sizes and across multiple industries. We have had the unique opportunity of working with eight of today’s top ten tech firms, and thirty-two of the Fortune 500 companies. Our clientele has been spread across the world – most of our recent work has been with clients across the Americas, Western Europe, and very recently South-East Asia. It is our great pleasure to be here today – thank you for considering us to assist you.”
Woody and his band of thugs looked flabbergasted and were at a total loss as to how to react to such a polished and suave introduction.
Martin flashed a slide containing logos of clients that they had worked with. “The logo colors look a little messed up on the wall, with all those stripes, but their shapes might look familiar.”
Martin tried adjusting the focus of the projector, but the images got worse. He gave up and continued with his talk.
He cursed himself for being lazy and not taking the customary color printout of the pitch the previous night. The production team in office had been off and Martin did not want to keep Anita waiting for some printouts that they most likely would not have needed. Thoughts of Anita’s black, cleavage-revealing dress from the previous night flashed back in his mind, but he quickly regained composure.
“Just to let you know upfront, we have not really worked in real estate before.”
Martin had learned to proactively admit to the known gaps in their presentation and provide a justification. This way the awkward point would not raise its ugly head at an inappropriate and unexpected moment later on during the meeting.
“But in our line of work, most of the skills and expertise we use and gain in our engagements are easily transferrable. Schneider has fifteen years of consulting experience and I have close to ten.”
Martin looked around to see if his audience of two was looking impressed with their credentials – they still looked totally lost. Joe was transfixed on the projected images, the zombie-like expression holding strong. Woody was looking amused, as if Martin was performing some stand-up comedy act. Except that this comedian’s material was dry and totally unfunny.
Years of training had conditioned Martin, like all good consultants, to constantly gauge his audience and change the agenda. Another trick was to continually engage them in a dialogue.
“I will skip the next few slides that show a few case studies of our earlier engagements, and come directly to the point. We normally use our company databases to try to gather more information about clients that we meet for the first time. Unfortunately, this time, we couldn’t locate much information about your organization. Could you please give us a brief overview of your company, and summarize the key issues that you are facing? What we were able to gather from our sources is that your company is into real estate. However, being a privately held firm, we were not able to gather much else from our in-house research. Once we start with a brief summary from you, I can certainly give you a quick roundup of the real estate market in LA across residential, commercial and industrial verticals,” Martin tried to show that they had done their homework despite the lack of public information.
Woody who was watching Martin’s monologue with both his hands clasped behind his head, leaned forward and kept his hands on the table.
“Yeah, you are right,” he said. “But we do not make much money from our real estate activities. In comparison, our other businesses are way better. Well, at least they used to be till some time back.”
Woody was finding it hard to understand anything Martin had said for the past few minutes and was wondering if all this was a big grand mistake.
“Other businesses?” Martin asked. The associates in his research team had obviously missed out some important data.
“Yup, drugs, weapons, porn, extortion, gambling, you know, things like that” Woody added in a
Woody and his band of thugs looked flabbergasted and were at a total loss as to how to react to such a polished and suave introduction.
Martin flashed a slide containing logos of clients that they had worked with. “The logo colors look a little messed up on the wall, with all those stripes, but their shapes might look familiar.”
Martin tried adjusting the focus of the projector, but the images got worse. He gave up and continued with his talk.
He cursed himself for being lazy and not taking the customary color printout of the pitch the previous night. The production team in office had been off and Martin did not want to keep Anita waiting for some printouts that they most likely would not have needed. Thoughts of Anita’s black, cleavage-revealing dress from the previous night flashed back in his mind, but he quickly regained composure.
“Just to let you know upfront, we have not really worked in real estate before.”
Martin had learned to proactively admit to the known gaps in their presentation and provide a justification. This way the awkward point would not raise its ugly head at an inappropriate and unexpected moment later on during the meeting.
“But in our line of work, most of the skills and expertise we use and gain in our engagements are easily transferrable. Schneider has fifteen years of consulting experience and I have close to ten.”
Martin looked around to see if his audience of two was looking impressed with their credentials – they still looked totally lost. Joe was transfixed on the projected images, the zombie-like expression holding strong. Woody was looking amused, as if Martin was performing some stand-up comedy act. Except that this comedian’s material was dry and totally unfunny.
Years of training had conditioned Martin, like all good consultants, to constantly gauge his audience and change the agenda. Another trick was to continually engage them in a dialogue.
“I will skip the next few slides that show a few case studies of our earlier engagements, and come directly to the point. We normally use our company databases to try to gather more information about clients that we meet for the first time. Unfortunately, this time, we couldn’t locate much information about your organization. Could you please give us a brief overview of your company, and summarize the key issues that you are facing? What we were able to gather from our sources is that your company is into real estate. However, being a privately held firm, we were not able to gather much else from our in-house research. Once we start with a brief summary from you, I can certainly give you a quick roundup of the real estate market in LA across residential, commercial and industrial verticals,” Martin tried to show that they had done their homework despite the lack of public information.
Woody who was watching Martin’s monologue with both his hands clasped behind his head, leaned forward and kept his hands on the table.
“Yeah, you are right,” he said. “But we do not make much money from our real estate activities. In comparison, our other businesses are way better. Well, at least they used to be till some time back.”
Woody was finding it hard to understand anything Martin had said for the past few minutes and was wondering if all this was a big grand mistake.
“Other businesses?” Martin asked. The associates in his research team had obviously missed out some important data.
“Yup, drugs, weapons, porn, extortion, gambling, you know, things like that” Woody added in a
Similar Books
