Work Winning Ways

This week we have a fascinating interview with Pat Sweet of the Engineering and Leadership podcast. Pat has some great insights on what it takes to successfully lead professional services firms and his thoughts are likely to remind, reassure and reveal in equal measures! If you are in a leadership position or aspire to be, this is a great listen.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Engineers can do pretty much anything if you give them enough time and money. But you're not going to do that so there has to be a defined mission, and that clarity has to come from a leadership role.
• People in engineering often get moved into a management role as a ‘next step in career progression' instead of actually possessing people leading and management skills.
• A diversity in a team isn't' just about who we are, it's about creating diversity of thought.
• Addressing recently bias is something you need to be aware of, especially when it comes to remote working and those people who are remote missing out on opportunity.
• One of the best things a leader can do is demonstrate that's it's okay to be vulnerable. That allows teams to open up and pitch those ideas that could be kept quiet by a bad leader.
• A leader ought to be excited about leading, not just for leadings sake, but because they recognise the value they can provide the team and that they can enable the team to do what it does best.
  

BEST MOMENTS

‘As leaders we're so risk averse that clouds us from perusing interesting opportunities'

‘Good leaders leave their ego at the door'

‘If you're the hero and everyone relies on you, then what's the organisation for?'

‘Decision making improves when you have diversity of thought, and diversity of thought comes when you have a diversity of backgrounds.'

ABOUT THE GUEST

Pat Sweet, P.Eng., MBA, CSEP, PMP is an experienced engineering leader, project manager, product manager, writer, speaker, and coach. His mission is to help technical organizations thrive. You can find a link to his podcast ‘Engineering and Leadership' below.

twitter.com/engileader

engineeringandleadership.com

tandemconsultingco.lpages.co/el-leadership-101-for-engineers

ABOUT THE HOST

Gary Williams has been in sales and marketing his entire career. The past 10 years have been dedicated to helping technically minded non-salespeople become skilled and confident in selling themselves and their services.

http://linkedin.com/in/garyquestas

https://www.questas.co.uk

Instagram: @bdcoachinghub

Not everyone is a natural salesperson, Find out more on how to improve your sales HERE: https://www.thequestasacademy.com/

This show was brought to you by Progressive Media

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ziba Goddard is a behavioural scientist and Chief Consulting Officer at Cowry Consulting and joins Gary Williams on this episode of Work Winning Ways. Ziba specialises in human behaviour and how we make decisions. If you've ever heard of Nudge Theory and wonder why we make the decisions we make particularly in the context of buying, this is for you!

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• People are wired to make snap judgements and rarely are making decisions based on having all of the information available. Thinking is often less rational than people would assume.
• Nudge Theory is the idea of using encouragement or suggestions to change people's behaviour while still giving them freedom to make their own decisions. For example governments have used this recently to encourage people to socially distance during the pandemic.
• We have two systems of thinking, the cerebellum based thinking, which is subconscious and primal. Then there's the prefrontal cortex that allows us as humans to deduct and reason and use language. Think of them as the Homer Simpson brain and the Dr Spock brain.
• 90% of our decisions come from our Homer Simpson brain.
• There is a toolkit of around 200 shortcuts that scientists use to connect directly to our primal thinking.
• Ziba has done some work with construction companies to increase health and safety. After 4 days on site observing, Ziba's team painted the canteen area a shade of pink that essentially has a calming effect and reduced the amount of people taking risks. She also changed the card system used for keeping track of safety to one of reward rather than punishment. This reduced unsafe behaviours by 85% at this site.
• reframing sales to a personal relationship makes it easier for sellers. It's not about using clients to achieve goals, it's about forming a bond and doing a favour for one another.
• We have an inherent bias towards those people we think are specialists, for example we trust doctors with stethoscopes around their necks more than doctors without one.

BEST MOMENTS

‘People aren't rational and don't have perfect knowledge'

‘We don't want people on building sites thinking quickly'

‘The key to sales is relationships'

‘When people are credible enough and show a weakness, we like them more'

EPISODE RESOURCES

Questas Academy
More about Ziba Goddard

ABOUT THE GUEST

Following an undergraduate degree in Experimental Psychology and a Masters in Clinical Psychology, Ziba was drawn to business and spent time working in organisational effectiveness at Bank of New York Mellon.

Ziba is Chief Consulting Officer at Cowry and leads the client 'Pilots and Programmes' within the business. Ziba spends the majority of her time identifying the cognitive friction in the current customer journeys to help inform the creative process within Cowry at the key Design stage.

ABOUT THE HOST

Gary Williams has been in sales and marketing his entire career. The past 10 years have been dedicated to helping technically minded non-salespeople become skilled and confident in selling themselves and their services.

http://linkedin.com/in/garyquestas
https://www.questas.co.uk
Instagram: @bdcoachinghub

Not everyone is a natural salesperson, Find out more on how to improve your sales HERE: https://www.thequestasacademy.com/

This show was brought to you by Progressive Media

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this episode of Work Winning Ways, host Gary Williams of Questas discusses the evolution of the work winning employee and what your client wants from them. Also hear all about what it takes to become a trusted advisor, and just as importantly, how to keep being one.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Clients are becoming more and more demanding. You have to add good commercial acumen, understanding what the client wants to achieve. They also want you to show that you understand the world in which they work.
• The differentiator in winning work can often be a grasp of the things that affect the clients environment and the ability to talk in their language with the terms they use.
• Under promise and over deliver. If you're saying what the client wants to hear and over promising, then if you don't deliver, trust is broken. Expectation management is crucial.
• Clients will also expect you to manage them. Do you make their life and their job easier?
• Be proactive about meeting client's needs. To be proactive you need to know your client and what they will need and when. You will also need to know what they need but haven't asked for yet.

BEST MOMENTS

‘You need the ability to talk in the client's language'

‘Projects happen through people'

‘10 pm is not close of business, it's Monday morning'

EPISODE RESOURCES

Questas Academy

The Trusted Advisor

ABOUT THE HOST

Gary Williams has been in sales and marketing his entire career. The past 10 years have been dedicated to helping technically minded non-salespeople become skilled and confident in selling themselves and their services.

http://linkedin.com/in/garyquestas

https://www.questas.co.uk

Instagram: @bdcoachinghub

Not everyone is a natural salesperson, Find out more on how to improve your sales HERE: https://www.thequestasacademy.com/

This show was brought to you by Progressive Media

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode looks at the inevitability of difficult conversations happening with clients and how we manage them so as not to damage (and even improve) relationships. In this episode, Gary has an EASY chat with his Questas colleague Paul Brady about what to do when the temperature rises in conversations and how we dissipate the heat. As ever there's plenty of practical tools and ideas for you to use in your next difficult conversation!

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Difficult conversations with clients can come about for two reasons. It could be the rational, such as scope creep, delivering bad news, a negotiation around finance, team issues. Those sorts of things are fairly typical and make sense for it being a difficult conversation with a client. Then it could be a more personal or irrational reason less based around work.
• There are three triggers that can be the cause of the irrational difficult conversations. These three triggers are, truth, relationship, and identity.
• When you notice that someone has been triggered, your aim is to dissipate the heat. Allow people to vent and don't interrupt, let them get it off their chest. Then you have to reflect back to them what their concerns are, without putting your own inflection on it. It's not agreeing, just acknowledging that you have understood and heard them.
• If you can deal with the three E's, explanation, expectation, and engagement, then you will be able to manage a difficult client conversation much better.
• Having the right conversations pre project can help reduce the number of difficult conversations in the future. That in itself can be a difficult conversation but one to reduce any future ones.
• Depersonalise things, it's not about the people, it's the situation.

BEST MOMENTS

‘It's inevitable that there will be difficult client conversations, but you need to manage them and mitigate the impact'

‘Things always go wrong and we always remain surprised'

‘Great meetings are build upon rapport rather than negotiation'

‘Once we've got the heat out, we're back in rational conversation land'

‘You can be a sponge but you can't be a punchbag'

EPISODE RESOURCES

Questas Academy

questas.co.uk/difficult-client-conversations

ABOUT THE HOST

Gary Williams has been in sales and marketing his entire career. The past 10 years have been dedicated to helping technically minded non-salespeople become skilled and confident in selling themselves and their services.

http://linkedin.com/in/garyquestas
https://www.questas.co.uk
Instagram: @bdcoachinghub

Not everyone is a natural salesperson, Find out more on how to improve your sales HERE: https://www.thequestasacademy.com/

This show was brought to you by Progressive Media

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the world of professional services and engineering consultancy services, cross selling is the Holy Grail. Organisations think it's easy, but in this episode of Work Winning Ways, you'll find out why it's very difficult. Join Gary Williams as he discusses why cross selling is important, how it's done, and what are the obstacles to overcome.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• In so many jobs you need to be able to encourage, motivate, and persuade clients to work with you and influence others to do so. Word of mouth is one of the best tools at your disposal.
• 80% of your clients buy 20% of the products you sell.
• It's 6 times cheaper to sell to existing clients then try to find new ones.
• Don't push a hard sell for products and services your client or prospective client doesn't need. It will essentially just annoy them at the end of the day.
• Start with ‘why'. Why does your client want your service in the first place. It has to help them with an objective or goal, if there is no strong ‘why' then the client is unlikely to buy multiple products from you.
• You have to show added value to convince the client to put more eggs in your basket. Why should they choose you over other service providers?
• Being a trusted advisor means that you have the competence, but this is just one aspect. The other aspects are knowing how your client likes to work, you also need knowledge of their world, and finally having a genuine interest in them, their objectives and challenges.
  

BEST MOMENTS

‘Bad cross selling is the kind that makes our clients cross'

‘How is about being proactive and curious'

‘You need to build a bank of good deeds for it to be reciprocated'

EPISODE RESOURCES

Questas Academy

Start With Why

ABOUT THE HOST

Gary Williams has been in sales and marketing his entire career. The past 10 years have been dedicated to helping technically minded non-salespeople become skilled and confident in selling themselves and their services.

http://linkedin.com/in/garyquestas

https://www.questas.co.uk

Instagram: @bdcoachinghub

Not everyone is a natural salesperson, Find out more on how to improve your sales HERE: https://www.thequestasacademy.com/

This show was brought to you by Progressive Media

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.