News from the attic: Little things mean a lot

This month’s item comes from a different part of the attic – our own newsletter. In those days we were called Consultancy Skills Training – CST. Here’s what we said in an item we published ten years ago in early 2002.

One of the most revealing things a professional service firm can do is to move around to the other side of the table and become a client itself. It’s a rare chance to monitor, not just how others perform, but also one’s own reactions as a potential buyer.

CST recently put some website work out to tender: the variety of responses was incredibly instructive. Some earned immediate brownie points by responding intelligently at short notice. Some annoyed by sending swathes of information we didn’t need.

It immediately became clear how telling little points of detail were. One firm kept sending back an “out-of-office auto-reply” reassuring us that our emails would be dealt with within 24 hours. Since a 24 hour response to an email was neither more nor less than we expected this information was not only superfluous but irritating.

When we saw people face-to-face, more differences appeared. One group crowded our limited meeting space with individuals who added nothing to the conversation. On the other hand, a “one-man-band” created concern that we might not get the attention and resource that we needed. Another lectured us on what he assumed we wanted, rather than listening to our needs. By contrast, we were impressed by the firms that demonstrated a real knowledge of their field and enthusiasm for the job. In the end, though, we went for the firm that went beyond what we had asked, and stretched our thinking with new ideas.

At the end of the process, we took the trouble to feed back honestly to the unsuccessful candidates the reasons for our decisions.. This is more difficult than it seems, as it involves talking bluntly to people you want to be kind to.

What did we learn? For us it was a humbling experience. All of us in selling have done similar things in the past. But it brought home that little things do mean a lot—that even something as apparently trivial as a spelling mistake in a proposal document can raise doubts in the client’s mind as to quality of service. The ability to execute is only the beginning: we were never in doubt of the technical competence of those we shortlisted.

News from the attic: Little things mean a lot

Calvert Markham