relationships? Intensifying these challenges are ever-increasing client demands for more value in their relationships with external service providers.
The relationships that most professional firms aspire to build lie in what I call the Northeast Quadrant of the Client Growth Matrix, below.
In this space, two things have happened: first, the individual professional managing the relationship has evolved his or her role from an expert-for-hire to a trusted client advisor; and second, the firm has developed its overall relationship from a narrow one based on few services and one individual contact to a broad one founded on multiple relationships and services. These Northeast Quadrant relationships— we can also call them trusted client partnerships—are the bedrock of most organizations.
These two key dimensions are portrayed on the Client Growth Matrix. The X axis shows the journey of the individual professional, while the Y axis illustrates the firm or company journey in supporting the development of trusted partnerships.
A given client relationship can be approximately positioned in the matrix by asking a few simple questions. The matrix distinguishes four different positions, each with its own characteristics:
FIRST: Expert for Hire: This is where most relationships begin. At this point, the trust and mutual understanding that might deepen and broaden the relationship simply have not developed yet. This is not a “bad” position to be in, but probably not one where you want to remain for long.
SECOND: Trusted Advisor: In this quadrant, you’ve demonstrated a series of qualities— trustworthiness, independence, judgment, big-picture thinking, empathy, and others—that earn you a position as a trusted advisor within your client’s inner circle. You are, metaphorically, an architect who helps the client develop a vision or strategy but who is not involved in implementation—in building the house itself. This is a great role to play, but without moving up the other axis and broadening the relationship at a firm level, your ability to grow this client will be severely limited.
THIRD: Vendor: You’ve successfully broadened the relationship and developed a significant revenue stream with this client. You may in fact be managing a very large, multifaceted program. Don’t kid yourself, however—you’re still in “RFP territory,” just as you were when you were a solitary expert for hire.
FOURTH: Trusted Partner: This is the ultimate goal: to be a trusted advisor to your client and to harness the full power of your organization to deliver outstanding results. In this top-right quadrant you have built a true client partnership. You are leading your client’s agenda, have built many-to-many relationships, and are meeting an array of client needs. It’s not an easy task to play this role with a client, but if you succeed, you and your firm will probably have a client for life—and a highly profitable one at that. You’ll also experience great personal satisfaction in the role of a trusted counselor who is having a significant impact on his or her client’s success.
What enables the development of “Northeast Quadrant” client partnerships?
Over the last 25 years, I have conducted extensive research into the ingredients of successful, enduring client relationships. I have also worked closely with many leading professional service firms, technology companies, and financial services institutions on this topic. It’s clear to me that there are approximately 10 major building blocks—essential strategies or practices—that are necessary to evolve from an expert-for-hire to a trusted advisor to, finally, a trusted client partner. These building blocks, properly executed, enable you to move firmly into the Northeast Quadrant of the Client Growth Matrix.
Some of these building blocks are principally driven by the client relationship manager or account executive. For example:
Developing relationship capital. Each client-facing professional has the responsibility of building a strong network of what I call “relationship hubs”—those critical, few individuals who can really make a difference. A firm’s total relationship capital is, naturally, the sum of all of these.
Becoming an agenda setter. Experts for hire are reactive—they respond to client requests for work. Trusted partners are agenda setters—they understand, align with, support, and help improve the client’s agenda of critical priorities and goals.
Institutionalizing the relationship. A variety of strategies must be brought to bear to accomplish this, including creating many-to-many relationships, building a team with the right mix of “deep generalists” and subject-matter experts, and engaging in systematic account planning and development.
Other building blocks must be principally driven at the firm level. For example:
Creating a trusted advisor pipeline. For every 100 professionals hired, only a few will eventually be able to go on and manage major client relationships. How do you systematically select, retain, and develop relationship managers who can take on this critical responsibility 8 or 10 years down the road?
Fostering firm-wide collaboration. There are a number of factors which can encourage collaboration across boundaries, as well as obstacles that prevent collaboration. It is the responsibility of senior management to manage these factors and deliberately foster familiarity and trust and the frictionless movement of people, ideas, and resources into major client relationships.
For each of these 10 building blocks, I have developed a comprehensive framework which outlines the essential tasks, best practices, and implementation tools required for success.
In working with many client teams on account planning, I’ve learned that there really is not a “one-size-fits-all” approach. The planning process and the tenor of your discussions for an existing multi-million-dollar, mature client relationship will be different from that for a relatively new client that is currently quite small.
Broadly speaking, the following elements should be present in a good planning process:
Upfront involvement of the client to provide input on key issues, needs, and goals for the coming year
Leadership of the planning process by the most senior professionals on the client team. You cannot delegate the plan to junior staff!
Periodic meetings of the full team to reflect and strategize (at least once a year and probably two to four times a year)
Development of a written account plan. This can be brief. Remember—too many long, complex plans get created and then deposited in a file somewhere and then never used or referred to. It’s about the planning process, not so much about the PowerPoint slides themselves.
Weekly or monthly update calls or meetings
Individual follow-up between the relationship manager and individual team members
For any client, the core of the client account planning process is a team planning session to reflect on the seven key questions (see the video, below) and strategize how to improve and grow the relationship. A best-practice planning process, set against a calendar year, should reflect the kinds of activities listed in the graphic, “The Account Planning Cycle.”
If you want to learn more, watch this short video I made about seven key questions you should use to drive the creation of a client account plan:
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“I loved the laws of Power Relationships. The wisdom in these laws is founded on purposeful yet selfless curiosity in our fellow man. Follow them and watch your fortunes improve. I will even share this book with my children as it hold many great lessons..”
