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YourFriend

on Dec 29, 2021

Global

Is this a part of management consulting?

Hi,

I have very unusual question but hopefully someone could point me to the right direction towards the right consultant or consulting firm. Would like to apologize in advance in case if my question has nothing to do with the topic of your forum but I have no experience in management consulting, also my background from university is completely different.

I'm looking for either individual expert or firm who can help me with creation of the perfect words to be either spoken on the first call to e.g. executive/nonexecutive board member of very large publicly traded company or some of their partners, if not board, on very high structure level roles. I'm looking for help with communication, value articulation to get their willingness to listen and talk with me, to get their only minute in full busy day to be invested in conversation with me as a total stranger (first time call) even on very sensitive topics such as their balance sheet. Needing someone who is very aware that first few seconds are the most important since those are the moment when he/she decided whether or not to continue listening and potentially answering the question. Goal is to get their agreement to send them email message and then invite them on web appointment to start with the process of closing large deal.

Looking for expert in perfect words. The words that can assure me they will say ‘’YES'' to the offer, the value, that would potentially have gigantic positive consequence on their business in a form of their benefit but they are declining to talk with me or even refusing a phone call just because they don't know me or my phone number.

I'm talking about the art of getting someone's attention on the first call as a stranger - someone who has no reason, in his/her mindset, to spend a second of his/her day for me. Even the Chairman of the board of gigantic corporation. Construction of words that have nothing to do with sales consulting so I'm NOT asking for this.

Basically I'm looking for business communication (negotiation) experts who can deal with extremely complex unwanted responses that are much more than sales objections. It's all about what should I say on the phone call to get their willingness to listen with the ultimate goal to go from ‘’not interested'' / ‘’we have other options based on relationships lasting for years'' to ‘’YES'' / ‘’send me web appointment invitation''

My question: Is this a part of management consulting? If not, who (which firm, what kind of expertise) should I look for?

Thank you very much in advance.

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Top answer

Pedro

Coach

on Dec 29, 2021

Bain | EY-Parthenon | Former Principal | 1.5h session | 30% discount 1st session

I am not sure what you are looking for actually exists, or is even possible given human nature.

Consulting firms are built around brand. They invest in getting huge reputation. That gives them credibility to speak with those C-Level people.

Now, what great partners do, is not about talking, but about listening. To know the right words, you need to listen first to the other person and understand what they want. Some magic words that work regardless of whoever is in front of you… sorry, not possible. It's at most a numbers game, you may have some good words that may work with 5% of people. And you'll have to deal with 19/20 rejections.

So, once again, I don't think what you are looking for exists or is a great idea, but in any case, what you are looking for is a SALES position. I would suggest you go into private wealth management, for example.

4 comments

YourFriend

on Dec 30, 2021

@Pedro thank you for your response. I don't want to look at "sales consulting" experts because what I do is not really sales although the goal is that the publicly traded company, which is usually but not always gigantic one in billions of market cap, takes and agrees to the offer that have breath-taking positive effect on their business. However, the problem is that they judge me strictly only on the fact that they don't know me and neither the firm I'm remotely representing. Therefore they are not willing to listen, neither to invest few minutes of their time to let us clarify for their unique case how would they benefit from us. It's value offering yes but I really don't count it as a sales. I'm looking for expert in creation of spoken words. Something that cannot be declined to be discussed even with a stranger. I was also looking for so called Relationship Mapping platform service such as BoardEx or relationshipscience dot dom and try to leverage someone else's (usually corporate lawyers or bankers or corporate brokers) already well established trust. However, it's not possible due to several reasons. I don't have the access to those platforms. Sometiems few such advisors used by particular, usually gigantic, publicly traded company, can be found online but without the name of their partner so it's impossible to get in touch with the right person. (Private) wealth management is not creation of the words. It's mostly about the custody of someone's assets. I'm NOT looking for sales experts but more for business negotiators who know how to get attention and ''YES'' for offer.

Pedro

Coach

on Dec 30, 2021

Bain | EY-Parthenon | Former Principal | 1.5h session | 30% discount 1st session

I was not suggesting sales consulting. I was suggesting sales.

What you ask for doesn't exist. If CEOs of Fortune 50 companies were spending their time listening to someone based on some "magic" wording, they wouldn't be CEOs. They would be complete moroons.

If they don't know you, they'll only trust you if you have reputation, or if someone with reputation recommends you. But someone with reputation will only listen to you if you already have convinced other people that they find reputable. If they were "up for sale", then their reputation would be worthless.

You have to walk the walk. just like any startup entrepreneur knows, that building a company and a reputation means knocking on many doors and convincing many people, and climb a steep ladder.

If you believe in your idea enough to invest your time, resources, etc., against all odds, you will gain reputation. If you're just looking for a shortcut... well, that means you don't believe that much in your idea. So why should they listen to you?

Pedro

Coach

on Dec 30, 2021

Bain | EY-Parthenon | Former Principal | 1.5h session | 30% discount 1st session

By the way, a good negotiator does exactly what I suggested above. LISTENS to other people's needs. What you ask for is not a negotiator, but a hypnotizer.

YourFriend

on Dec 30, 2021

@Pedro I agree with you particularly on the part that someone with reputation recommends me but the only way that such recommendation would lead into the willingness to invest the time and talk with me is that recommendation is done by someone (e.g. corporate lawyers or bankers but in my/our case, bankers are basically competitors) who already have very well established business relationship with wanted person with whom I would like to speak. Unless having the access to RelSci (website: relationshipscience dot com) or BoardEx, it can be very hard to find such relationships. In majority of cases google search "<name of the company> advisors" doesn't help. Also finding out what particular person's or company's needs is/are is near impossible if not having some top quality strategy how to do this to get their attention. They should listen to me because of the size of the benefit on their business out of my/our value our firm would add. However, in order to have a chance to explain the value for unique case, I have to get someone to listen and actually attend a video web conference. As a stranger, this is really hard. I have had situations when my outgoing calls where rejected just because of having to them an unknown phone number. How could be this my problem if they don't know my number? Obviously they don't if we have never spoken but it's very unfair to be declined just because of the number of unfamiliar tone of my speech. One partial solution would be to go through Corporate Communications departments but quality of the email message, as a follow up to the phone call, would need to be sky high in quality to make sure the recipient, to whom the message will be forwarded to (by corporate communications department partner), will really react on it. I'm not that perfect with words. My negotiation/communication is not that much convincing and that's why I'm looking for consultants who could help with appropriate words.

Ian

Coach

edited on Dec 30, 2021

Top US BCG / MBB Coach - 5,000 sessions |Tech, Platinion, Big 4 | 9/9 personal interviews passed | 95% candidate success

Hi there,

It sounds like you're trying to find a way to use pathos to get around ethos.

In persuasion, ideally you have all 3 (ethos, pathos, logos). In classic persuasion, ethos has to come first, which it seems you don't have. Note that this is a major major reason people look to get jobs at top tier firms (MBB, Goldman, JP Morgan, etc.). Once they work there, people are ready to listen to them (they have proven themselves).

Your best move (but lengthy one) is to legitimize yourself through a top tier education or job.

Even then, you're never going to get a 100% success rate. There's no magic bullet here and sales/persuasion is inherently a low-probability and high numbers/attempts game.

If you're looking to improve in the pathos/logos aspect, you're probably looking for any of the following:

Sales consultant/coach
Executive coach
Public speaking coach

Feel free to reach out and I can put you in touch with some that I know (but they're expensive i.e. a hundreds of $ for an hour so please only reach out to me if you're serious).

1 comment

YourFriend

on Dec 30, 2021

@Ian believe it or not, but I even tried your suggested, at the beginning of your message, strategy to look for the people who are already employed in particular company or even investment bank and I did it with very good looking way: I was searching for LinkedIn profiles with ''Providing Services'' box on the profiles which indicates they are doing consulting service. Then I did secondary filtering on employer name (company name) and tried to contact them to ask for consulting which would basically be a help to get me in touch with wanted person and/or wanted department. No success this way. Also tried via emails.

Do the ones you have in mind require upfront retainer fee? Is anyone willing to work on successfully closed deal? If that depends on anything, e.g. the situation, then I would love to describe it further if you tell me where to (e.g. email).

Hagen

Coach

on Dec 30, 2021

#1 recommended coach | >95% success rate | 8+ years consulting, 8+ years coaching and 7+ years interviewing experience

Hi “YourFriend”,

This is indeed an interesting question which is probably relevant for quite a lot of users, so I am happy to provide my perspective on it:

Generally speaking, what you are looking for is a cold/ warm call expert. While this has nothing to do with consulting, I would be more than happy to direct you to people who are specialized in this type of work.

I hope this helps,

Hagen

1 comment

YourFriend

on Dec 30, 2021

@Hagen Would I send to your and/or your colleague's email some presentation of more detailed description what I'm looking for and description of the business model? The topic is related to leveraged equity loans with optional (not mandatory!) liabilities - finances. I did not find your name on bain website and according to your LinkedIn profile you have three words in name so therefore I can't use just first dot last name at bain dot com. But having contact with such business negotiation experts with ability, skill-set and a knowledge to effect the mindset of leaders of publicly traded companies, even on the board level, would be great to have and of course I would be looking for mutual benefit here.

Top Answer by

Pedro

Coach

Bain | EY-Parthenon | Former Principal | 1.5h session | 30% discount 1st session

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