Peter Winick says every engagement has three winners: the end user, the economic buyer who pays, and your own organization. Most professionals focus only on the participant, but you need to serve the buyer's success criteria and ensure the work leads to follow-on business or referrals.
Hey there, it's Peter Winick. I'm the founder and CEO at Thought Leadership Leverage, and here's a thought that I'd like to share with you, and that's this: every transaction that you do with a client, every engagement, every consulting engagement, every keynote engagement that you do, there are 3 potential winners in this process, right? And the 3 winners are the end user, who's the participant in a keynote, for example; the economic buyer, who's the sponsor of the event or the actual client whose budget that your fees come off of, and then your own organization. And what I find often in my conversations with authors, speakers, thought leaders, consultants, academics, etc., is that the focus tends to exclusively be to the end user. And I'm not suggesting that we underserve the end user. We've got to do a great job. We've got to knock it out of the park. But we also need to serve the economic buyer. Their needs are a little bit different. What does success look like for them other than a great program? What can you do to help them do the job that they need to do? And quite frankly, what would success look like for you and your organization if this engagement went well? Does it lead to follow-on work, future work, introductions, referrals, other opportunities? So again, 3 constituents that need to win for every engagement that you do. It's the end user, it's the economic buyer, and it's your own organization. Would love to hear your thoughts.
