Title:رازهایی برای بهبود روابط مشاور و مشتری

۲۰۱۱-۰۵-۱۳ ارائه دهندگان: KK Gerhart-Fritz، Douglas Koch و Deborah Munkberg این وب‌کست فقط برای مشاهده در دسترس است، برای اعتبارات AICP CM قابل استفاده نیست. چگونه مشاوران و مشتریان می توانند حداکثر بهره وری را به دست آورند و به نتایج رضایت بخشی در یک پروژه دست یابند؟ این جلسه نکاتی را از مشاوران قدیمی و مشتریان باتجربه در خصوص برقراری ارتباط واضح، مدیریت انتظارات و تعریف و تولید محصولات ارائه می دهد. اعضای پانل دیدگاه های مشتریان بخش دولتی و خصوصی و همچنین مشاوران شرکت های کوچک و بزرگ را در نظر خواهند گرفت.

قسمتي از متن فيلم: Hello my name is Cody price and I just want to welcome everyone it is now one o’clock so we will begin our presentation shortly today on May thirteenth we’ll have our presentation on secrets to improve client consultant relations given by kk carat fritz Doug Kosh and Deborah monk Berg for help

During today’s webcast please feel free to type your questions in the chat box found on the webinar tool bar to the right of your screen or call one eight hundred 26 36 3174 content questions please feel free to type those in the questions box and we’ll be able to

Answer those at the end of the presentation during the question-and-answer session here is a list of our participating chapters divisions in universities and I just want to send a personal thank you out to the private practice divisions for sponsoring today’s webinar as you can see our next webinar will be on May

Nineteenth on new ideas for bike friendly communities and I just wanted to point out the webinars on May twenty-fifth in june seventeenth on these were recently added so if the revitalized Chesapeake Bay rest rest eration program or the planning for regional innovation clusters interest you I’m you’ll be able to register for

These webinars at wwu ta PA org slash webcast and you will also be able to find the complete 2011 series I’m to log your steam credits for attending today’s session you will need to go to ww planning org slash CM select activities by day and then underneath Friday May

Thirteenth you will see secrets to improve client consultant relations and then we are also recording today’s session so you’ll be able to find a video recording and a PDF of today’s webinar at ww utah APA org slash webcast archive and this should be up by Monday

I would now like to hand it over to kk who will be introducing our speakers for today hi everyone thanks Cody I I wish we could see each other because I’m wondering how many of you are outside with your laptops this afternoon I am staying inside but we’ll have some fun

Anyway I’m kk Gerhardt fritz and I am the new chair of APA’s private practice division is because Cuddy said we are sponsoring the session today tell you a little bit about myself and then my co-presenters and then we’ll get rolling I’ve been a planner for over 25 years

Now and I’m a graduate of Ball State University’s College of Architecture and planning and I use School of Public and Environmental Affairs I have actually been one of those planners that it worked in just about every venue that I can I’ve spent half my career working or public sector or communities large and

Small I also left the public sector to work in the private sector as a consultant verse for a large firm that’s a nationwide firm and then I became a professor full-time at Ball State for a while and then went on to found my own planning consulting firm the planning

Workshop in Indianapolis and that’s what I’m doing now so I guess I have the ability to kind of look at things from several different perspectives that way my co-presenters today first of all duck up doug is a director at artisan mcgladrey and doug is one of those multi-talented planners that also not

Only has an aicp after his name but also is an appraiser and has the credentials to go with that and he at his job leads tax credit investment advisory services and he used to have his own firm so he has done the sole proprietor private practice piece from two thousand six to

Two thousand nine he was at a major firm leading their work and he has also done a lot of work over the years and other firms he has worked in the industry leading practice on behalf of investors in low income housing tax credits and has helped facilitate their work that way he comes

Out of Rutgers University where he got his undergraduate and he has a master’s in city and regional planning from Harbor and has been aicp since 1978 so he tops me in the experience I always like to point out if somebody i know is older than I am okay sorry about that

Doug joining us today is also Debra monk Berg Debra is a planner from the Seattle area and she also has experience in both the public and private sectors and for about 20 years now she’s been in private practice working in firms from very small to very large and she’s been a

Planner project manager branch leader and then recently Deborah took a step that many of us have done over the years and decided to jump off the deep end and has partnered with a colleague to open her own small planning and design firm which is called innova planning and

Design and their focus of their practices on comprehensive sub area planning environmental review Complete Streets and health impact assessments and I will tell you that all of our contact information is going to be available at the end of our presentation so you will be able to contact this

Later if you want to okay let’s go ahead and move on to our presentation folks what is this about today well the first thing you learn in the private sector when you become a consultant is that it’s really important to create and maintain good relations with your

Clients and as somebody who’s been on the client side of things i can tell you you figure that out pretty quickly too if we’ve got any of you out there that are in the public sector and are looking at it from that perspective the key to everything is having good relations and

How do you do that that’s what we’re going to talk a little bit about today okay next slide I’m going to put in a plug of course today join the private practice division because frankly what we are is a giant support group for each other we serve we

Have a newsletter you can talk to others about how you handle the situation it’s not a real threatening thing I don’t feel threatened if I’m talking to Doug or Debra and other parts of the country because they’re not in my market and I don’t have to worry about competing

Against them so it’s a great opportunity to to really get to know and have some support in what you’re doing for you practice cleaners out there in case you’re laughing at the sign this is an Indiana sign one of my colleagues down in Monroe County so this is the kind of

Thing we face sometimes in our communities all right next slide what we’re going to talk about today is the client life cycle and we’re going to go through how you start the relationship with the client how you grow that relationship and then how you end up creating the long-term relationship ok

I’m going to start out with how you start that relationship and one of the first things I heard when I went to work at the large consulting firm that I worked at was the thing that I think probably the rest of you had drilled into you over the years and it’s

Something we call the consultants litany that your project has to be on time on budget and completed to the client satisfaction as someone actually wrote that and there is a book that you can go to that has the site down there but it’s something that I think is then preach

For much longer than just that 1979 date that’s out there okay so let’s talk about the client satisfaction I am one of those people that thinks that you have to begin with the end in mind what is it that you’re trying to get at what is the end result and product so figure

Out first what the end product is and then you write the scope to get yourselves there and in that school you have to figure out what the steps are that you need to take to get there you scope it out step by painful steps sometimes they’re little baby steps but the more

You scope it out the more you talk about it the better off you are and then figure out what other things are going to have to happen and sometimes those are things that are out of the scope and out of your hands that you need to know

What those things are so that you get a realistic view of what’s going to happen and the process and the timetable and so forth okay next slide talking about being on time that’s a tough one sometimes because sometimes it is almost out of our hands as consultants how

Things work but it’s very important to know up front where the possible sticking points might be so what you do is you actually list out each task that you have in your scope of work and set that to a calendar and you identify how long that task is going to take and

Always overestimate instead of underestimate don’t promise something that you’re not going to be able to deliver on if you promised the client something and you put a realistic time frame on it and then you’re able to deliver it early that’s a great thing but if you promise them by a certain

Date and you know you’re not going to be able to meet that date and you give it to them late that’s never a good thing so always if you have to overestimate instead of underestimate the time it’s going to take and then identify which tasks have to happen before another task

And began and that connection is very important and knowing who’s in charge of making those tasks happen is also very important so again that you can identify where these crucial points in time are know that you’re going to have to give some special attention to making sure

You meet those target date so again this is an exercise that you should be doing on every project okay next slide all right so what happens if you’ve done this and then you don’t you you you know stoke the project you’ve taken all those tasks those steps put them on the

Calendar and you realize you don’t have enough time you know you’ve got it taking three years when it needs to happen in nine months how do you fix that well go back first of all and see which tasks you can you can start a little bit sooner can you pull them back

And start them sooner and therefore maybe make them finish a little bit sooner you may have multiple tasks going at once if you do that but it may be necessary for your timetable you also need to think about which tasks you have control of those are really the ones

That you know you’re going to be able to tighten up again if it’s something that’s out of your control if it’s in the clients hand if it’s a public hearing task that has to happen at a certain time because they always need the fourth Tuesday of the month that’s

Something that you can’t control so go back identify the task that you control figure out how you can tighten those up make sure that you allow enough time for the public input and this is one of my little specialist specialty niches in my consulting practice and this is something that agencies particularly

Teeth seem to underestimate how long it takes a really good good usable important public input make sure that you give people enough notice make sure that you give them enough time to review documents and so forth so as you’re trying to shorten up some of those tasks

Be careful that you don’t reduce the amount of time for public comment too much because it can really sometimes cross the line legally and even ethically if you don’t have enough time there for public input and then make sure that you have some buffer time at the end never ever ever promise

That a project will be adopted by a certain date what you need to say and I put this in my contracts is that when it’s actually adopted is up to the client I don’t control whether a plan commission meeting gets canceled because they don’t have a quorum so things like

That that are beyond your control don’t promise something there by a certain date do say I can have it ready for adoption by this state but don’t say it will be adopted by that date okay on to the next slide let’s go back and talk about the dollar sign a little bit again

The budget same kind of exercise we’re going to take each task that we have scoped out in our scope of work every little step that we take and we’re going to list that on the budget we’re going to figure out exactly which person or which category of employee is going to

Be working on that job and figure out how much time there is that you’re going to schedule how much time do they need to complete that task and that is a very important piece of this puzzle is realistically knowing how much time you’re going to spend on something if

You think it’s something that should take two hours but in reality it would take four hours for the engineers down the hallway to do it you need to know that now so you may have to do a little bit of homework to figure this out but

Very important that you get it right at the very beginning and that you know the rate that applies to the person who’s going to be working on the job what that how early rate is okay next slide this is just a little look at at the kind of table you’d be putting together

Most of you probably use something like that okay next slide we already mentioned then your next step would be assigning the hourly rate for each person and then here’s an important part figure the expenses that go with it certainly travel is becoming more expensive all the time gasoline in

Indiana today I drove past a station and it was for 19 a gallon so it’s very important that we put realistic expenses in there for our travel for printing for all those kinds of things that come up those add up very quickly make sure that

You figure that in add it all up and I often put then a little bit of a wiggle room in that budget certain percentage and sometimes that goes with you know if I know if I knew for example the postage was going to be raising again if I know

That a client tends to want a lot of extra things done then I will buffer that budget with a contingency amount okay on to the next one and then you’re going to plan how much time is going to be budgeted to complete the task and you’re going to let everyone on your

Team know you have four hours budgeted for this task don’t make it a mystery let them know how much time is expected for their completion okay next slide so what’s the theme we’ve heard here you’re never going to have enough time or money to spend one of the reason that i have

My own consulting business is that sometimes I like to keep working on a project even I have even though i have no more budget left and you can do that with a large firm and that’s not a realistic attitude but sometimes there’s just a little something extra that i

Want to do and if that’s how you are then you need to be willing to do that on your own dime but you set the standards for what’s needed and you follow that scope of work figure out what’s in it and make sure you have the time and money you

Need to complete what’s in that scope of work then you need to make sure that the client understands what kind of changes would become part of contract negotiation where are the task and expenses in those charts that you’ve laid out where you think the client might be willing to absorb some changes

And where they may not be willing to absorb some changes you know for example if you have the client that is needing to make extra copies because your meetings are drawing more people than they’re expecting that’s usually something that a client is going to be willing to pay for is the extra copies

That you have to make so that everybody can see what’s being proposed but if you decide you want to fly to Timbuktu to see an example of a project that might help you on this one they may not be willing to support that so figure those things out ahead of time have an

Understanding and then again go back look at what that end expectation is and make sure you’ve got the budget in place both for time and money to do what you need to do to produce that end result the client wants okay next slide okay so that is how we start the relationship

And I am going to pass it off to the next step now and we’re going to find out how to grow that relationship okay thank you very much kk this is deborah monk berg and i’m going to share a couple of topics related to communication and then more specifically

To scope management and i wanted to start out with this quote at the top of the headline at the top of this slide which looks a little negative how to keep winning the project from being the first step toward losing the client and the reason i put that there was

Just a reminder to us as we’re starting here that you know hiring a service provider consultant as we are is very different than going out and buying a commodity like going out and buying a cell phone you can hold it you can see it you understand it expectations you

Know what to expect from at you perhaps compared it it’s a very tangible concrete purchase purchasing services are very different and I think it’s a matter of recognizing that the client is taking a leap of faith when they buy the service they don’t necessarily know the

Outcome and really our role as a service provider is to establish a good relationship with the client so that they don’t feel the need to look look in another direction and I guess I just wanted to compare that to any of the services that any of us you know acquire

Anything from you know getting your hair cut to going to the dentist to hiring an accountant to do your taxes i know that i have often changed service providers for those kinds of services when I haven’t been satisfied or they haven’t met my expectations and again our role

Is to sort of build that relationship as we’re starting out with the client now I’m going to talk a little bit about scope management as well so I wanted to start out by talking about communication and really emphasizing that this is a completely fundamental essential skill for any successful consultancy practice

And I don’t want to sound too melodramatic or too over the top but I think it is a process that is always has a high potential for mishap and is fraught with peril in terms of making sure that everyone is on the same page all this and I really like that first

Quote that you see there which you know the problem with communication is the illusion that it has happened I think that is captures the issue in a nutshell the second quote there I just wanted to take our time is spent in communication making sure that our client understands

Our direction making sure that our project team understands our direction and they were all moving forward together it is a really fundamental key skill and it’s a little bit soft and squishy and sometimes hard to wrap your arms around oh you’re just starting out with a client I think it’s really

Important to be aware of that need to establish excuse me good open communications so getting off to a good start just a few thoughts one is to remember again that the client has taken a leap of faith with you and to really thank them to thank them for having

Confidence in you even though the outcome is uncertain taking that leap of faith with you remind them that you are committed to their success and to request open communication throughout the project I’ve consistently sent thank you notes to clients whenever we win a project for the past several years and

Have you know at the very least to give just a really nice positive energy at the beginning and at the most you get this nice opportunity to kind of start out with open communication and continue that through second is to really avoid over-promising what you can do when

We’re in the process of trying to win a project it’s very tempting to promise all kinds of new and interesting and exciting parts that you can bring to the project and skills and as kk was just going through it’s a really a matter of fitting all that back into the budget

And making sure that being out with a good understanding of what you are doing and what you’re not doing so that they are not disappointed and you are meeting their expectations throughout the project sharing your successes when a project is running very smoothly the client may not really know what’s going

On it may be humming along very nice and smooth and you may be beating deadlines you may be saving money here and there it’s really good to share those kinds of successes with your client let them know hey we’re you know a couple weeks ahead of schedule on this so that here’s the

Ramifications of that or we’ve saved a few thousand dollars on whichever task and we may have some opportunity to provide some additional benefit to this project share those successes with your clients so they understand the value that you’re bringing and then stay present with them again a service is not

Like a product they’re not picking up the cell phone every day they’re not picking up your project every day and seeing it and reminding themselves of that success so it’s just a present them stay in touch as the project ends and make sure that the value of your

Service that you can provide to them is not forgotten I wanted to talk a little bit about this book some of you may have read it I read this about a year ago it’s called getting naked a business fable about shedding the three fears but sabotage client loyalty by Patrick

Lencioni he typically some of you may have read other books by him he writes fairly short books that are quick leads excuse me they are they are told in the form of a story and then he comes back and sort of highlights the high points and I’m going to just highlight the high

Points at this point his premise is that as a consultant we need to be completely selfless and focused on our client success and that in so doing you get ultimate loyalty from your client excuse me so he talks about some of the fears that heap consultants from achieving

That kind of complete loyalty and kind of oneness with their client fear of losing the business fear being embarrassed and fear of feeling inferior and I just wanted to touch on each of those so fear of losing the business some of the conventional wisdom is that

You can maybe tell your client a little bit maybe tantalize them with what you can do for them get them intrigued get them interested and that’s a way to sell yourself and sell your business and that if you sort of reveal everything to them you’ll giving them the skills to go do

The work and it may not be in your own interest the approach that mr. lencioni recommends is that we always approach our clients consulting instead of selling and that regardless of whether we’re under contract or not we are working as though we are consulting with them and we just start serving them

Immediately and that sometimes that does mean that they will may walk away and do the work themselves but that ninety-nine percent of the time they will come back to you because they respect what you’ve done and will seek your expertise and what you’re doing and I have an example

Of doing that in in Washington there’s a particular path in environmental review that’s provided to local governments it’s a little bit a little bit unique and a little bit a little bit like a black box too many jurisdictions there’s a lot of interest because it’s related to economic development and in going out

And talking two jurisdictions about that i have actually a few years ago created sort of a notebook that is basically a step-by-step guide for how you go through this process shows work examples it shows sample ordinances it shows sample public meeting materials it’s a about a two inch binder that i’ve taken

Around to different clients to show them and actually given them binder as part of the discussion and I think there’s been one instance where somebody took that and tried to replicate it themselves as opposed to working with us but in every other instance it’s probably 10 plus we have ended up

Working with that client and doing that work which we showed them pretty transparently what we were going to do and really how they could have done it had they been interested themselves so fear losing the business the premise is that if you’re truly consulting and looking for your clients interests at

The outset the business will come your way fear of being embarrassed the thought here is that if you are part of a team and you are truly interested in getting all the ideas out on the table that you will not be concerned about asked you won’t filter yourself

Essentially you won’t ask the question that you think might be the dumb question you won’t be concerned about not having all the answers immediately you won’t be concerned about throwing out ideas that may not be you know in your own head as you’re thinking of them

Maybe this is a perfect idea let me think about it a little more instead you’ll just kind of get all the ideas out there and let the client and you kind of work on things and do brainstorming together to ultimately get to a better product so the thought the

Goal here is to be less concerned about your own sense of sort of personal pride and professional skills and be more concerned about making sure the project is moving forward it’s a little bit about being vulnerable and willing to kind of go out there on the lam with the client

And then the third item is the fear feeling inferior and here the concept again is I’m guessing that many of us as consultants have had the experience of standing up in front of a city council or a public meeting and really kind of providing a cover taking a bullet for

The client and doing that in a way that is graceful for the client and is dignified and is responsive to the situation acknowledging mistakes if mistakes were happening you know occurred and sort of taking the brunt of the feedback in that situation as well as being willing to kind of do the full

Range of the work you know in a public meeting there’s everything from big picture concept of what are we trying to achieve how we’re going to do that what’s the format how we’re going to address questions all the way down to are the chairs set up correctly and who

Got the coffee and the cookies to make sure people feel welcome and as a consultant if you’re really interested in as part of the team making sure that the project is successful we can operate up and down that entire scale of services making sure that the project is

Successful is the bottom line so those are kind of the three key points that he addresses and and the objective here is to have I think an honest and human relationship with your clients so that they see you as a trusted member of your team and not an outsider looking in and

That I taking the risk of losing the business by sharing with them everything that you can provide to the project or perhaps sharing with them bad news or sharing some challenge that you see with a project that they may not see by being willing to go out on a limb and suggest

Ideas or acknowledge things that you don’t quite understand and you may find out that the client doesn’t either or by willing being willing to kind of be their shield and either cover for them those are all ways that they’re those are all ways that the client can see

That you are part of their team and very loyal to their team so those are kinds of sort of three areas of communication to touch on and then I wanted to talk a little bit about scope creep I have a colleague who says that he loves scope creep because it’s a demonstration that

The client likes the work that you’re doing and wants more from you I think to some extent that’s true and the issue is not that your scope is getting bigger the issue here really is expansion of the scope without any real management or a tie back into your budget and your

Schedule scope creep when it happens in an unmanaged way is really a major reason why projects fail and in feedback I’ve heard from clients a major reason why they’ve had issues with consultants project surprises late in the game deadlines that don’t get net unexpected requests for additional funding or all

Things that are detrimental and can really damage your relationship with your client so why does it occur typically scope creep happens in sort of a death by a thousand cuts it can happen for a lot of reasons it’s usually very small changes that happen and you may

Think there’s the one small change and it’s not going to make too big of a difference how are those due pile up over time and you ultimately looking at sort of a larger change there could be lack of clarity and detail in the original scope kk top excuse me quite a

Bit about putting detail and being very specific and clear in your scoping your budget what you’re doing what the clients doing and how much of all that’s happening how many meetings how many deliverables what kind of turnaround in terms of review time all of those kind of various specific nitty gritty details

Get written down at the beginning it helps kind of define whether or not the scope is even expanding or creepy I think there’s also a tendency on the part of consultants in service providers to really want to please the client in to do well and it gets in I know I’ve

Had this issue it gets in with your own personal crime I think I can handle it i think i can make this happen and before you know it you’re in a situation where you’re struggling a little bit to kind of keeps everything contained within the scope and a budget and again it’s not

Necessarily a bad thing on often it can’t be avoided political conditions change funding changes schedules change all sorts of things can happen differently than we’re anticipated at the outset and the idea here is not to become very rigid with your scope or not allow any change its really to be aware

Of it and provide for adaptive management for skills so how do you control it skk said at the outset really getting into a lot of detail and a lot of specificity at the beginning about how things are going to be done what the tasks are ours deliverables how many

People in attendance at meetings all of that to the extent that it can need to find that the outset really does anticipate and help minimize potential for unmanaged scope creep assess the impact keep your head up as project manager it’s really your job to kind of

Be sort of scanning the horizon out into the future and really keeping your head up as to what what is the likely impact of changes as you’re moving through the project and these last two bullets relate to having a good man a good relationship with your client and being

Again being able to be honest and share your true feelings about what’s happening and providing for the best of the project so more specifically ways to think about managing scope is as you do a project kickoff meeting at the very beginning with your client discuss the potential for scope changes at that

Point before they’ve even happened how do we want to handle this what happens when there are changes and we want to talk about how to incorporate those into our scope and budget set up that process before the issues even happened and you’ve got something to fall back on

When they start to happen some ideas I’ve had clients who just want to be notified via email so that they can say yes or no for a particularly large project where we have a lot of flexibility between tasks we set up this out of scope log where we defined what

The APIs coped asked was why it was needed and what the hours were required we kept that log it got signed off by the consultant Pam and by the client Pam and we kept a running tally of what those items were so that when we got to the

End if we needed an augment we had a very clear track record of where we were and what had happened on fire and again the project manager at times especially in larger firms there’s a lot of people in and out of projects the project manager should always be involved in

Aware of changes to your silk’n budget and then with this last slide I just wanted to touch on some concepts related to problem solving and there’s there’s three here the first is the Godzilla principle and that is again as a project manager kind of keeping your head up and

Seeing the little baby monsters a little baby lizards out there that you can handle easily at the outset and without waiting until they become the giant monster that’s kind of trumping around and stopping on your object the second is the triple constraints and that’s thinking about does this problem does it

Impact the quality of my work does it impact the schedule that I’m operating under or does it impact the overall cost of this project if it doesn’t affect any of those three it may not be a problem for your project maybe some other kind of irritation or you can appeal from a

Project perspective may be fine and then the last is pop up principal so the concept here it’s also kind of think of it as the whack-a-mole principle as you adjust or make changes what unintended consequences might pop up a sub-project for example I started a project last

Year right about November and we had a deadline to get something adopted this fall because it was november and the holidays are upon us we decided to push out a public outreach and public involvement and needed to kick off off the project until January and really

Needed to think through a lot of detail what kind of impact that had for the local jurisdiction that was trying to hit a particular deadline in all and sort of captured out a similarly another project we had a transportation analysis that ended up taking an extra

Four weeks or so to get complete and that was fine except that it had some ramifications to look at your quality analysis that needed to be based on that data so just kind of thinking through those interconnections and relationships to make sure you’ve addressed unintended consequences as you move following so

That’s kind of a quick overview at this point we’re going to move to the third leg of the stool which is creating a long-term relationship thank you good okay if we can go to the next slide and the next slide all right so you see up there the bullet point says the customer

Is always right for how can that be true it’s actually something I learned very early in my life my dad was an electrician and time around the age of five he used to wake us up early on Saturday mornings and drag us along on his jobs and we very early on recognized

That it was a tremendous opportunity not only to earn a few bucks but to learn how the world works my father was an electrician and one of the first things first jobs I went on with him he was spending some time with a customer who

Wanted to put a light in their room they had to get the wire from the wall up to the ceiling the entire wall was cement how do you do that and the customer kept saying just string a wire and tape it to the wall well my dad would say you can’t

Do that you have to put wiremold or you have to put it in a pipe otherwise you wait fraid of wire and the house may burn down well it actually seen situations where my father had to face this a couple of times and one customer kept saying no no no do with the

Expensive way we’re not going to pay more and my father would leave dad yes I’m I’m having someone asked me if you could speak up just a little bit more okay thank you I just turn the sound up is that better yeah I think that sounds better so the customer kept insisting

That no we’re not going to spend the money for the pipe so my father said okay you’re right I’m wrong I’m not going to do the work for you and we moved on and there have been other situations where my father was able to convert your customer and make them

Understand that we really don’t want to burn your house down so we’re going to spend a little more money and do it the right way so how do you really discern when look what the customer needs really need to listen listen closely we’re trying to build a long-term relationship

Here we really have to make them understand that we want to hear their needs first of all and then secondly really understand the problem the guy buys please yes still having some problems out here if you could maybe a little closer to the speaker and max

Your sound out okay next all right okay let’s try that thank you okay we mentioned a couple of times Devon ke ke mentioned the idea of a defining the scope of work defining a problem this is the situation where the client really knows better you come into a situation

We don’t really know what the problem is so you have to listen and ask questions and really pry the next step is you really get the client to accept it in a challenge of defining the problem clearly and then your job is to define

What your role is and to come up with a solution it’s a very distinct step you just don’t jump to an assumption that we all agree with the problem it’s as a poll lucena does we development a block in a community with a wide variety non-conforming uses developed altered and adaptively used

Over the years so maybe what we define here is a non-conforming use problem perhaps we need to rezone and think how the the community wants to consider the land development patterns or maybe they are simply non-conforming relative to the logical evolution at the pattern of revitalization in that community and

Maybe only non-conforming in the context of the older zoning code next slide please so what the advisor knows better is a technical aspect we have a diverse and deep cool tool kit and you should make use of it completely we also are able to do what I call a contribution

Efficiency we understand very clearly administrative codes legal precedent we are able to solicit input see constructive criticism and create dialogue in order to understand the problem deeper so in the example I just gave before you have an ability to discern the pattern of land-use development in that particular block and

Understand how the utility of the uses how the utility of the uses are applicable to the neighborhood and how it works now we can sometimes do this sort of analysis quicker because of our own experience that’s our contribution efficiency in the sense that we’ve been to a number of communities we might have

Seen 37 other blocks like this and although we won’t be prejudiced or think immediately that we know what what the situation is in some cases we can apply our toolkit a lot more selective and efficient manner but we still need to listen our training citizen participation is for a reason fairly

Representative dialogue can bring out optimum perspectives next slide please so to repeat the customer is always right the advisor has a better sense of what the comprehensive nature of the problem is very often there’s an overlap with other client issues or solutions and impact with the larger system so you

Can’t suggest a single solution that then creates another problem in some cases we’re alone in this perspective especially if you’re dealing in my instance the example I gave where you’re talking about a single block and in the context of the neighborhood and a larger community we are also we also have to be

Cost-efficient we call with Deb and kk also spoke about that there’s never enough time or dollars however we have to balance the benefit the dollar benefit with the solution options and we never assume that the rules that the dollars rule the clients perspective completely very often especially as

Private point as as consultants you can get into situations where we actually create a phasing situation so we have bid on an assignment and we’ve got a circus scope for the Saudi key and we see that the scope and female the scope may be expanding perhaps what we will do

Is propose a crazy situation so the client doesn’t have to bite out as much all in one time next slide please so on this slide you see what the advisor should know better you see the Venn diagram has two circles and in the one circle saying ethical considerations and

The second thin client solutions if you think about my wire rolled my arm old example where the client wanted to just put bare wire on the walls that would kind of fall in the right side of the client solution bubble and would not be the intersecting part of the Venn

Diagram or ethical considerations jive with the client solutions I’ve never had to make a hard decision on ethics alone however the right business decision is always the place where solutions and ethics intersect you’re entirely in the red you are spending your wheels on high in the sky types of considerations and

If you’re entirely in the blue you’re confronted with people tation we probably buy in problems later on next slide please again let’s continue with the theme the customer’s always right keep an eye on the contract and the budget it’s a thread throughout the relationship if you’ve written out

The scope correctly then you should be able to refer back to it and see where you have to check when your especially when you are working in a situation where you have more than one client where you’re involved perhaps in a citizen participation situation or perhaps you’re working with the

Community panel you have to listen take criticism and let bounce right off sometimes the team needs to cool off maybe to defer delay a conclusion and set a future date for resolution client satisfaction is always more important than maintaining the schedule always kk mentioned that one of the crew tenants a

Good service is maintaining a schedule I’m not saying that scheduled maintenance is not important but if you get to a situation where you are not satisfying the client’s needs and perhaps you have to go back and talk to them about changing the schedule but perhaps about real altering the scope

Next slide please face-to-face communications is always important oh there’s been a tendency in the last few years with an over-reliance on email it’s good to keep your client in touch with continual emails about where you are but frequent phone calls are also possible I have one friend who has a

Consistent control market analysis report that they do in two hundred pages even their executive summary is overwhelming but they are you also creates a YouTube video and he sends that as an executive summary to his clients and its clients really appreciate it because it helps them understand what he can

Citizen living by the personal contact they get through the video next slide please measuring success obviously a lot of this is very straightforward the metric seems simple and consistent repeat work referrals examples if you are in a tour three-phase project and all of a sudden you jump to the fourth

And fifth phase then you satisfied the client’s needs it’s always more profitable main clients maintain clients than to win new ones I had a boss functions that handed me a non-profit client he was two years in the business and was a fairly new community development corporation because he knew

He could not make big dollars off of them he handed the assignment over to me it was early in my career but in a year and a half i evaded about 120,000 dollars with his client by doing a four to five paid phase project and satisfying their needs in terms of

Getting them additional money satisfying some of the community goals that day in it identified and also identifying a creating greater exposure for them in the community next slide please okay Devin kk both referenced some great sources you see the source that I’m referencing here it’s called making rain

The secrets of building a lifelong client loyalty there’s a number of self-help books out there and good business consulting books this is one of the ones that really struck a tone with me and it has a lot to do with a high sense of ethics and a high sense of

Customer service that Andrew presents in the book he said he identifies three potential advisor roles one is an expert for a higher as technicians we have the knowledge to provide information to our clients very well that’s the first rule the second role would be as a steady

Supplier so we’ve been able to provide this technical assistance to clients and they trust that we know what we’re talking about so they come back to us but what we really would ascribe ascribed to is becoming an extraordinary advisor that’s someone who apply constantly turns to because they trust them be honest

Thorough and also an extra next slide please Andrew identifies three main drivers of client loyal loyalty the value-add the degree of trust you develop and the extra mile you’re willing to go next slide identify seven attributes that differentiate the extraordinary advisor from the expert for hire or in a steady supplier one is

Selfless independence obviously this means an unbiased perspective you bring your technical know-how but you also bring a sense you know what the difference is between like log then when confronted with ethical considerations with conflicts you always fall on the right side the second aspect is empathy really being able to discern what your

Clients needs are again by those 3 l’s listening listening listening and also turning it back to your client and making them feel that you know how they feel the third thing is obviously a knowledge get a depth of knowledge and the breadth of knowledge he calls it the

Deep gentlest or the Chicago snowstorm test if you just picture for a moment that you’re on a cross-country trip to the client and you get abandoned at O’Hare Airport which happens to a lot of us in the winter and your plane is delayed for four to six hours how can

You spend time with that client we be able to not just entertain them but enjoy your time with that client it’s obviously having not only and understand of your area your area of interest or your specialty but also being able to have a large larger world knowledge next

Slide please the fourth aspect is synthesis or big-picture thinking it’s exactly what it says in the example I gave you before about the block and that has an evolving land-use pattern the thought is that you just don’t think about that block but maybe you thought about think about the contiguous blocks

If the land uses are changing in that one particular block how is it affecting the other blocks maybe your block is becoming the commercial center over a revolving period of time fifth thing that Andrew talks about is judgment being able to actually judge what is right and wrong and assist the client in

Making decisions the six thing conviction goes hand-in-hand with judgment the conviction has to be not only born of the technical expertise but also of a strong ethical consideration the strong understanding of blood is right in that larger context he emphasizes that integrity builds trust a continual strong relationship of the

Client where you are honest with them in all aspects of not only administering the engagement and the assignment but of also how your delivery services really creates a situation where the client trusts you now and will continue to hire you and build a long-term relationship next slide

So what’s the point now who can wrap up our three presentations and begin to think about taking questions all right I’m going to jump back in and and just kind of remind you about those different steps that we had in our relationships and and by the way I hope some of you

Are realizing based on some of the books that Deborah and Doug told you about today that we as planners need to read beyond what’s uh what’s on sale through a PA there’s a lot we can learn from the business world so I think we all need to

Keep up on those practices too but again the three steps in that client consultant relationship we talked about first of all is starting the relationship trying to maintain and create a good relation with clients and i will tell you from my perspective and I think Deborah and Doug share these the

Best client is a repeat client if you do a good job if you make your client happy if you get to the end goal that they have set then it’s wonderful to have them come back to you for more work it takes a lot less marketing you already

Know each other you know what the expectations are so starting that relationship and keeping it up is so important starting that relationship we talked about planning with having a very good scope budget and schedule and learning to maintain that relationship ok next slide and then Deborah talked about the client lifecycle you might

Remember this because she mentioned getting naked some of you who were napping might have woke up at that point but she talked a lot about how you administer a really good project and how you avoid losing the client she talked about scope creep in some of those kind

Of dangers that pop up and then Doug wrapped up by telling us about the last step in that three-part cycle and that’s assuring client loyalty and repeat work again that’s so important and his themes were that the customer is always right and that we want to strive to become the

Extraordinary advisor that’s the role that we want as a consultant okay next slide we are ready for some questions and I’ve got a couple that have come in let me throw the first one out Deborah and ugh the first question we got was in my experience working in the public

Sector it seems many consultants are extremely gung-ho trying to get a job but that the excitement then tapers off throughout the project for whatever reason what are the most common criticisms you hear from your public sector clients is that something that that you’ve experienced I guess would be

You know first of all can any OS admit to being really gung-ho on a project and then having that excitement taper off and is that something you’ve heard from your clients before and how do you deal with that Deborah done hmm I mean I’ll jump in and all say i have had projects

That i was very excited about and then once i got involved in them you know met some kind of difficult politician or you know something like that that just kind of sucked the fun out of it so we as consultants are human sometimes a project that we think is going to be a

Great project as more thorns than we anticipated and we may not be showing up at a meeting going yay rah yay rah and if we are that transparent shame on us what we ought to be doing is again it’s not all about us we ought to be thinking

About how this impacts and how we can keep them excited about it when I do claim Commission training I tell the Planning Commission’s I work with that their role is to go out and be a cheerleader or a missionary in their community about planning and that’s really kind of a

Role that a consultant has to when it relates to the project it’s it’s up to us to help keep that enthusiasm going and so we need to monitor ourselves and make sure that that’s not waning Doug Debra you have any comments on that yeah

I could just jump in and say that one of the things that drives my own enthusiasm for projects and I guess I’ll maybe step back one step further and say that as a consultant I don’t really want to go after any project unless I feel like I

Am excited about it and have something to offer and can bring a lot of enthusiasm and energy access I think that is part of our role what dampens that sometimes for me is the relationship and the roles between the consultant and the client and there are times when you’re really working in

Partnership with your client in here have both generating ideas and you’re both kind of NSYNC and moving it forward and then there are other times when perhaps the client just need you as a technician I just need you to do XYZ analysis and I think for me anyway that

Becomes more of a mechanical exercising you do the best you can with the technical work and give them high quality work but that ability to sustain a lot a lot of excitement about what kind of contribution the project is going to make to the community is less

And I feel in those cases it’s a little bit more of a commodity and less of a real consulting relationship and service and that that for me is the difference in terms of the level of energy that comes into a project I think that I what

I could add is if you go back to my slides the seven points that Andrew soval made the third one who made was that knowledge depth and breadth and really the consultant should have a sense of wonder or a sense of wanting to go on this voyage of discovery trying to

Define the problem trying to come up with solutions and I think for public sector clients when if you’re sending out our peaceful instance very often you are he will be answered by a slew of potential consultants when you go into the interview process try to discern whether they have that sense of wonder

That sense of you know desire to go through the discovery or if they’re just in it for the time and money that’s involved and I think you pick up those sort of passionate points with some key questions and some really good energy techniques okay let’s move on we’ve got

Several other questions coming in and I want to make sure we answer as many of them as we can our next one is can we talk more about what is actually the opposite of scope creep and that’s when the scope is clear and precisely written and the consultant agrees to it and then

You realize they didn’t understand how big the project is there’s not enough money to pay for it all and in this case there’s no opportunity for additional funding it’s especially hard as the consultant is a professional friend who that that deutsche ardor in those kind of situations so what we’ve got here is

That the scope is clear it’s precisely written we agree to it but it’s a funding issue they want apparently the moon but they can only pay for a little piece of cheese so how do we handle those situations when we run into those with clients that’s kind of the story of

Things these days isn’t it it seems like every project is like that right now yeah huge expectations and very limited budget and I think I’ll just toss out what I have done in the past on that is as we’re preparing the scope and the budget we’re talking to the client as

We’re doing that and recognizing that it can’t all fit and seeing where it makes sense for us to share our roles and share work so perhaps the client takes over one being piece of the project like the public outreach or they do all the printing work or you know whatever makes

The most sense for the project in some cases I’ve given clients a template for the document for example and some examples and said you know here you go we’ll go ahead and kind of get it into first cut shape for you and then the city can

Finish it out but I think again it gets back to having that relationship I agree that it’s tougher when it’s a personal friend as well but to be able to trust yourself and your client enough to be honest with them and to think about the overall success that you want the

Project to be in the overall benefit to the project that having this conversation early on wall bear for you yeah and any of you that are in the public sector out there when you have a client who asks you what is the budget for this project um it’s often so we can

Help you tailor realistically what you can get for that it’s not that we’re after every penny but it’s so that we can put a scope together that actually matches what you can realistically do so try to work with us on that if you would okay let’s tackle another question guys

We hired a team to assist us and this is somebody from the low local government agency with a code project one firm one part of the team was outstanding to other parts of the team were weak the principal firm was okay so we had a team that had one outstanding firm two-week

Firms and the main firm that was simply okay and this person wants to know should we tell them our honest thoughts obviously politely and professionally and I’ll start off by saying yes we always want to know that if even if I’m the one that’s not getting the

Outstanding rating I still want to know what it was that that went wrong so I can try to fit that fix that what that perception is and also if it’s somebody that I’m putting on my team that I think is doing things well but is really not having good interactions with clio sore

We want to know that too Doug Debra any thoughts on that one I would just did oh that and also say that that feedback of whether you’re doing poorly or well it great if it could come in real time as things are happening because you can sometimes adjust and make things better

As you move forward agreed okay good well let’s see what some other questions are that we’ve got here okay is it appropriate for consultant to ask for a recommendation on a project that is just started or still in process so you know I just started work I haven’t completed

Anything yet but I’m working along and I’ve got a chance to go after another project can I ask that client for a recommendation and this is question coming from a public sector employee who said that started getting calls from their consultant for recommendations and they thought that maybe it was that they

Were busy looking for more work and not necessarily focusing on their project it’s kind of how it came across not Deborah what do you think of class I think communication I think he just tells you tell your consultant that you got this phone call and he try to

Discern you know what’s up I think you’d be frank about it that’s the way you feel I don’t have a problem with perhaps I would always ask a client before I would ask for a reference first of all so I wouldn’t get shocked by a phone call from the other potential customer

Yeah Angria it’s a little unusual to ask at the beginning of a project but definitely it’s the courtesy to call them and definitely worth a follow a question if it makes you uncomfortable okay and now this is an interesting when we talked a lot in our presentation about the importance of scoping out

Front and I’ve got someone who says that they work on smaller projects for a number of clients and they mostly are just somebody picking up the phone and saying please come in and fix this and it’s something that has a real quick turnaround like a

Week or so so they call this consult and say can you come in and fix this by next week and normally that consultant does not scope out the project but says that the projects do tend to pile up and wonders if scoping would help interesting any thoughts on that I was

Working at one point with the jurisdiction where we were doing we were doing something similar to that it was sort of a lot of short-term tasks in lead we developed a kind of a letter agreement that just sort of laid out about you know for those quick

Turnarounds here’s what we think this is going to cost here’s what we’re assuming and here’s you know the hours that were anticipating recognizing that you know you don’t want to necessarily develop a full full-on hardcore scope but at least have something down so that you can

Track what’s going on right and and I ran into this when I’ve done on call services in the past where you have a very fuzzy scope of work because you’re not sure what the client is going to want you to do and some clients frankly I felt comfortable enough with them to

Have a really fuzzy scope which would basically say I’ll do whatever they want me to do as long as they pay me kind of thing other clients I’ve not felt so comfortable and have wanted to put some kind of at least minimal kinds of things in that scope so that’s an interesting

Situation okk yeah what was it that made you less comfortable with some of those clients and one who that’s it that’s a good question Deborah it is in fact some of the things that we have talked about today knowing that it’s a client for example who was always expecting a lot

Of extra on the side would make me nervous a client where it wasn’t clear who really was calling the shots you know that that there wasn’t unidentified client project manager or client contact and so I was hearing different things from different people those kind of situations in my own paths have made me

A little hesitant about just blindly agreeing to go out and do whatever Thanks all right I’ll Kennedy having fun can I tell you sorry laughing I think as my presentation emphasized as a consultant we always have the right to say no so if you’re uncomfortable the consultant should be saying yo yeah and

That’s it’s hard to do in these economic times I have in the past occasionally said no I don’t want to be part of that team or no I really don’t feel comfortable working for that client I haven’t had that come up lately and and it’s harder to say no in these kind of

Times that sometimes you’re right to keep to your own set of ethics and to do what you need to do and be able with yourself in your mirror you do sometimes have to pass on a project and that’s a hard thing to do sometimes good point duh okay we’ve got another question that

Came in that says how do you manage working with a client when more than one consultants involved sometimes on a project federal agencies do this to help spread the work around and so how does that work and my big thing would be first of all there needs to be regular

Coordination and communications the right hand needs to know what the left hand is doing and if that means that there’s a an all consultant meeting once a month that that means that there is you know copies sent on all correspondence whatever it takes to make sure that the communication and the the

Coordination is in place is really important and I’ve been on many situations like that I’ve been on what i would call forced marriage projects where I’ve at a community that says we like you and we want you to work with this other agents are the other consulting agency and so they force us

To work together on a project when we’ve never worked together and both were hoping to get the project for ourselves so I’ve had to live through that and i found the importance of actually building that communication and that coordination and ending up being able to work with them again and

Building a good relationship out of all of it other thoughts on that something else that I’ve done in those situations is at the beginning of the project we’ve held what you just described kk kind of an all actually all client all consultant team kickoff meeting where we

Actually come to that meeting with a project charter that lays out really clearly for everybody here’s the scope here’s the schedule here’s the budget here’s all the different roles here’s our protocol for communication you know reiterating here’s the goals for this project and kind of just making sure

That at the very beginning there’s a very clear project charter for how everything is going to be run and being able to go back to that as the project progresses to make sure communication stays clear yeah I think that’s a great point and Anna just for your information

Kind of thing I always do a project kickoff meeting I just think they’re really important to do so that’s something that’s voice part of my scope is to do a project kickoff meeting okay see I’ve got why don’t we go down I don’t have any questions coming in right

Now let’s look at those scenarios debra if you could go down a couple more slides we’ll go back to our contact information Doug and Debra and I put together some time ago some scenarios and I think we’ve got time to maybe run through this let’s say that we are

Starting to establish this positive relationship with our client we’ve completed several small task you know on that we’ve identified in our scope of work and the client says hey why don’t you come in and and interview for some future on-call work which may or may not

Be released for others to do the same so you’re excited about that opportunity to come in ready to share your capabilities and then what happens the client shows up late they’re not organized spend time describing all their conflicts that they have and the challenges they’re arguing about what

They need and what the priorities are before you get a chance to say much suddenly the meetings over the client doesn’t have any more time that day although it’s it’s positive that they got all that out and discuss some of these internal conflicts that they have it was really an inconclusive meeting so

What should you do next is the question Doug or Deborah actually happened to me and it was a very weird situation we actually sat in the meeting for an hour and a half / half hour waiting for people to show up and then for about an hour basically nodding and listening to

Them as they kind of debated things amongst themselves and then they all left and it was this weird immeuble no do we do and ultimately what we did was call them back up again call our contact back up again and kind of talk with him over the phone about maybe breaking it

Down rather than kind of trying to cover all these broad topics trying to focus on but they’re hot couple highest priority tasks or and having a more focused beating on those which we ultimately did ok I think that’s that’s good i think if we want to work for them

Then it would help if we were proactive and help them get organized about what they needed and that would certainly reflect well on us by helping them do that that was actually our other questions ok was do we actually what these guys does a client to say wacky

That if i get a sad it brings up another topic and sometimes when I’m teaming with other consultants I go into a meeting and I just blows my mind when I do not see them taking notes so you start to see how that the meeting is evolving and some key points are being

Brought up and so if you suddenly run out of time and you taking all these notes then in essence the meeting hasn’t ended if you haven’t taken notes then you’re stuck so especially if you’re going into meetings and you have a full staff and maybe a junior employee with you

Designate someone who will definitely take notes and if you can ahead of time set them up with an outline I’ll look the key points are that you want to have them take notes on okay guys we’ve got some other questions that have come in

Now since I I said we were kind of slow on questions so let’s try to hit a couple of these during these tough economic times sort of consultant eat some of the costs to get an initial jobs in an insole job in hopes to get additional work in the future and I will

Start that off saying in Indiana times are still very tough here economically and there are firms I know that are doing planning work and not making a penny off of it they’re actually losing money just to keep some people on staff hoping that maybe what they’re doing may

Result in some engineering work down the road things like that so I know it’s happening in my market I have I’m a one-person firm I have done that myself where I have eaten some of the costs in order to make sure my client was really happy and kind of gone the extra mile

Sometimes too to make them happy so that they would want to hire me again and I have done that and that’s a freedom when you work for yourself that you can you can sometimes exercise it doesn’t help pay the bills immediately but it may pay off in the long run another folks your

Philosophy another thought is the term loss leader it’s sometimes lost things to get emphasized you can identify it as a strategic leader take it on another technique and this sounds deceptive but it’s not I call it the Trojan horse technique you want to work for that client for years

Once you get inside if you’re good and you provide good customer service then you may get the next assignment you may have you may be able to write the next RFP impact so again be strategic about it it’s not just in tough times it’s in good times too it’s the clients you want

To work with that perhaps you might give a discount to you I’m involved in a situation like that right now it doesn’t matter if you’re one person firm or a thousand person firm you can be very strategic about that okay here’s another one that should be fairly quick and easy

To answer which is how important is it for consultants to retain professional liability insurance even if construction is not involved and how is it best to negotiate ownership of documents i will start off and say that i do have professional liability insurance and i

Have it because I often work as a sub to larger firms that require it I have never had any of my public agencies require it it’s only been the large in our larger architecture and engineering firms that it required me to have it and

I will tell you that when I got it I shopped around quite a bit and saw a huge difference in the prices so make sure if you’re going to do that that you do some shopping around Doug Deborah can I can echo that and say that in Washington it’s typically required by

The local jurisdiction so even for straight planning projects and so yes we have that and echo the shop around I think it’s been a hard sometimes for the insurance company is to define what a planning work is and so you get really wide variation on cost and it’s what

I’ve touch on the document question in in my perspective it’s always the clients document regardless okay and let’s see there was oh there was another piece of that question we didn’t get to which was how is it best to negotiate ownership of documents and i’m not sure i’m quite understanding

That when i do something for a client it is always very clear in my contract that that work belongs to that client that’s part of what they’re paying for is to get that and they have the right to take it put it on if reproduce it I give them

Electronic files you know whatever they want to do with it it’s their work that I’m producing for them under contract and I’m not sure if that’s what we’re talking yeah and I think an extension of that connects to the liability issue also is the client owns the document but

They are restricted in extending the use of that document to other entities so that you don’t have other core of both clients relying on their document and you did not have a contract with them in other words your scope of work and their expectations were not given directly to

You so I would want to limit you know how they extend the use of those documents but the other thing is that the client always owns the deliverables but we always own our work papers so they don’t have the rights to our software they don’t have the likes to

See our work papers in all instances that’s what a distinction that has to be made again in connection with that liability issue okay good um I got someone here who says that they are consider themselves a technical consultant they prepare mailing list and notices for applicants that won approval

Of land use petitions and wondered if they’ve got if we have any suggestions for them about how to promote their consulting business so they look at newsletters blanket emails web pages etc you might be good at addressing this because I know you just stepped out on

Your own what kinds of things are you doing to market your new firm well the things that we’re doing right now more than going to we’re mostly public sector as primarily our clients but rather than going to the public sectors we’re actually talking to other consultants

Looking at other firms and finding out a lot more about the kind of services that they provide and what their needs are and i have found for our work that’s been a really successful Avenue into new client relationships because lots you know everyone has different relationships all over kind of the

Avenue here and you can by connecting with your professional peers you can sort of get entre into meeting other clients and expanding your own relationships as well ok I would yeah and I would say take advantage of social media it is it’s cheap I am jumping off

On the Facebook end right now anybody feels we need to friend me on Facebook I haven’t done it from my firm yet but doing it personally and I think I will end up doing it for my firm I don’t have as a sole proprietor a lot of money to

Spend on on big ads and things like that so I rely a lot on networking you know going to the conference meeting people those kind of things that are very important ok we’ve got some other questions here one says we have consultants that respond to an RFP that

Has multiple components by choosing some components and assigning other components to a contractor that was after we held an open meeting to discuss the RFP and answer questions from bidders no bidders indicated that the funding was insufficient can you comment on the one or two firms who respond to

The RFP in this way and they went on to say that those two firms did not get the job so what they’re saying is that an RFP came out there were multiple pieces and they had some people that responded to only certain pieces not the whole thing have we done that is that

Something that’s kosher to do diagur Deborah yet what to start off the conversation I’ve been doing this for 30 years and I’ve never had expertise in any aspect of the business so often I collaborate and if you if the person writing the RFP did not expressly forbid subcontracting then I don’t I think

That’s very closer to do that I think you just look at the subcontractor is as another provider and make sure that they can provide the service and have that experience of that particular component so I wasn’t sure the question was they were non-responsive to certain pieces of

It or if that what does just described if it’s a multi-disciplinary team which is absolutely appropriate I would say if they’re non-responsive to certain pieces of it in the city is going to partly then me that’s a non-responsive proposal and afford a diamond to set it aside

Yeah yep ok good let me see if we’ve got any questions that have come in here okay your questions are coming in faster than I can handle them hardly almost that’s a good thing okay we’ve got one from someone who says that they are currently on assignment and part of what

Happens is the client calls a meeting and then another meeting and then another meeting that they’re required to attend and that these meetings have so much talking going on that they’re not productive they’re very time-consuming apparently it’s the client that facilitates these meetings how can you tell your client that it’s just not

Working that’s a good question so that the client themselves are not doing a good job they’ve hired you as a consultant how do you tell them they’re not really whatever they’re doing whether it’s their meetings or something else is just not working out any experience with that Duggar Deborah well

I mean I will admit to that I will I will admit to a couple times over the years pulling a client to the side and i will say that where I work it’s a very small market I we all know each other you know it’s a little bit incestuous

Sometimes in the Indiana and regional area that I work so a lot of these people I know on a friendly level because I’ve been on you know chapter boards with them things like that over the years and there have been a couple times where I’ve had to just pull them

To the side and say you know that just I don’t think that went over well and I think we need to put our heads together and figure out you know how we can make this meeting more productive and then we got more time to actually accomplish

Your goals that way and you know if you’d like i’d be happy to put the agenda together for the next meeting so by being proactive and offering you know pointing out to them that the time that you’re burning on these meetings is not really helping them reach their goal

Trying to say that in a way that doesn’t hurt their feelings but tells them that you’re willing to help them with this task might be a way to go dr. Debra have you ever been in that situation where a gender control yeah yeah I think it’s absolutely they come that’s it ok ok

Yanc we need a 10 if you want to finish that question you can I can just wait until you’re done I just was going to tag onto that and just say I think it’s a matter of being the kind of the kind providing the kind truth in the

Constructive solution was part of that I think then you really do in your job as consultants me that’s almost an essential piece of your job ok well with that I just want to thank you guys for giving today’s presentation and for those of you that are still in

Attendance I would just go over some quick reminders I’m to log your CM credits for attending today’s session please go to ww planning org slash cm select activities by day and then underneath today’s day I’m is underneath May thirteenth you will see secrets improve client consultant relations and

Then like I said before we are recording today’s session and so you’ll be able to find a video recording and a PDF of today’s webinar at ww Utah APA org webcast archive and this should be up by Monday and another thing um when I mentioned the upcoming webinar on june

Seventeenth I the link for this is for June tenth so this will be fixed and should be changed over the weekend so if you want to be registering for june seventeenth please hold out until over the weekend to make sure that you are registering for the correct webinar and with this i would

Not like to conclude today’s session thank you thank you thank you

ID: F3yYmV-Yq70
Time: 1344187641
Date: 2012-08-05 21:57:21
Duration: 01:31:52

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