Knowledge
A common mistake throughout the industry is to overemphasize the social connection with the clients and to neglect how important it is to impress them with professional expertise. Since the founders of a firm first likely made their stellar professional impressions long ago, their relationships with clients can seem very social and not particularly business-like.
But this friendship-type of relationship can seem inaccessible to G2 professionals, who often feel discouraged by their inability to become trusted advisors. After all, they are frequently much younger than their clients and often don’t move in the same social circles or share the same interests. Attempts to socialize with clients can be awkward and even counterproductive for both sides.
So they have to take a different route.
One of my mentors once told me, “You don’t have to remember the names of your clients’ kids and dogs; you just have to remember everything there is to know about their business.” This advice is critical. You don’t start a relationship by trying to golf with your clients. Start it by being an absolute expert in what matters to them. Golfing will come to you later. After you convince them you have the technical expertise, the social connection will naturally follow.
Professional Expertise
Expertise means more than having an education or adequate knowledge. It means you have enough experience and intelligence to apply your knowledge to practice. You have to be able to impress clients beyond just making them feel safe.
Many G2 advisors mistake their clients’ feeling safe for the clients’ willingness to work with them. Returning to the doctor-nurse comparison, most patients are quite OK with a nurse providing care, but that is only because they know that the doctor is in the office. Similarly, many clients are perfectly fine meeting with G2 professionals, but they still expect that somewhere, somehow, the founder is supervising the work.
Specialization
Outshining your mentor, who is often the founder of the firm, can be a daunting project. The answer for G2 professionals is to specialize. They must become experts in an area or discipline that is very important to a group of clients and use that specialization to generate “Aha!” moments.
Specialization allows you to really accelerate toward the goal of becoming a trusted advisor. For example, if you specialize in working with Amazon executives as clients, you will find it much easier to assume the lead in those relationships.
Presence
Presence is the ability to get the attention of participants in a meeting and direct that attention to a constructive purpose. It means getting heard and making an impression. Because presence is intangible and hard to define, it can be difficult to teach. However, it is a critical part of every client meeting and, ultimately, the client relationship. Presence is important for G2 professionals to attain in order to have success in taking the lead. Let’s take a constructive approach and break down presence into its component parts:
• Participation: You can’t make an impact in a meeting without participating. Over the years, I have seen associates who are perfectly content to silently sit in the back of the room and say little if anything during the meeting. While talking a lot can be a problem, not talking at all is always a mistake.
• Position: Don’t fade away as soon as your mentor walks into the meeting. I once took my daughter to a teaching hospital for a doctor’s appointment. The young doctor who spoke with us was very friendly, asked good questions, made a couple of very good comments, and seemed to be extremely competent. Then an older doctor walked into the room and the entire meeting changed. The younger doctor moved to a back corner and hunched over in his chair while the older doctor took a seat in the middle of the room. Before he’d even said a word, the hierarchy was established. The older doctor had the dominant position and his younger colleague didn’t speak again. G2 advisors must not make the same mistake.
• Body language: If you want to have an impact on a meeting, you need to look like you belong and want to be part of that meeting. Body language that suggests you are uncomfortable will severely undermine your credibility. I am not an expert on body language (though much has been written on that subject if you are interested in studying it). In short: You should find a way to be comfortable in the meeting and project confidence.
• Hierarchical recognition: Clients instinctively perceive the hierarchy of a service organization and both consciously and subconsciously make decisions about whom to work with based on their understanding of who holds power. Explicit communication comes from titles and descriptions of responsibilities. Introductions such as “I run the investment committee for our firm” communicate hierarchy. As a general rule, clients will try to get the attention of the most senior members of the team.
Some firms respond to this tendency by giving G2 professionals lofty titles, or even accelerating their career path to partnership. However, such an approach produces no practical results. Clients can tell when a lead is not a lead. It will quickly become apparent to them that a more senior advisor directs the engagement and they will seek the attention of that person.
Transitioning The Lead To G2
One of the founders of an advisory firm I work with once asked a question during a meeting that to me best distilled the idea of how G2 professionals take over client relationships. The question was: “Should I, as a founder, step back to create space for G2s, or should G2s step in and push me away?” This is really the core of the issue. The answer is that both should happen.
While the firm and its founders need to be purposeful in creating space, G2 professionals should not wait too long, and should create a bit of a push if necessary.
Training G2 professionals to take over client relationships should begin almost as soon as they reach the service advisor level. From the first day they enter into client relationships, they should begin preparing themselves to lead. I have practically never worked with a firm that had too many lead advisors. I have worked with many who didn’t have enough. Successful firms teach younger advisors how to lead as early as possible and try to advance professionals as often as possible. A good lead is hard to find.
This article is an excerpt from Philip Palaveev’s book “G2: Building the Next Generation.”
Philip Palaveev is the CEO of the Ensemble Practice LLC. Philip is an industry consultant, author of the book The Ensemble Practice and the lead faculty member for The Ensemble Institute.