If you hold up your car key and look at it, you'll notice that it is double-sided and that the two sides are perfectly matched. A professional engagement needs to be double-sided in a similar way; the key to a harmonious relationship between advisor and client is a matching of their interests. On one side are the client's needs, expectations and willingness to pay for the appropriate services. On the other side are the professional's skills, support network and compensation requirements. In addition, both parties probably hope for a comfortable personal chemistry, and each may have timetable issues that need to be considered. An effective initial meeting, the kind that will most often lead to a mutually satisfying professional experience, will get all these issues on the table for consideration.
Bill and Sam told us candidly that the relationship between a remodeling contractor and customer will never be better than the day the contract is signed. Other contractors have told us the same thing. This strikes me as an unnecessarily gloomy outlook, and I hope that as personal advisors our relationship with our clients can start well and grow even better as we strive to exceed their expectations. But the key to actually engaging clients for whom this is a realistic possibility is, I think, to be as honest about our needs and skills as advisors in the initial meeting as we are thorough in trying to understand the prospective clients' needs and expectations.
Everybody Appreciates A Craftsman
Although we had put Bill and Sam on permanent "hold," Mary Liz and I did not abandon our remodeling dreams. More adventures and more lessons lay ahead as we met with and subsequently engaged a young, lightly-experienced remodeling contractor. A very confident, low-key fellow, Charlie seemed to understand that what we really wanted was a little more elbowroom in the kitchen and some more window area to take advantage of the spectacular view. He made some wonderful suggestions for breaking through the walls adjacent to the living room and the dining room and for building a window seat next to the kitchen table. So we engaged Charlie to do the work. And sure enough, the relationship was never better than the day we signed!
The good news is that Charlie helped us realize that we could achieve what we wanted without adding to the already more than adequate square footage of our home by using the space we had more creatively. To this extent he had listened better than the older, more experienced contractors had. He listened to what we really wanted and listened to our sense of financial limits for the project.
The less good news-awful news, really-is that Charlie had bitten off more than he could chew. A kitchen-remodeling project, like a comprehensive financial plan, is a complex process requiring a wide range of skills from concept and design to plumbing, electrical and carpentry skills, and the coordination and sequencing of everything. Not a project for an amateur or even for a professional skilled in a few of the component disciplines. Charlie was great at banging a hole in the brick wall and framing out a window seat. He installed crown molding and wainscoting as fast as we could buy the materials; and they looked very professional. But we had to spend a lot of our emotional energy focusing on what he did well so that we would not be too discouraged by the many things that Charlie tried to do which, in hindsight, he should have delegated.
For example, reshuffling existing cabinets to accommodate new appliances and leveling everything to receive new stone counter tops takes a lot of experience, as we all learned the hard way. A financial planning counterpart might be a situation in which we prepare a retirement cash-flow model and see that a client's current spending realities will put him in the poorhouse in 10 years. It takes more than an ability to add and subtract to guide a client through the range of possible changes he needs to consider (spend less, work longer, invest differently, etc.) in a way that is likely to actually influence his outcome. It takes experience. And it takes a genuine concern for making a positive difference in each client's life.
When an advisor accepts work for which he or she is not equipped by training and experience, or almost as bad, accepts an assignment that the advisor can do but is completely disinterested in, the inevitable result is an unhappy client, damage to the advisor's reputation and a discouraged advisor.
We really like Charlie. He is a good guy and he has a lot of raw talent. But because we were not aware of his limitations at the outset, working together was a painful experience, both for us and for him. Toward the end of the project (we kind of took over ourselves where Charlie left off) Mary Liz had a heart-to-heart discussion with the young contractor that I hope he'll look back on as turning the mistakes and conflicts into profitable learning experiences.
When Mary Liz assumed the role of general contractor (something you do not want your clients to do, believe me!) she hired a series of specialists to finish the work. Most of these were family men in their thirties and forties who were moonlighting evenings and weekends as licensed technicians providing plumbing, electrical and other mechanical specialties. And they were good, really good, at what they did. The contrast with the experience of our young contractor attempting work that was beyond his technical competence was exhilarating. I remember commenting to several of these workmen how wonderful it was to see someone who was really competent at his work. We added gratuities to every invoice because we were truly grateful for their expert service. They, in turn, wanted and appreciated the extra work, and they were intent on exceeding expectations, knowing that a satisfied customer would refer others to them. And we certainly will.