You are a sales person, a broker, a lawyer, an entrepreneur, a manager, or a leader.  You have heard the term “trusted advisor.”  You may have even read the book “The Trusted Advisor” by David Maister.  If you are like me, you have underlined and high-lighted (Yes, I do both) all of those important points that Maister was making. 

Most of the individuals I work with tell me they are a trusted advisor.  If they are exceptional, they even wrote a business plan, with a vision or brand “To become a trusted advisor in the ___________ industry that excels in delighting my clients.”

Why do you go through all this trouble to write such a plan?  To make more money?  To have more free time?  To have better clients?  To take your business to the next level?

If your answer to any of these questions is “yes,” I say you are being honest.  If you said no, you are lying.  Herein lays the paradox.  To fully be a trusted advisor, you must be extremely motivated (high ego) to excel in your business and achieve high personal and professional goals, but to be client-focused you must separate your interests (suppress your ego) from those of your clients.

Well, how do you do that?

It is not easy.  But let me share with you, one solution.  Create a SWOT.  A SWOT is a list of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats of your business.  I hear you saying, “but I already do that.” 

But let me provide you an important distinction.

To create a Breakthrough in your Business Plan, you must take the time to create a SWOT for your client.  What are the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats of your client?  What keeps your clients up at night?  What are the most important obstacles that he or she faces in his or her business? 

In every conversation with your client, do you focus your client on confronting his or her SWOT?  As a trusted advisor, are you having conversations where you confront your client’s personal and professional weaknesses and threats head-on?

In order to create a “Trusted Advisor Business Plan,” you must build all of your processes and conversations around your client.  Look to your current client base and formulate a SWOT of your typical client. 

Utilize your typical client’s SWOT to formulate a breakthrough in your business plan and processes.  For example:

1.            Business Development – In looking for new business, consider what are the opportunities and threats that your client deals with on an everyday basis.  Is your marketing material and pitch about your experience, or about the opportunities that await your client?  Are you challenging your client to take on those greater opportunities?

2.            Commitment – In getting commitments from your prospects to move forward, address their weaknesses that your solution will address.  In making your sales presentation, are you bold enough to call out your client’s greatest challenges?

3.            Accountability – In creating your unique process for delivering service, consider how everything you do will support your client’s strengths.  In supporting your client, have you created systems that consistently monitor and enhance their strengths?  Do you challenge them regularly on whether they are living up to their potential?

The conflict between your lofty goals and your clients’ extraordinary results is regularly at odds in many client-service provider relationships.  As a service provider and leader, the secret to your success is for you to build your business and your conversations around provoking your clients to achieve extraordinary results.