James Chan on Success in Consulting

hello good evening everyone my name is Caroline Maguire I'm the librarian here at the free library I work in the business Science and Industry department and we're the one hosting the event tonight before I introduce dr. chan I just want to let you know that we have some upcoming programs that we're having in the next month or so we've got some fliers in the back we have one on like database training intellectual property and like social media so feel free to take some of the fliers back there Alice will let you know we have this flyer which kind of tells you all the resources that business science and industry department offers and what we can do to help you in your small business so he started before let's see dr. chan he advises us firms selling american-made products to services in Asia he has 29 years experience running a consulting practice serving a client list of more than 100 US firms he's the author of the book spare room tycoon which we have in the back of the room there and he has a BA degree from Hong Kong a master's degree from the University of Chicago and a PhD from the University of Michigan he founded his consultancy in 1983 James Chen who was China manager and international promotion manager at Academic Press which is a subsidiary of H Vijay a fortune 500 publishing company in New York he's a naturalized citizen since 1987 and he lives and work in Center City he's got his website which is WWE a marketing management com and you can go there to read his profile ladies and gentlemen James Thank You Caroline can you hear me here it's my voice clear I want to record this because there are people who cannot make it tonight and they have asked me if I can somehow have a summary of our talk so I will see if this very simple down to our flip video is able to do the trick and what I plan to do is talk about consulting the basics of consulting hopefully in less than 40 minutes and and after that I will talk with you and answer whatever questions you have in order for me to talk about consulting in a way that doesn't make me feel like I'm a monkey jumping all over the map because you know consulting in such a broad field and there was you know you can easily as a thousand questions so I came up with an arbitrary conceptual framework which I called spare SP ar e and I kind of used the word spare an acronym so that I can hang my thoughts and ideas so it's a vehicle so it's not it's not a magic formula it's just a way of hanging things and so the spare the five letters in my vehicle spare rs4 self knowledge in other words if we want to be successful running an independent consulting practice or a small consulting practice the most the first thing that I will talk about that I think you should think of about all of us should think about it self knowledge you have to know yourself you have to know what you're good at you have to know what you can offer for which people are willing to pay if people are not willing to pay you you cannot be a consultant it's like you can always call yourself the president of a company but if you are the president of pro ink you still broke there's no point to have that vanity of being a CEO if you had you if you have zero revenue so hopefully by dwelling on self-knowledge and giving you specific practical ideas on how you can start and run a consulting practice I could help you and also continue to tell myself what I believe in because that's what I do over the past twenty nine years the next word in this spare frame of mine is P P stands for passion it's not enough that you know what you are good at what you can do specifically for which people will pay you have to have passion in what you can do clients don't just pay us because we can do something this is because much of sales much of human communication is about emotion nobody wants to admit it because the word emotion seems to convey or conjure up meanings of craziness madness irrationality it doesn't have to be but we are human beings we have emotions and we communicate with people emotionally so if you cannot show your passion if clients know that all you are giving me is your body they're not happy with what you do they are mesmerized by the fact that we not only know what we can do what we are good at that we do it like we are the task itself it's like the best poet is the poem the best singer is the song the best consultant disappears in your clients eyes you are part of your life they don't need to know you you're there let's move on to the third word it's not enough you have self knowledge about what you can do it's not enough you have passion it's very important for all of us who want to be consultants who are successful getting clients getting paid less than gear after year making a decent living at least if not becoming rich and famous we have to take action a stands for action none of us who declare ourselves to be consultants want to be lazy we are not lazy the least thing we are willing to do is to work 24 hours a day seven days a week that's what I mean by action we have to be able as one of you already sent me a question on how to find clients how to find companies organizations that are you you have to be able to sustain tedium there is no mystery in finding paying clients other than the tedium of looking up databases looking up company names writing the right letter sending them either by mail hardcopy letters or email or doing other things that I will mention later in order to make people know of you this is action you cannot sit home and watch TV and expect the phone to rain you cannot stay in the kitchen and eat up everything in the refrigerator because you're depressed because your phone is not ringing nobody is paying your money no matter how many thousands of letters that you send out and you don't you can't even cry because you don't even know how to begin to cry never mind continue to send letters continue to call people continue to go out and talk continue to write a book continue to write the article continue to network continue to all doing all these things go to church and pray it's very effective it always works I'll give you a story later so that's action so it's not enough you have self-knowledge you can show passion that you are not afraid to take action all the time to sell yourself it's very important for you and to to all of us who really have to go through hell to make a living by calling ourselves a consultant to finally come to the realization our stands for realization that what we think as being logical apply it's logical for Joe Blow to Jaime it's logical for Mary don't to Jaime it's logical that company should have me is logical that the White House should hire you what you think is logical doesn't count because many things in real life are really not about logic as you think of it the real logic is what you truly realize as you do your work you truly realize real life experience will tell you what is truly logical in short many of the things that make a consultant successful are not obvious they are not obvious and I going to give you examples so realization is to understand to help yourself understand to help all of us understand that we can always sit and daydream and think of an algorithm to find a million clients when in fact it's the day to day taking the action seeing people and finding out what actually it at the end what makes a client tick and what is that little thing that she or he wants that's the time when you realize what you must do to get paid remember there is no such thing as a consultant if he or she is not paid it's not enough you have self-knowledge passion taking action realizing all the follies that you have been committing and then finally seeing the light is very important at a time you are successful you start your consulting work you are very successful for a number of years there will always be moment when somehow the universe seems to conspire against you against us the will has changed your skill that used to be so important so attractive so sexy so appealing you're so so much in demand suddenly you are old you are passe nobody wants you anymore you are like yesterday's fax machine you are like the Underwood typewriter you used to be sexy now you are just a piece of antique so the final work for the sphere frame of mine is the word e for evolution so in order to keep your consulting practice to go on and on forever to be able to change as the world invariably will change you have to constantly think of ways to evolve you have to constantly think of morphing from being a worm into a butterfly you have no choice we don't have their choice but if you truly like what you do you'll find way so here is the framework let me go back to s C now all these this is only a vehicle I sister an arbitrary word that I came about to hang my ideas because all these elements interact with one another you know you can they're not sausages they're not all cut up you can compartmentalize them that discretely and so so let me go back to s I was talking to my friend Rick shilling one of the 40 men and women our interview to write the book spare-room tycoon ten years ago and Rick surely knows I'm here tonight talking to you he said James you have to tell people it's not in it's not enough that they think oh I've always wanted to be self-employed I don't want to work for the man or nowadays for the woman like I'm tired or that I don't want to be downsized too many times many people want to become consultants particularly they have worked for big government big industry big nonprofits they were terrified too many times there can only be dead many times you get downsized at some point in time you're going to get out of bed and say no more no more and if you feel that you are at that moment you are likely to be able to muster courage and determination much like in the mission of gone with the wind with uh gone with the wind O'Hara so right a scarlet scarlet would say picking a piece of earth no more I am NOT going to starve again you know you have to make up your your determination self-knowledge is that spot of time we call it a spot of time that moment when you tell yourself I got it it's your a ha moment it's the moment when you know I I want to do this I want to call myself a consultant so instead of talking in generalities let me give you specific examples mine and other people you see I I started my business career working for a publishing company in New York I lived in Astoria Queens and I took the double or trained the double our subway from Astoria Queens to Manhattan to work and one day in this crowded subway Chum Chum Chum Chum Chum and I was reading the New York Times and very nonchalantly I discover an article a short one that says consulting as a viable way of making a living and I was I read it I thought it was interesting I read it and I liked the idea and so I went to work and not thinking very much about it then some nine months later a year later my company decided to leave New York City to move to orlando florida and as part of the move the Chairman wanted to layoff 75 percent of the employees luckily I was the 25 percent who would be invited to go but even though I got to go to Orlando for one week every single day I was in conflict I said to myself James should I continue to be a good corporate soldier a fortune 500 company job is a good job my salary was a decent salary it was great why should I say no why should I relinquish a very good career opportunity and not follow the company but on the last day at the last minute at night I decided I didn't decide I was very restless I hop I left a hotel room I was driving willy-nilly in the dark and then I got out of the car by a restaurant which had a tiny little light and I was looking at the menu and I had a most silly thought I said James would be nice to keep the fortune 500 company job because I can afford an expensive meal at any time I didn't have to be that cheap or chintzy about going into good restaurants the moment I had that thought I had a second thought I had a counter thought I immediately realized how silly and unchanged 10 like I was what to do something that is against my will against my wish so that I have enough money to eat a deep mediocre restaurant nowhere at that moment the article in The New York Times about consulting as a viable way of living came back to me and it was almost like Annunciation I saw the light I got it and you know why why my personal Annunciation was possible this is about self-knowledge you see I got my PhD I used to teach college and and then I decided that even though I knew I was a good teacher I really didn't want to teach I wanted to be with people I love people in case you have not noticed I love your faces all phases I used to be a closeted extrovert now I'm just an extrovert I can I'd love to talk to fire hydrants I talk to building in the middle of the night so talking to people is the least I can do but that's neither here nor there so I work for this company and my job was to open the China market for the company's books and journals we published very high-level scientific technical medical books and journals and I never was in business I never knew how to sell I don't know why the fortune 500 company wanted me I was my luck they like me they hire me but of course I was diligent I work hard I try to think of logical things as to how to promote books and in the first 11 months I got zero sales from China you know if you are a fortune 500 company manager and you got zero sales in 11 months do you know what your boss would do to you but luckily one day in the morning my secretary gave me an envelope from China from Beijing from an import company located in Beijing I poured out of the envelope a prepayment check of 150,000 US dollars as prepayment meaning I pay you first you deposit the check into yoga you meaning my company know me my company you deposit their checks into your van and once you know the check is good then you ship me the books and journals in one hundred and fifty thousand dollars at that time in 1982 would be equivalent to three hundred and thirty four thousand dollars in today's money and there was the first of many checks to come so you know like a like an effective vampire I smell blood like really there really is money to be made I wasn't a pipe dream China had money did buy things even when it was poor as a country this was like 30 years ago so so my awakening by the lamb at the restaurant in Orlando in Florida was partly posted by the fact that I had seen enough checks coming in so self-knowledge right I said oh see okay I might be taking a risk by quitting my job but then because I succeeded in selling not just to China I succeeded in getting orders from Singapore from the Philippines from Thailand from South Korea you know so I really saw money so what I did was I quit I went to Boyd's and use what little money I had at that time to buy the Bose good-looking cashmere overcook overcoat I never owned I bought a suit that was like you drop dead I'm beautiful and that's all the money I have because it's very important when you want to be a consultant you have to be businesslike you have to look like you are a celebrity have you ever heard of dress to build the movie dress to kill no dress to build you must be nicely dressed to invoice people it's not entirely a joke but that's even that's a distraction that's not the point the point then is I then I quit my job I came to this library you see I came out of the publishing industry and so in every industry I'm showing you how to do it now in every industry whatever you do there has to be a directory like the Bible of your industry and in the Bible of the publishing industry is the directory called literary marketplace LMP is a book that weighs like it with a tunnel it's like illuminated manuscript as heavy as one so I came to this library ice scan all 1,000 publishing companies in the literary marketplace one by one because I succeeded in selling to China and Asia so I kind of knew what publishing companies would buy my consulting services in the hope that I can help them sell more books and journals and databases and magnetic tapes and software whatever right so I very laborious ly remember the word tedious I was talking with you very tediously but religiously I boil down one thousand names into a list of 300 names names of the publishers the presidents or the CEO of companies 300 companies that I thought I could help then I went home I wrote a one-page letter actually with a two-page letter with the help of a good writer friend writing promotional pieces requires special skills you have to write like people will fall all in love with you that's the idea you can just say Oh what you know you know it doesn't work you have to be ever des n't you have to be vivacious you have to give people hope and yet you still have to be honest so I sent the 300 letters and within 30 days I got three paying clients each of them paying me several thousand dollars to write marketing plans and this and that that's how I got started so n of one specific practical skill it doesn't matter if you have never been a consultant before but if you contemplate being one you have to give yourself a test you have to come to get you have to come together all come together yet to come you have to come up with a one-page letter a short message and send that message to targeted companies organizations government bureaucracies that you believe can use your services and you launch that mailing 30 years ago we call that direct mail marketing now right to a specific person and it has to be personalized and nowadays even though a lot of people are used to sending email messages make sure that the email messages are sent personalized nobody wants to read unsolicited email that is not addressed to them that's self-knowledge that's a start let's go for the passion I have many passions stories to tell but I cannot I cannot help telling you this story of mine that made me what I am today I was an illegal immigrant for five years I came to this country from Hong Kong I went to the University of Chicago I got my master's degree I got my PhD I started teaching and because I came as a student my student visa expired and by law the law was correct that was the law once you finish your study you have to go home but by then I decided that I wanted to stay I wanted to be myself I wanted the autonomy and the freedom that this crazy America could give me because I'm also crazy it took me five years three different lawyers and sustaining several deportation hearings well they had to deport me and they should so and so in five years I could not work I could not make money I had to borrow money from my uncle from my PhD dissertation advisor who is still alive and well is 92 years old professor Rhodes Murphy in Ann Arbor Michigan I just Rovin saw him the other day several months ago he loaned me money a friend of mine gave me food lodging emotional support which is the most important thing but then I know so many letters out to Fortune 500 companies they are me Mobil Oil wanted me continental grain wanted me to turn me into a merchandise I had no idea what a merchandiser was kappa corporation in boston wanted to train me to become a manager of metals analysis i had no clue what matter Chemical Bank wanted to train me as a banker I had no idea how to become a banker but as a matter they offer me jobs but there was a catch at the end of the interviewing process no human resources manager would hire me because I was an illegal person yeah I could work and I have no no green card the whole nine yards so and so and I told you that I hire three lawyers the first two only wanted my money and never wanted to help me the first one wanted it told me oh you you are just you are there because you shouldn't have gotten your PhD you should be a place blower if you blow real hard you know we America needs blowers you know if you were a blow I could get you a green card real easy you know one of those things up but that's a discretion so I was very depressed and I actually was about to throw in the towel and return to Hong Kong because I exhausted almost almost exhausted my ability to sustain this five-year long immigration battle and I was so anxious I was walking around in this neighborhood and then I saw my chance there was a cathedral so Oh talk to God so I walked in now I wasn't Christian I'm still not Christian but hey you know it was an opportunity it pays it pays to be silly or totally clueless so I walked into the cathedral I'm on my knees and I started praying to Saint John Neumann and then of course talking to God I had no idea I just talked to anybody and and then at that moment I said to myself okay since I'm losing steam I have to come up with something in order to keep myself a reason why I still want to be in America like James it's not like you don't have degrees I mean you have you have degrees up to whatever I'm not going to starve to death in Hong Kong anyway so so I said I am on that day at that moment my spot of time is I'm on my knees I'm talking to God and I I said God if you can help me get a green card which is a piece of paper it's not even green that allows you to work in America I will help poor China and America closer it was that moment that I just sploded out these words so I made a fire and you know it's so very interesting because once I said that and then I said well you know if God can help me then find and there's nothing right there's nothing you know I had not something I could do I don't know I can so somehow there was a tremendous sense of peace and quiet it's just so blue I got it you know what more do I need to do so I went home went to my friend's apartment continue to use the typewriter to crank out more letters and a friend of mine lonely a Wang word processor for those of you who are old enough to know what the when word processor you know you type a letter you push a button and then you put 500 letters in the bin and then you bring up 500 life Levitt I send them out a CEO of the company that I later work with return to New York and he saw my letter on his desk my letter basically said I can help you open China and when he was in China he couldn't get along with the Chinese if they put him in a fleabag he didn't eat the right food and all they bit and long to each other all see East and West parted company big time so maybe God was helping that maybe as he was flying in midair at 36,000 feet maybe God told him look you have to have somebody to help you so my letter shoved up and I was hired and I had to prove with the help of my company that I was the only person in America who could do a job that no other American citizen who do I did it did that was 1982 why am I telling on this passion passion did I at that moment of tremendous weakness insecurity dear despair would I lie to myself forget the fact I can't even prove it God exists but would I lie to myself to warn myself to do something I hate it to do of course a lot that's what I mean by Kesha you have somehow actually the story is also related to a matter of adversity I think adversity when you are down and out when you have no money when you have no country actually of course it's painful it's awful it's terrible and it goes on and on like you're always in hell you're in a tunnel it's always that you cannot see the light it's very painful but when you are in hell after a while as long as you keep relatively sane and don't go crazy don't walk off the clip somehow thus part of time will come to you it's in the darkest moment that you know what you want to do in my darkest moment I discover what I could do let's move on because it's not enough that you discover what you want to do you have to actually get people to pay you don't you even got a sunray do you have to prove it right you can't say oh god please give me money it doesn't work I don't think it does you can say please God help me but yeah no money you do it so let's show it be sense so so let's move to action so in order to get people to pay us as consultants you we have to find a way to sell ourselves being a consultant and the more successful we are as consultants the more effective and successful we should train ourselves to be to sell sell and sell and sell but selling is very tough nobody wants to sell because selling implies you're begging or at least you feel that way you're asking people for money it's not that elegant asking people for money doctrine right and also selling means you have to convince people most of them don't even want to pay you you have to cajole you have to reason you have to argue you have to negotiate you have to justify you have to verify I mean after a while it's really a pain in the big royal behind said it and not only that I used to I used to tell myself and people oh you know in order to mitigate a billion rate reduce the pain and suffering of selling to strangers you try to tell yourself oh no I'm not selling myself I'm just selling my expertise my knowledge my experience my slay of Han my craftsman share my algorithm forget it you are but in the end you are selling yourself you are selling your personality you're selling your character you are selling your own personal consistency you are selling your quirks so action is very important that we have day in and day out a way to discipline ourselves to do a number of things whether it will be this is not talking about marketing yourself I mean there are so many ways to market yourself you write a book you write an article you go and turn it yourself into a public speaker by the way if you want to be a consultant you have to learn how to talk to fry hydrants you have to learn how to kiss frogs keep kissing and some frogs are dead frogs they don't even smell good and but you have to keep kissing until you find the princess or the prince they turn into a paying client I'm talking metaphorically of course so you do your website you print your business card you make sure that you create matching letterhead stationery so you look businesslike is very important to be businesslike you don't have to be one of you ask me is it costly to be a consultant no it costs you please practically nothing to become a consultant you can get up tomorrow and tell the world I am a consultant that's not the issue the issue is to be businesslike you can work from home you don't have to rent an office there are organizations incubators companies that will rent you space give you people who answer your phone to give you a measure of cooperativeness that you not like you're the real CEO you know you're running a trillion dollar company but let me tell you clients pay us because we have a BMW car clients don't they don't pay us because we own one Liberty Place clients pay us because we have something very specific that he or she wants as long as you are dressed properly respectfully your client your car is at this clean you have even if you live in a studio apartment just at one corner of your studio is designated as your office if you are running if you are in the bathroom do not answer the phone finish your bathroom activity let people leave a messages you don't want them to hear the sound of running water if your dishwasher or your washer washing machine is running don't answer the phone chances are it's a telemarketer not a paying client so don't be so anxious but you have to be businesslike so to continue how to promote yourself then you have to join an association one people I interview the 40 men and women our interview has a nice skill in order to expose yourself to a lot of people in your industry you join the right association and it's not just joining you volunteer to be one of their official members which means you are investing a lot of your time and energy you may be you may become a Membership Director no pay you may become a newsletter writer and editor no page pro bono work but then again you know in the course of putting in years of effort your name is always mentioned it has to be the right industry another action another point about action I want to emphasize it's not enough for you to know what you are good at you in order for all of us to be able to get paying clients who pay me who pay us adequately we must be we cannot be a generalist we can be generalists as a base in terms of we are knowledgeable of our topic but we have to specialize specialized and specialized in other words you cannot say oh I'm selling my service as a writer no it's too broad nobody is going to pay you as a writer then you have to accessorize oh I'm a spy novel writer now you begin to specialize then even within spy novel you can say I specialize in writing legal spy novels so you begin to go down and deep and deep and deep some of you you are a engineer so I have a friend who is a very successful consultant and we have a skill we call the three words rail I actually created the three words rail a three word trill is if you can summarize what you do in three words just three words you are allow the time of saying three words before people lose interest in you so you have to pick the words very specific words that you know the right potential client when the right potential client he is here he or she knows ah you're the one I want example what this friend of mine one of his key words is hydrocarbons he's an engineer he's not selling himself just as an electrical engineer a mechanical engineer or civil engineer his 8 hydrocarbons and even within hydrocarbons I'm sure he has a word it is even more deeper than that did I hammer this idea real deep this is like dental work deep cleaning here drilling all the way down because if you just sell yourself oh I can help you write a resume what it's like I tell my client I can speak Chinese what 1.3 billion people can speak Chinese no so action requires that you are able in the course of doing your work marketing yourself seeing clients kissing frogs kissing fraud meaning a lot of people pick our brains oh yeah I have done oh yeah my brains been picked so many times I can go two examples one example one day remember my boy it's over Kashmir overcome or - I love it it's somehow I grew bigger and he shrank I couldn't I have to throw it away oh it was a lot of money maybe look like a prince I'm I was so vain and and and oh so I put on my boys overcoat and my boy suit and my black leather shoes black color socks I mean I know that I know the tricks and I drove from Santa City to northern New Jersey to a company whom I thought would be my potential client so I was showing up I was like I was you know like a an opera singer to be onstage I got to that place I opened my car door you know what I did potential client was he was running is whatever he was doing he had like a derelict kind of like broken a truck he was living inside a truck I look at him he looked at me I said to myself Oh James go home so I spent the whole day so that's one frog that's a frog I used to call these people sunfish you know you go fishing you're in the pond and you put in your lines and this little sunfish and you cannot eat them so and then the other one what is more what is worse about kissing the wrong frog is you spend your money and time in your effort in your energy and then you have your brain sucked by these people and they never told you that they would never use you in a million years particularly if your so-called potential client is not a decision maker she is not a CEO he is not the president that he or she no offense to rank and file manager she is only a manager she is only a you know a stair person no offense but they have worked that they want to do they are more willing more than willing to pick your brain as a consultant to help them do the work with me I'm not blaming them but hey you willing so my other example of really hurtful brain picking was there was this publishing company in New York and the director of marketing expressed interest in using my services so I put on my boys overcoat my black colors suit and I got up at 4 o'clock in the morning I took the Amtrak train I went to see him of course knew that he would not pay me on that day for that day's work and he wanted me to write a propose also I came home I wrote a proposal using several days time to tell him how I could help his company market to China so two weeks later I follow up he said oh I want to talk more when you'll come back again so I went back again taught more nothing happens I go through this all the time it's very painful it's very painful but we just have to do it and you know what we get better in smelling up whether or not there's a smell you can smell if a client is sincere and serious just to give you a quick very specific things if I smell a client is serious I will say pay me so many dollars just to see me on the first day even for an exploratory session so that you can pick my brain up just like eating a buffet it may eat but you have to pay and if they say yes chances are those clients can continue to give you more work another specific example on how to avoid those dead frogs companies who are sincere people who are sincere and who are decision makers when they talk to you on the phone the first time they don't hide behind technology they tell you they will name they give you the complete information they start telling you their problems in simple words no metaphors no nuances no no similes no figures of speech no hiding they just tell you what is hurting and finally there is a tone of intimacy it's that tone of intimacy that allows you to decipher if a potential client is going to abuse you or going to use you let's move on from action so I've done self-knowledge I've done passion I've done action let's move on to realization and here comes the most important piece of realization that many people who have never done consulting and even for people who have done consulting for many years never gets they never understand it took me 15 years finally to understand how to how much to charge and how to charge you see I'm sure that you can write lots of PhD dissertations on how to price your consulting services I am I have no time to write anymore PhD dissertations nor do I want to bore myself and bore you but there is a rule of thumb very simple way when I first started out in 1983 I bought a book that tells me how to charge and it's really quite simple you see any all of us have worked in the past so we got a salary and if right now if you want to do this exercise very simple only take 10 seconds if you write down the salary that you have ever had that is okay by you you divide that salary by 2,000 in other words if you may at one point in your life $100,000 that your subject was your salary you divide $100,000 by 2,000 in other words one hundred divided by two so we give you an hourly rate of $50 now what most consultants fail to understand when you become a consultant you cannot afford and you must not to an employee mindset let me tell you what I mean by an employee mindset an employee is somebody who goes to work and his or her employer promises that they will be high a day-in day-out 365 days right that work is guarantee you you are like a chicken in a farm on a farm they will feed you until they kill you soul and the two thousand hours come out of there are 52 weeks a year you give yourself two weeks vacations so we have 50 weeks and there are 40 hours a week because there are eight days eight hours a day and five working days 40 40 times 50 weeks so you get the 2,000 so here comes realization you will be extremely lucky if you are able to build to invoice as much as one-third of your hours in a year in other words you should based on your rate with the realistic painful fact if you can for all of us who are beginning in consulting most of us can only charge on an hourly basis if you can build 606 hundred and sixty six point six six six six hours you're very lucky in fact I want to be more conservative and I want it to be even simpler in helping you how to calculate your hours six hundred just use the number 600 no matter how much you want to charge if you want to charge $20 an hour do you know how much you make a year can somebody somebody gives me if you charge only two dollars an hour and you get only 600 hours a year of pay how much will you have made in one year please right do you think you can live on $12,000 you can even pay your doctor you can even pay Blue Cross Blue Shield for $12,000 so that's realization let's move on to something else because I can go on with some more stories and I do have one more story but maybe I should go into evolution so can I talk about one specific example of realization that is as oh yes oh yes oh yes you know realization has to do earlier I made a big song and dance about the fact that you logically think that you are doing the right thing that you should therefore the client should use you and you are good you're the biggest and best expert ever on earth under the Sun since the birth of time nobody wants you one of those one of those things would be okay sometimes some people will say oh you know a company cause a company cause a potential client course and the voice on the phone is saying oh why don't you come over and you know give a presentation now a very logical consulting question is should I charge for the exploratory session there's many of us particularly when we are beginners we do not dare charge in fact when somebody is just waving a carrot in front of us we say you know it would jump up and down and like we could we'll give out them our bodies our so and do things for free in the hope that we get business it may not be wrong but you know sometimes if you run into a company a potential client that has the seriousness in the terminal voice the way he handles the situation tells you what is his or her problem it is okay to set a fee you can say I will charge a standard then you come up with the sum of money for half a day be courageous one thing one realization fact I have learned clients who really want us pay us in the end money is not the object this is my experience in 29 years people who not one who are not willing to pay they will always find a reason to argue with you to bargain with you those are difficult clients and some of them are even toxic I call them the toxic clients so have confidence when the right moment comes ask to be paid and there's one tiny little factoid about realization about paying asking to be paid if people pay they pay attention people who don't pay you don't value you people who pay that means they really want to know they are paying attention they are focusing of course you have to know what you're doing that goes without saying so have I hammer these ideas in the end what most of us sometimes myself included myself included suddenly when we need confidence the most we lose it losing confidence is the worst psychological thing you can do to yourself I one time was on the dental chair and the dentist was doing like you know dentists are kind of you know I'm not surprised that they are all S&M people but I said I said oh I'm I'm nervous mr. doctor Dan dentist I'm nervous my dentist said I am NOT I'm so happy to hear my dentist that he was not nervous in Bergen if my dentist was nervous - oh my god you know am I making a point across but it's easier said than done there's another fact how about realization many of us complain oh I'm only a one-person one man one woman consultant oh you know my potential client may think that I'm working out of a studio apartment in the Academy house and oh you know they are multi-billion dollar company they'll never warn me that may be true that may be the case you cannot stop people from being prejudicial it's just absolutely no way and you are not I am NOT going to please everybody it's not possible it's not advisable it's the wrong thing to do actually if you do your work sincerely conscientiously said you let's lay like a good craftsman like you work at it and work at it and you persevere you work at it you publish enough paper you give enough public presentations you go to it knock meetings you you see you kiss enough rocks you you try to prove to the world that you really know what you you care about your subject matter some big companies will find us in fact it just happened to me recently an extremely gigantic global company call me and when the first when a person first picked up was on the phone I thought he was a telemarketer I was about to hang up I mean he identify himself he said I'm so in so cooperation and we have a situation where we want you to come in as a consultant and we are considering other big consulting firms I saw how did you find me he couldn't he did say didn't know he said you are very difficult to find it he said I it took me two days to find you probably in some kind of a yahoo site I had no idea I have never done anything in Yahoo so I know why he yeah who me but but then what is the most important thing is he told me they hire me I gave them a price which I like they pay they like my work and after everything was done they were happy with the work I went to this person on the phone I said why why did you hire me why did you want me you have so many big consulting firms do in China what I mean and you are such an enormous company they are so enormous they just did technologically they are still number one and you don't what he said to me he said James I want you because the the big consulting firms charge us a lot of money and once they get the work they form the work out to fresh graduates from name-brand schools who give us cookie cutter solutions so it's about realization I'm talking about realization what I really want to tell you and you tell myself to have self-esteem there is only one person who can give you your own self-esteem you your wife will not give it to you your boyfriend will not give it to you even God will not give it to you you have to give it to yourself first let's move on to the last thing evolution no matter how successful we are being a consultant we have to keep changing because the world is changing we have to come up with new ways to do things in maybe in a new fashion or come up with new services and I have a good example of what I mean by evolution and I'd like with Rick shilling my friend so much that I'm going to talk about his story because it's very educational see Rick schilling rick shilling was a banker for some 25 years or so he worked for many banks in the Philadelphia region and of course one thing after another either folded or they sold to one another and then he got downsized once twice three times and Rick was so tired of being downsized he finally said to himself no I'm not going to be a corporate employee anymore plus you know I mean by 50s this is not going to work anymore I'm not a teenager I'm not 25 I'm not 32 and so he started his business trying to sell his banking expertise to small and mid-sized companies and to coach them to consult with them on how to get loans bangs isn't it logical remember logical he thought there was logical right I mean you were a banker for 25 years for God's sake you deal you dealt with loans you dealt with small and mid-sized companies coming you for loans you know the entire procedure the the six tons of files that you have to come up and they have to sign in order to get money from you right so so that's your expertise and it's a particular type of loan portfolio it's not just any loan you know must be a certain type of commercial lon I don't know I don't need to know so one day a Rick shilling was talking to a potential client at the Big Bang a manager who is a decision maker not just a rank-and-file person trying to pick his brain and in fact the person even know him I mean they were friends for a lot of years and after Rick was doing his song and dance and and he thought that he could you know just convinced he was unable to convince the potential client anymore the potential client said to it Rick I'd like you very much as a person but I don't need you I have no use for your service to all of us when somebody has the courage and the honesty to say to our face I don't need you honey most people would get tang tang giris quarrelsome started to fight right what can I do to get business from you do or say all kinds of things Rick did something extremely smart do you know what he did that was very smart keep going keep going no he didn't do it huh here's the answer and real answer he said nothing it's called a skill on silence complete total silence you know when someone has the courage and the honesty to tell you I don't need you sometimes those people after they have rejected us who then tell us what they really did on their own or they own accord listen we should learn how to shut up I know it's silly consultants the most important skill of a consultant is not to talk I know I'm talking but he really and it happened to me too so at that moment the potential client said to Rick no I don't need whatever you offer but you know I have a I have a high-level banker who is going to be on maternity leave it she's very important if I lose her I don't know what to do and at that moment like every good entrepreneur every good consultant every good independent contractor any person who can think fast on her or his feet he said knowing that first of all Rick already has a database of 300 bankers in his computer so he knows what these people do the moment the potential client said I want a banker who can do this type of commercial loan he knows at this three persons in his database who can do the job so instead of wrestling at that very land of a second telling the client trying to sell a client on what he knows a new business evolution has come to him at that very moment that's part of time there was a realization that leads to evolution Rick said to himself why do I try so hard to sell myself if I can sell other people so he said to the client okay we have a budget yes how much money can you afford well the person gave him the budget oh wow a lot of money okay I have three candidates for you right I will make sure that the candidates I know these people I I know what they do what they can do I will introduce them to you they work for you as a temporary employee a interim banker so it's full-time but I would take a cut and rate was straight forward my cut would be so much of a percentage the potential clients are fine from that moment on Rick had a new business evolution the lesson of the story this this is you only understand and what you must offer the world by being with the world by being in the world you don't know what people's minds are until you are with them until you sleep with them either by parallel talking and sometimes shutting up and on the point of shutting up I'm going to shut up and then would be spared self-knowledge passion action realization and evolution thank you very much you

Channel: James Chan

Views: 101,979

Rating: 4.8872304 out of 5

Keywords: consulting, self employment, success, business, consulting practice, selling, coaching, training, sales, Inspiration, Marketing, Management, Motivational, Personal, Entrepreneur, Inspirational, Self, Leadership, Skills, Communication, Education, Professional, self-help, exporting, international sales, international marketing, Asia, China, doing business in China, career, money, passion, skills, public speaking, James Chan, Philadelphia, trade with China, entrepreneurship, gig economy, freelance

Id: 6Wk7UgJoEmA

Length: 69min 56sec (4196 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 22 2012