Is there such a thing as “ Too much good advice” ?
I am part of a panel run by the Queensland Government to help mentor new and emerging small to medium sized businesses. It is known as M4G, (Mentoring for Growth) and is run by The Department of Tourism, Major Events, Small Business (DTESB)
The M4G program can help your business grow, or deal with rapid growth. The program features a panel of 8-10 business experts who challenge current practices and suggest strategies for participating businesses to take advantage of opportunities.
It’s free for Queensland businesses to be involved in M4G because the program is fully subsidised, but in my personal experience not all businesses will be suited to the program.
I have been consulting for small businesses for over 15 years now and have coached quite a few businesses through to multi-million dollar successes. I often wondered what the difference is between clients that have embraced my advices and those that fell by the wayside. I have never pushed a particular system, philosophy or business practice onto a business that did not have the willingness or capacity to benefit from this and I have had the luxury of being able to leave a client alone when they seem to be going in different directions and my advices are therefore less valuable to them.
So, I did a little research. I did some examination into past clients that although not unhappy with my work, did not seem to achieve the massive results that I have been able to gain for my shining star clients. To my surprise, I found a common theme. I had always assumed that it was just me, or that it was an issue of my interaction with senior staff & management. I took on the responsibility for the lack of massive success the same way I take the credit for when I see a client crack their first million or bust the 5 million ceiling.
This is what I found in almost every case:
- The past client was still in business but languishing at around the same level as they were when we parted.
- The past clients all said they were extremely happy with my work, even though, my gauge for successes is a massive improvement. I often link my income directly to the successes so moderate improvements are not very profitable for me.
- The past clients were all quite intelligent and resourceful business people, quite capable of running their own businesses but seemed to not be able to make it a run-away success on their own.
In a chance conversation, one past client commented that he had so much good advice to help him and that the courses of action that I lead him through were just as good if not better than others that were available to him.
I immediately went back to the other past clients and asked them if they too had plenty of good advice from people they were able to trust and they all agreed overwhelmingly. Then I asked them how much of those advices did they actually take up. The answers varied but I was quite embarrassed by the consistencies. The problem seemed to be that the client seemed to have had too much good advice and quite a bit of it was conflicting or at least in a different direction. Every past client I spoke to had the same issue. What I think was now happening is that these clients, all intelligent people, did not commit fully to any one direction or strategy. In retrospect I can say that this is generally one of the reasons I don’t pursue and ongoing relationship with a client.
I then went back and had a look at some of my M4G clients and looked at their operations through the lens of the advices I know they were given by very well qualified business consultants (including me of course). I know that in this microcosm, there are several valid points of view presented at the same time. It is almost a buffet of good advices where there client could pick and choose the bits that best fit their business. I was only able to look at 4 but found that 2 of the 4 had changed nothing and the other 2 had taken on some advices and made significant improvements. I know that this is anecdotal but the businesses that changed nothing were surprisingly the ones that were already doing reasonably well.
May I pose this question to you? How do you as an intelligent and successful business person, choose which advices to take up and act upon? What are the main criteria that you use to decide and what is the main reason that you “don’t” decide?
I am very interested in your answers and if you send me an email describing your experiences I would like to summarise my findings, remove identifying parts and report back to you on all of the respondent’s experiences.
Please email me at peter@specializedmanagement.com.au
If you want to find out more about M4G you can send them a request for more info to m4g@dtesb.qld.gov.au