What The Urban Dictionary Says About The Big 4

In case you haven't read it yet, you may want to check out Michelle Golden's blog entry on the Big 4 accounting firms over at the Verasage Institute.

The Good Practice Of Turning Down Ready-To-Buy Prospects?!

Over at Ford Harding's blog I bumped into a great story entitled The Amazing Flip. It tells the story of a firm that basically requires prospects to sell their opportunities to the firm. The firm's default setting of sitting down with prospects is "No," unless prospects can sell their projects to the firm.

It doesn't specifically show from the article, but I can assume that the firm is fully booked with top-notch clients. So, the universal truth is really true that nature abhors vacuum, and if we chase away bad prospects, the n we automatically give way to great prospects and great clients.

The problem I see is that in most consulting firms, rainmakers are not allowed to turn down business. Since so many firms operate on the hooker's mantra of "We do anything for anyone for money," this can be a hard proposition.

In my employment years I was fired twice for rejecting inappropriate prospects. They were either verbally abusive or went a bit too far on haggling. My sales managers told me my job was to turn every hunk of warm meat with a wallet into paying clients.

However, if we consider how much bad clients can cost a firm , this proposition sounds rather practical. Ron Baker at the Verasage Institute rightly says: "Bad clients drive out good clients."

My personal belief is that no clients are better than bad clients. If we have no clients at all, at least we know where we stand and can make alternative plans for the mortgage payment and putting food on the table. But if we are flooded with obnoxious, belligerent ambiguous clients, we never know what can happen next. I've had my fair share of them and probably you too. So, let's be more selective of whom we accept as clients.

Anyway, this is a great article, so go an read the The Amazing Flip.

What Is Bullying Costing Your Consulting Firm?

The Workplace Bullying Institute has just released it's 2007 survey on workplace bullying. It seems the issue is much more serious than most of us think. The findings are both interesting and sad. Well, we've always known that most managers, due to the traditional promotion process, are not suitable for managing, and this survey just proves it. 72% of bullies are incompetent managers bullying their people.

What makes these figures even sadder is that so many consulting firms tolerate bullying because it comes from either "high-performing" prima donnas or "respected" managers in important positions. Even many of those consulting firms that pontificate that people are their most important assets tolerate bullying.

Why is it tolerated? Because it doesn't have an entry in the accounting system, so firm leaders don't relate bullying to financial loss. But obviously there is. And the price is pretty high.

And a recent article in Fast Company magazine, entitled "The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't" explains the staggering costs of tolerating even only one bully in the workplace.

Running The Risk Of Stealing Your Firm's Clients

Fellow VeraSage member, Michelle Golden at Golden Practices discusses a very interesting practice that could seriously impact consulting firms ' profitability, but due to lack of trust in associates , and very often among partners, most firms shy away from this approach.

The essence of the practice is that you let your people work so closely with your clients that they could actually steal their clients from your firm if they left your firm. It tells a lot about trust in your associates and their intention of investing their careers in your firm.