Honesty In Consulting

9 Jul

I spoke with a potential consulting client today about helping her use social media to launch her new book project. I had to be honest – some of the things she was looking for me to do were beyond my skillset.

I could have easily taken her money and wowed her with all my social media knowledge and experience.
I could have gotten her Twitter followers. I could have helped her launch a Facebook Fan page like I did at the Maryland Z00. I could have helped her create a great asset like a free whitepaper or report to gain tons of new email subscribers.

But her metrics were different. Her goal was to become a one-day best-selling author on Amazon.
She wasn’t interested in lots of Twitter followers – mass amounts of email subscribers – or  Facebook Fans as ends in themselves.

So I opted for honesty and let her know that this was beyond my skillset.
I don’t know how to make someone a best-selling author on Amazon. There I said it. Not that I’m not working at it – I am. But I am in the learning phase and not poised to use her or any other consulting client as a guinea pig. I told her this and she thanked me for my honesty.

Man it is hard to turn away business.

Could I have made her a best-selling author? Still not sure. Probably could – given intense learning and focus on my part. But I like to predict results when I work with people. Results = the yardstick I use to measure all my projects.

I could have dazzled her with all the social media marketing techniques. Her follower numbers would have been up and I could just blame something else for her low book sales. But I chose honesty instead.

So what about you? What would you have done?

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This site, Joel-Mark-Witt.com, is where I ask questions while standing at the intersection of social media, podcasting, online video, marketing, PR, storytelling, life and leadership…. and what the heck this all means for my business and yours. If you like what you see – please subscribe to it for free. To join the discussion or to comment in real time follow me on Twitter.

Joel Mark Witt

*Photo by hapticflapjack

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  • You are to be commended for your honesty. If there were more honest people in this industry, things would be a lot better. I'll just leave it at that.

    I think honesty is always the best policy - for many reasons. Not the least among them is that it's good for both you AND the client.

    A few months ago I had a guy come to me who had just gotten approval for several million dollars in venture capital for his website that is sort of a membership rewards thing, and to make a long story short he said he was willing to pay me 60K to redesign the site and maintain it. At the time I was only beginning to learn web development, although I had been doing web design for some time. But I felt I had to be honest with him and let him know that I could certainly make the site look good, but he'd need to find a developer to build what I create.

    In essence I knew I was turning away his business, because he could just as easily find someone who could do both the development AND the design. And I probably could have learned the development side to do what he needed (and as it turns out I have since then) but at the time I knew I couldn't and that if I set up a business relationship on a false pretense that I already had what he wanted, in the end we both would have been unhappy - likely me more than him, especially if it got ugly.

    I've kept in touch with him, and now that I can offer what he wanted, I hope he'll still consider me since he hasn't found someone else. But either way I think honesty is always best.

    Houses built on a firm foundation stand the test of time, but houses built on a cracked foundation fall with a great "THUD!"
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