Maintaining Client Focus

Good morning to the world, how are you today? Whilst working on personal self discipline and determination at the gym, (meaning actually getting there and training), I began thinking about a recent experience I had with a major client in the Medical Aesthetics Industry and how we could have done some things better. It was one of those things where working hard and driving the client wasn’t enough - we were helping him to reposition his brand and product ranges from the “cheap and cheerful”  market sector to “Premium”, but had uncovered some pretty serious internal issues that they needed to overcome.

Some of their staff just didn’t want to change.

Now this client is a big one, and we had some significant challenges in getting the transition to stick, and when training his staff in advanced sales skills you could see the variation in skill level and attitude.

So how do you play this one?

1. Do you go straight to the CEO with the cold hard truth?
2. Do you try to engage the staff and win them over to the new world order?
3. Do you not worry about it, as it’s their problem anyway?

I went with a combined strategy of 1 & 2, with the following plan;

1. CEO to present to the company on the new strategy and direction
2. Hold some local workshops and staff focus groups to understand the objections and capture some on the ground intelligence.

It worked in part, but my key realization in the gym was that my role as consultant was not to change my clients organization, but to provide the structure and environment for them to change themselves.

This is a huge project, covering everything from product portfolio to SEO and Social Media, and the client is learning more about themselves every day – and I am learning too.

So what were my key learnings, and how can you apply them?

1. Create the Project Plan assuming that your client is not expecting to be involved.

They have hired you to create and implement the plan, not for them to do it. This is fine, but needs to be explored up front and discussed as timelines will be very much extended. You will always need a senior member of your client organization as a sponsor and to help you with focus and implementation. It’s their project at the end of the day.

2. Engage the team.

Depending on the size of the project, engage the client organization by using key staff members as Team Leaders, responsible for organizing the local teams and collating feedback. Also, take them for lunch and brief on the project roles and responsibilities in a neutral venue. Very effective.

3. Communicate like you life depended on it.

Mainly because it does, your professional life anyway. People will use every excuse not to do something, and if you have not recorded the key actions, taken meeting minutes and actions, and distributed roles and responsibilities you will struggle to maintain accountability. With accountability comes action, with action comes progress.


Any Consultant who tells you that a project "will be seamless", and "we've seen all this before", is not being entirely honest. A Project has to have change as the outcome, and this is always a challenge.