The High Flyers Podcast with Vidit Agarwal
00:44:37 · Vidit Agarwal, Neil Plumridge
[00:44:37] S0: I'd also be curious like one of the things I was wondering after the book launch the other week and reading your book is what are some of the mistakes even the most successful consultants or quote unquote rainmakers make? I'm curious, open question to either of you. In the journey of interviewing all these people and spending time with them and reflecting on your own careers, is there one mistake that even the most successful rainmakers tend to make? [00:45:07] S1: There's a couple I'll talk about personally. I didn't put myself in the rainmaker category but there's a couple of let me just share that I've made along the way. One is where you're so confident in your point of view that it comes across as selling and you're forcing a solution on a client that's not ready and it moves from, let's call it a point of view or concept into a solution. So I've made that mistake a few times, and the most successful people don't do that. They put forward an idea and a concept. The second is on trust. So it takes often years to get a senior level of trust, what we call level four, level five level of trust, and I've had those relationships. But, you know, one story which we tell in our training programs, our learning programs about how quickly you can lose that trust if you make a couple of mistakes and take the client for granted. You know, it can happen in a millisecond and it happened to me. But I won't on your podcast, maybe podcast two, I'll share that story, but not this one, Nup.
00:45:07 · Neil Plumridge, Vidit Agarwal
[00:45:07] S1: There's a couple I'll talk about personally. I didn't put myself in the rainmaker category but there's a couple of let me just share that I've made along the way. One is where you're so confident in your point of view that it comes across as selling and you're forcing a solution on a client that's not ready and it moves from, let's call it a point of view or concept into a solution. So I've made that mistake a few times, and the most successful people don't do that. They put forward an idea and a concept. The second is on trust. So it takes often years to get a senior level of trust, what we call level four, level five level of trust, and I've had those relationships. But, you know, one story which we tell in our training programs, our learning programs about how quickly you can lose that trust if you make a couple of mistakes and take the client for granted. You know, it can happen in a millisecond and it happened to me. But I won't on your podcast, maybe podcast two, I'll share that story, but not this one, Nup. [00:46:15] S0: Maybe your next book, if that happens, the next edition of the book, can include that.
00:46:15 · Vidit Agarwal, Robert Nason
[00:46:15] S0: Maybe your next book, if that happens, the next edition of the book, can include that. [00:46:20] S2: Yeah. And look, a couple from me, I think the trap you observe good consultants falling into is the boom bust cycle. I'm very busy, so I turn off business development. Not interested. I've got projects. I'm sold out for the next couple of months, so they do nothing. They develop no relationships. They just focus on delivering their project. Then they hit the beach. They're quiet, and then they turn full throttle on the business development and have 10 coffees in a week catching up with people they haven't caught up with. That boom bust cycle does not work and rainmakers don't follow it. They do business development every day, every week, no matter how busy they are. They put into their calendar relationship development and the things required to develop the next job. And the second one, I think, is waiting for the phone to ring is you've lost before you've begun, if that's your strategy. If you think put my brand out there and wait for clients to ring me with work, The industry is too hungry right now and your competitors will get in ahead of you and take your client from you if that's what you're going to do. You've got to be proactively engaged and up to date with knowledge and experience and working your relationships to succeed in today's world.
00:47:52 · Vidit Agarwal
[00:47:52] S0: Yeah, I'm nodding my head furiously because see this all the time even in people looking for their next job or if they've had a setback is they've not built the relationships because they don't want to be the quote unquote networker because they feel that's transactional. Then they're out of work and I had a call the other day from someone and then he said to me, he said, I've been given my notice, the company's gone through a restructure. And I said, you're a senior executive and you've spent no time nurturing your network. He's like, yep, I've got a family and I've got a demanding job and I've got my health to focus on. I'm now getting out there and building that network. And I said, it's gonna take you months before someone can give you anything and you don't know any of these people. Like even me, you hadn't spoken to me for two years and you've reached out for a call. I find that baffling. Like I see that every day and I'm sure you both see it in a consulting context or just in a general work context.
00:48:45 · Robert Nason, Vidit Agarwal
[00:48:45] S2: That's right, I'm not a networker either. I don't like the concept of networking but I do like the concept of providing value to people that are in your industry sector, in your domain of knowledge and experience where you can offer help. So I come from that service side. This is a service to clients. It's not selling. It's your job as an experienced professional working in an organisation to find ways that organisation can be better and to communicate those to the people that matter and to have views of where the industry is going. If you're just sitting back not doing that, then you don't deserve success to me. And it's a service to the client. It's not selling. It's actually adding value. You're putting forward things you would like to do for the client because that makes their business better. [00:49:43] S0: Yeah, the story of how Robert and I met I think is an example of this where we met at the tennis and we sat on the same table but then we didn't speak for probably eight, ten months after that and then a mutual friend connected us and then we had a coffee and then again, I don't think we spoke for a couple of months and then Robert texted about your book. So life also can be random. Think to your point, Neil, life can be very random where it's not always planned and I've seen that in my own journey where you just have a good conversation with someone and you're introduced by someone they trust and often that can end up opening doors that he never expected.
00:49:43 · Vidit Agarwal, Neil Plumridge
[00:49:43] S0: Yeah, the story of how Robert and I met I think is an example of this where we met at the tennis and we sat on the same table but then we didn't speak for probably eight, ten months after that and then a mutual friend connected us and then we had a coffee and then again, I don't think we spoke for a couple of months and then Robert texted about your book. So life also can be random. Think to your point, Neil, life can be very random where it's not always planned and I've seen that in my own journey where you just have a good conversation with someone and you're introduced by someone they trust and often that can end up opening doors that he never expected. [00:50:17] S1: Yeah. Yeah. Look, to give your own business a plug, the curiosity center, one of the things we've found in successful people just generally through this process is they're very curious. People are curious in other people. The reason we connected with you was you're both interested in what each other were doing. But that's the consultant and the client. Just be interested in what and they are curious about their performance, their own careers, their personal situation. Just be curious. [00:50:51] S0: Absolutely. Let's go into RAIN Group, your new firm and the work you're doing in addition to the book, you're high in demand, you're getting invited all around the world to run training courses and other things. Do you want to just give us an overview on the RAIN Group itself, the firm that you're building and the services you're providing?