ALS Consulting

The process of we offer our clients is always full of insights and surprises; each situation is different. There may be rules which apply; still, people are unique, just as teams are unique. Therefore, we invite you to interact, to tell us about your experience and insights.  Consider doing this work along with us.  We will be more than happy to provide support.

This first article in the series is about knowing the team we have, knowing what that team brings to the project at hand and identifying what may be missing.  The next will be about team performance, where the source of the current level of performance is, and how it can be altered.  We will also address how to make a team scalable and flexible to deal with changing requirements.

Read More »Leadership As A Team Sport, Part 1

Everybody wants introductions to clients. Everybody wants introductions to good centers of influence that will help them meet new clients. The key to making both of these points work is to make it easy for others to help you.

Read More »Make It Easy For Others To Help You

I do a lot of talking about “going for it”, about taking risks, doing new things, about letting go of the familiar and mediocre to create something new that you actually love to be engaged in. As you can imagine, this idea engenders a lot of resistance. We are attached to the familiar, to comfort and (a false sense of) certainty.

We say we want magic in life and in business, that we want an extraordinary experience and exceptional results- and at the same time, we spend our time and effort trying to be more comfortable, more certain. I say these things are directly at odds. Perhaps a little exercise will help loosen you up, help you take a leap and spend your time creating what you say you really want. Let’s just see what happens.

Read More »Magic, Comfort and The Worst-Case Scenario

This is one of my favorite topics and always invites a heated discussion. I believe its best not to give out your business card to everybody you meet.  Instead, wait for them to ask for your card.  By doing this, you know that the person you have met, whether its a potential networking colleague or customer, is truly interested in you.

Read More »Don’t Give Out Your Business Card

What is it about you and your business that stands out?

Most of us “know” that it is important to differentiate ourselves from the competition to create a competitive advantage- and yet in the activity of handling our day to day workload (and given the fact that we’re often “too close” to our own work to see it clearly), we often fail to really clarify, for ourselves and certainly our potential clients, what separates us from the pack. We fail to powerfully address the question, “Why work with/ buy from US (versus “them”)?”

Consider that there is a flow of resources, whether money, prospective clients or anything else. That is, picture what you want as being like a river, and what you want to build is a gate/ semi-dam structure that diverts some of that flow to you. Differentiation is that gate. What is it that would have potential clients flow naturally to you?

Read More »Stand Out and Deliver

Are you a rock star?

Are you a professional athlete?

Are you in the Special Forces?

If you answered “no” to those questions, which you probably did, I have news for you.  Your job is boring.  That’s right.  Nobody is really excited about what you do for a living.   Did you ever see somebody interviewed on a late night talk show to discuss whole vs. term life insurance?  Do they discuss marketing and branding for small to medium sized companies?  Does Page Six in the NY Post show photos of tech support people getting coffee and pushing their kids in a stroller?  The answer to those questions is “no”.

Read More »Are You Boring?

It is well known and oft-cited that 90% of new businesses fail within their first year and, of those that make it through those first 12 months, 90% of them fail within the next two years. What is less acknowledged , seemingly accepted as “just the way it is”, and just as concerning for me is that many more businesses fail to fulfill on their original intention: to provide the owner with a great life and the opportunity to contribute to his family, community and the world.

We create businesses to serve our lives, and soon our lives are serving our businesses.

Well, here’s the news: it doesn’t actually have to be that way.

Read More »Create a Game You Love to Play

One of the most crucial aspects to networking is having a good plan to follow up.  It is important to to do this with the people you’ve met and most importantly with referrals that have been offered to you.

Referrals Offered
Yogi Berra is rumored to have said, “If somebody offers you a referral, take it!”  I recently attended a high end networking event where a group of us participated in an exercise where we each offered introductions to other people at the table.  After listening carefully to who the people at my table wanted to meet, I offered a specific introduction opportunity for everybody at the table.  The only catch to the introduction was that they had to send me an email with their contact information in order to get it.  Out of nine people, I only received one email.  I retold this story a few times and learned this is a common problem that everybody experiences.  What this tells me is that there are many people that are networking but not doing it well.  Use this knowledge as a way to separate yourself from the pack.  If you become good at following up, then you will earn a reputation as a great networker and everybody will want to work with you and bring you introductions that will eventually lead to new business.

Read More »Following Up, Part 2

Imagine that you’re setting out to design and build your dream house. Are you going to put some time, thought and effort into it or are you going to just grab some boards, a hammer and nails, and throw something up in a few hours? That’s a no-brainer, right? I mean, can you imagine it: “There we go… oops, company’s coming over, I’d better throw together a living room… hmmm, we’re getting kind of hungry- time to put up a kitchen…”

Yet, that’s how many of us build our businesses… We leap excitedly into action, and then get caught up in a seemingly inescapable cycle of reaction, always left dealing with the next emergency, putting out the biggest fire or chasing after the next big thing. And for each situation, we respond with action, with “doing”. Doing something, doing more, doing better, doing it differently.

What if some other way is possible? The world of architecture shows us that it is.

Read More »Designing vs Doing

The Most Effective Tactic For Following Up

After meeting a new contact at a networking event, everybody knows it’s important to follow up and to do it quickly.  The key to this simple effort is to do it in a way that achieves the desired result.  And that is to arrange a meeting and establish a new networking relationship.

Here is the situation.  You were at event, which could be a private networking group or a large function and you met a great person.  You enjoyed speaking with them and you feel they could be a great networking colleague.  They could be one of the three types of networking capital, a Connector, a Center of influence or a Hidden gem.  Either way, you want to meet this person again.  The conventional wisdom offers good advice but misses a key point.  Everybody agrees that a follow up email should include the following:

Read More »Networking 101, Class 6