Name Throwing
It is common in consulting business to find people flaunting big names to impress prospects. E.g. Statements such as “Worked with XYZ Multinational company” or “Managed $1 Billion business for a company” should be watched out.
Such claims should be properly examined in terms of what was the challenge, what was the consultant’s role and the results obtained.
We should try to see through such big claims and name throwing.
Glorified Academic Associations
Many consultants proudly announce that they are associated with some local or foreign educational institutes.
Any such claim of association with some academic institute must be checked for relevance and correctness.
Even though professors from some prominent universities have provided excellent management guidance to the world and they grace the boards of many huge corporations also, most of the management institutes or business schools are full of very highly qualified professors and lecturers who have not produced any significant results in their work life apart from getting some lofty degrees. Such academicians may be very good in giving lectures, but their ability to understand and solve real business problems needs to be verified.
Many business schools invite hundreds of guest lecturers for their small or big events during a year. Colleges have to fill in some entries of doing some different activities in their annual report. So, they look for people who can come and speak to their students. Most of the times in such cases, “availability” of the speaker becomes more important than “eligibility”, unless the institute has high standards of screening and qualifying its guest lecturers. We must remember that being invited to speak at few such odd guest lectures does not make one a great consultant.
Aura of Being an “Author”
Even though writing books is not easy and not for everybody, some consultants publish books only to write the word “an author” on their business card or their social media profiles. Be sure that you don’t get lured by such empty tags.
Sometimes, the quality of the publications speaks aloud about their vanity and the hollow claims. Many of such “authors” have merely recycled some of the existing material that completely lacks originality or authenticity.
In today’s world, a lot of people can ghost write books for us. One can hire a person and get a book written and then publish in his own name. We should confirm the veracity of such claims of being “an author”.
If we ourselves don’t understand the topic of the publication claimed to have been authored by the person, we should get that book or publication checked by somebody who knows the subject.
Remember, simply being an “author” does not lend credibility to anybody. The title means nothing if the person has poor people skills or lacks intelligence to decipher his way through our business problems.
Loudmouth Speaker Guru
Some entrepreneurs get easily impressed by some motivational speakers or “Business Gurus”. Such gurus come in many flavors.
Many of such speakers have earned their name by giving well-rehearsed pep talks to thousands of multi-level marketing or network marketing group members. Yes, they may have a gift of gab and they may be very good at entertaining and temporarily motivating the audience. But it should be kept in mind that understanding and solving business problems is a different ball game altogether, where all the participating members are not as impressionable, as receptive or as vulnerable as an audience full of people sitting in a very subjective state of mind eager to receive some Gyan from a well-rehearsed guru.
Most of these gurus contradict themselves in the same speaking session which any discerning mind can spot easily. In fact, if we try to implement in our business everything that such a guru says in an hour, we will create a real mess of confusion and contradictions at our workplace.
It should be logically understood that every business has unique problems and the generic solutions given to hundreds or thousands of people together may sound impressive to them, but they can’t be useful to them for real world implementation. That is why most of the pep talks sound good to listen, but very hard to execute. We must remember that highly noisy and general purpose “solutions” given to thousands of people at a time, actually don’t work so simply.
Business people must exercise the wisdom of not getting unduly impressed by wordsmiths or loud mouths. Being good with words does not make one good with people, numbers, business strategies or processes.
The reason entrepreneurs fall prey to such vocal gurus is due to the frustration or helplessness they face while running their businesses. When they listen to a guru speaking to hundreds or thousands of “business” persons and watch all of them nodding in admiration and agreement, the entrepreneurs think that this guru possesses a talisman or magical powers which can solve all our business problems. So, they bring the guy in their own business, only to realize years later that they had made a mistake and good judgment should have prevented them from doing so.
Such speaking sessions are good for education and entertainment. If we go to watch a movie, we don’t bring the actor in that movie to solve our business problems, because we know that however impressive his business solutions sounded, they were all scripted, pre-planned and entirely general. Our realities can’t fit any script. Our problems are specific.
Business challenges require a holistic approach with a variety of people and behavioral skills along with a combination of high EQ and IQ, which most of these loudmouths lack poorly.
(Expert advice to GROW your business wherever you are, whenever you want.
SMEBusinessGuide.com… https://goo.gl/E3pfoQ)
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