dispatches from the new world of work

Wiki Contributions

Have you checked out the PSF wiki lately? Feeling shy? No need! People are joining in and sharing their stories and thoughts about PSF strategy. Here are a few examples you'll find there:

On taking ownership:
Madeleine McGrath: "A client of ours pulled off a remarkable PSF transformation by positioning his management team of a business unit as a Professional Service to the organisation. He launched the initiative by calculating the gross cost of employment of the 12 person team (a few miilion UK pounds!) and asking if they felt they could justify the value that they added. There was a tense moment or two at the event, but from that point onwards we noticed a shift in the team's mindset. We went on to reframe their work agenda to transform the ownership that they had of what the unit was attempting to achieve."

On selecting clients carefully:
Mike Neiss: "A psf doesn't 'sell stuff' to a client, they join them in a partnership to do great things. And just like external knowledge workers, an internal psf is only as good as their last client. So when you find a turned on, gets it, passionate client, coddle them with fantastic results. You really need to see your "brand" as an extension of the clients. As an external provider, it does take some real thought and quite frankly, courage, to turn down a client. Cash flow does matter! And internally, it is very difficult to turn down a request. However.....it doesn't mean you have to provide WOW in equal measures. As an external consultant, we have to have faith that a remarkable engagement with a cool client will lead to lots of business by word of mouth. And likely to clients that are also cool. Internally, positive press regarding your best client's results will do the same. You don't get cash, you get political currency!"

This is based on Tom's PSF 50List, so there are plenty of topics to cover under the PSF umbrella. Let us hear your stories. Simply click Edit Page at the top of the page to which you'd like to contribute. The password/invite key is tompeters. See you there!

Shelley Dolley posted this on 02/11/08.

Comments

Hi Shelley
could we ask someone at TP.com to tidy up the Blog Roll? A few of the links are now redundant as the sites are no longer up; and many of the blogs have had not posts to them for many months!
Many thanks...

Posted by Ian Sanders at February 12, 2008 12:10 PM

ian,
you could at least list three that you don't think belong. give us a bit of a headstart, right? thanks.

Posted by erik hansen at February 12, 2008 6:43 PM

Please take another look at:
Bigger Isn't Always Better
Re-Versioning Your Life
The Wisdom of Improv

Posted by Mike L. at February 12, 2008 11:39 PM

Erik,
good question and apologies for the delay in responding. Am on London time here...
Mike, thanks for filling the vaccum in the meantime!
Certainly BoomerWomen has not had a post since March 07.i will take another look and report back

Posted by Ian Sanders at February 13, 2008 3:35 AM

'Gary Turner' just goes to a hosting page...

Posted by Ian Sanders at February 13, 2008 3:38 AM

'Business Pundit' doesn't go anywhere...

Posted by Ian Sanders at February 13, 2008 3:45 AM

ian,
thanks. we'll get going on the cleanup. appreciate your help on this one.

Posted by erik hansen at February 13, 2008 8:33 AM

ian,
i find a very active blog at businesspundit.com.

Posted by erik hansen at February 13, 2008 9:01 AM

erik,
when i looked this morning (UK time), i got an error message, could not be displayed. maybe it was down overnight? I can verify it is there now okay. Thanks ian

Posted by Ian Sanders at February 13, 2008 12:44 PM

Ian and Mike,
Thanks! We cleaned up the blogroll within the past six months, but, given its length, keeping it current is a continuing chore. We looked at all the blogs you both mention. Some of them are the blogs of Cool Friends, so we're going to contact them before removing them from the blogroll. And I don't see one called BoomerWomen.

Posted by cathy mosca at February 14, 2008 10:27 AM

Cathy
it's 'Marketing To Boomer Women'. It's live but no posts since last March!
thanks
Ian

Posted by Ian Sanders at February 14, 2008 1:11 PM

My experience tells me that every client must be worked out to be your true ally. When youâ€™re selling high-tech/novel
technologies/products/services, one must do a lot of talking to induce the customer into a menu of probable solutions. The more the complications, the more the nice talk with unambiguous language.

If that phase succeeds, itâ€™s necessary to make oral/document presentations to the targeted client. Giving him â€“ while at it- a number of unimpeachable examples of the real life (industry by industry) will get the customer more to envision you as an ally than just a provider.

These continuous presentations are, of course, training/indoctrination to the customer, so that he understands better his problem and the breadth and scope of the likely solutions. If progress is made in this phase, one can start working out, very informally and distensibly, the clauses of the contract, particularly those that are daring. One by one.

When each one is finally approved by both. Assemble and get approved and implemented the corresponding contract. Then, keep a close (in-person) contact with your customer.

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