"Secrets to Optimal Client Service," With Jim Donovan

so the topic today is secrets to Optimal client service so what are the rules of thumb you can use to deliver optimal client service and I think these rules of thumb apply whether you're an investment banker or a Management Consultant or a lawyer or any professional person who finds himself in a position to be working with or covering clients so what are the what are the heuristics what are the rules of thumb that you should use when you cover clients the first is to never use jargon never use jargon with a client so you're all

in school you are learning jargon terms you are practicing those jargon terms with each other with your friends with your colleagues with your professors when you graduate you will go and work at a firm in your chosen profession and you will continue to learn more jargon terms and practice those with your colleagues you will become very familiar with those terms it will become habitual to use them it will roll off of your Collective tongues don't use them with clients if you're a lawyer you'll learn terms like summary judgment or res judicata if you're an investment

banker you'll learn terms like Enterprise Value or kager or cap m don't use those with clients if you do chances are the client won't understand the term you're using and there's even a greater chance that if they don't understand it they will not ask you what it means they don't want to appear foolish so they won't ask you so what will they do they will sit there in silence not understanding the term feeling foolish and resenting you for making them feel that way so don't use jargon the second rule of thumb the second heuristic that

you should use or follow when covering clients is to pause pause when you're talking with clients when you're presenting why should you do that there are three reasons why you should do that the first reason is if you're presenting to a prospective client or a an existing client chances are you're nervous and when you're nervous you speak more quickly the Cadence of your voice of your speech picks up pause if you pause it will slow you down it will make you appear less nervous to the client it also has a unique positive feedback effect if

you pause it actually calms you down you feel less nervous so pause to slow yourself down the second reason to pause is because when you pause you create an empty space you create a vacuum a space into which the client is likely to ask a question or make a comment that's good you want your presentation not to be a speech you want it to be a conversation a dialogue pausing encourages dialogue it encourages comments questions from the client the third reason to pause is because there is by definition by Nature a power imbalance that exists

the client has power you have less pausing creates uncertainty that uncertainty serves to slightly shift the balance in your favor so pause when talking with clients when making presentations to clients or prospective clients pause the Third Secret to delivering optimal client service is to look for opportunities to give the client advice that is contrary to your own interests look for opportunities to give advice to your client where the advice is contrary to your own interest for example if you and your firm only get paid if a transaction is consummated advise the client not to consummate

the transaction if that makes sense for the client of course there's no more powerful way to establish credibility with a client and to give them give them advice that they know is not in your interest an example I just gave they know you're not going to get paid and your firm's not going to get paid they give me the advice you just gave them not to close the transaction so look for opportunities to give the client advice that is not in your interest number four the fourth heuristic the fourth rule of thumb to use when

covering clients in order to deliver optimal client service is to ask open-ended questions ask open-ended questions avoid questions that lend themselves to yes no answers so for example instead of asking the client are you worried about competitors entering your Market space and taking market share away from you instead of asking that question ask the client what are you worried about what are your concerns you want to ask open-ended questions for two reasons the first reason is because you want to get the client to talk people enjoy talking about themselves that may sound cynical but that

is a fact so the more you get the client to talk about themselves they're more they're going to enjoy the meeting and the more they are going to associate interaction with you in a positive way so ask them open-ended questions ask them questions about their background ask them questions like what was it like founding this company what was it like in the early days why did you find found the company so the first reason to ask open-ended questions is because you want the client to talk it will make the client's experience better the second reason

is it will help you do your job better you'll learn things from the client about the client you'll learn what the client's biases are what their interests are what their passions are what their fears are that will help you do your job better so ask open-ended questions because the client will enjoy the meeting more because you will learn more about the client and you will do your job better five the fifth Secret the fifth heuristic the fifth rule of thumb to use when covering clients to deliver optimal client service is to be positive be upbeat

people like to be around people who are positive and energetic and upbeat so when you walk into a meeting and the client asks you how you're doing your answer should always be something like great thanks are you it should never be something like oh my gosh I'm having a horrible day I lost my cat I'm really worried about him don't do that okay the client May react with sympathy but it's not the right thing to do you have been hired to solve problems for the client you have not been hired and you are not there

to foist your problems upon the client be upbeat always always be positive number six be careful about mixing business with social activities I almost never do this personally others do and it can work well for people I don't do it but if you do or you do it to some extent make sure you have a bright line and you don't cross that line I remember when I started at Goldman Sachs long time ago I had come to the firm with a lot of new Associates we had come from all different graduate schools the best schools

all over the country in the world and two months into my associate training class program I wrote down a list of the 10 people the 10 new Associates who I thought would be most successful five years later most successful at this job most successful at delivering optimal client service so of the hundreds of new Associates at Goldman Sachs I wrote down a list of the people who I thought the 10 well I thought in five years would be the best and then I pulled this list out five years later and I was dead wrong so

on my list of 10 most of them weren't even at the firm anymore they have been fired or quit and those who were were struggling the criteria that I use the characteristics that I looked for were almost Contra indicators of success in delivering client service I thought it would be helpful and important if you had passed sales skills past sales experience I thought it would be important and helpful if you were a good schmoozer I thought it would be helpful if you were good at golf or tennis in my experience none of those things matter

none of them matter clients hire you because you're smart because you work hard period full stop so be smart work hard clients do not hire you because you can take them out to a fancy dinner so be careful about mixing business social activities number seven th heuristic the seventh rule of thumb to use to deliver optimal client service is to be humble be humble so when you're asking those open-ended questions that I talked about earlier about the client's background about their business make comments that indicate humility that are complementary to the client that indicate humility

on your part being humble is endearing so make comments like what you have done with your company is extraordinary it's very impressive comments like I could not hope to know a fraction of what you know about your business now by the way make sure these comments are genuine right the comments I just made those two comments I could make and would be genuine about just about every client with whom I have worked over the last 30 years be humble it's endearing number eight the atheistic is to be responsive and available to clients you want to

tell the client up front you want to tell them up front immediately that they are important to you you should tell them that you should also tell them that you will be available to them whenever they need you tell them that but you need to back that up by doing the fog you need to be responsive when they call you call them back immediately when they email you email them back immediately respond immediately you may not know the answer to their question on their email or the one they're asking you on the phone call that's

fine it doesn't matter respond immediately let them know you're going to get the answer but be responsive and this is particularly important in the early stages of a relationship it's particularly important early on because first impressions Die Hard and you want to make a good impression you want to give the client the impression you want to leave them with the impression that they are important to you and that you will be responsive tell them they can reach you anytime and then follow that up by being responsive be responsive to the client be available number nine

the ninth rule of thumb when covering clients to follow is to take a position clients are hiring you to give them advice so tell them what to do don't equivocate don't back down don't be nervous tell them what you and your firm would advise them to do that is what they want they want you to tell them what to do it's fine to present options but advocate for one option tell the client what to do take a position number 10 the 10th heuristic the 10th secret to delivering optimal client service is to control the meeting

so if you're meeting with a with a client or a prospective client it's your meeting it's not anyone else's meeting don't let anyone hijack the meeting don't let the client or anyone on the client's team or anyone else in the room hijack the meeting don't let them distract you don't let them take you off topic if someone asks you a question that's unrelated to the topic that you are discussing your response should be something like great question I'm going to get to that in 10 minutes or hold that thought it's a great Point although it's

always a great point I'm going to cover that shortly do not let them Sidetrack you if you do you'll do a bad job for the client you'll do a bad job in the meeting you'll lose the confidence of the client and you'll get sidetracked you won't deliver the meeting in the way that you would like you won't cover all of the material the client will suffer and you will suffer control the meaning do not allow anyone to hijack your meeting number 11. 11th Secret and this is the final one is have an agenda have an

agenda and write things down walk into your meeting with an agenda and then communicate that agenda to the client right up front start the meeting by saying today we thought we'd cover the following things one two three does that make sense ask does that make sense you want the client to buy into the agenda from the very beginning you want the client to own the agenda with you from the very beginning if the client says well I'd like to add the following no problem add it the client wants to remove anything from your agenda no

problem remove it but agree on the agenda and if you do the client will have bought into the agenda and will have gone a long way toward buying into the contents of your entire meeting have an agenda communicate the agenda up front get the client to buy into the agenda and then write things down during the meeting it doesn't matter whether you think you need to write them down or not doesn't matter whether you have a photographic memory write things down you do that because when it's endearing to do that but two you want to

convey to the client that you are not going to drop a ball that you are not going to forget to do anything that you've told them that you're going to do so write things down and at the end of the meeting recap the follow-up items recap them say so we have the following items that we're going to follow up with you on one we're going to revise the model and send it to you in a week two we're going to wait for you to send us the new numbers on your Revenue forecasts if you haven't

sent them to us by Friday we'll send you an email to remind you three tomorrow we'll send you follow-up dates and times for suggestions for our next meeting which we should schedule in three weeks Etc recap the follow-up items the client will feel less than less anxious they will feel like this person is in control and this person is not going to drop a ball the analogy I use here goes back to one of the most basic kinds of client service being a waiter when you walk into a restaurant and if you're with nine of

your friends that 10 of you sit down waiter comes over to the table and each of you orders order a drink and an appetizer and a main course and some side dishes and the waiter doesn't write anything down and doesn't recap what it is that all of you ordered I can guarantee you that there's some people at that table who are somewhat anxious about what they're going to actually get in 15 minutes when the food comes out you do not want your client to be anxious about the fact that you may or the idea that

you may forget to follow up on some of the items that he or she has asked you to fall upon write them down recap them at the end so those are the 11 secrets to providing optimal client service so to recap um the first is and to never use jargon never used drug second is to pause pause slow yourself down the third is to look for opportunities to give the client advice for the advice is not in your interest number four ask open-ended questions ask a lot of them get into the practice of doing that

avoid questions that lend themselves to yes no answers five be positive be upbeat always six be careful about mixing business social activities number seven be humble number eight be available be responsive that's particularly important in the early stages of a relationship as I mentioned number nine take a position tell the client what to do don't equivocate don't back down tell them what you and your firm recommend that they do number 10 control the meeting it's your meeting no one else is meeting don't allow anyone else to take control of it number 11. have an agenda

communicate the agenda to the client up front get them to buy into it and take notes and write things down