Sometimes it is ok to be an "order taker"

Several years ago, when I started my consulting practice, I needed to purchase life insurance.?I contacted three insurance agents and told them my need (the type of policy and coverage amount).?

Two got back to me requesting a meeting to conduct a financial needs assessment. They wanted to better understand my situation and determine what products would be best.?The third told me that she could be at my house the next morning with the application forms for me to sign.?

It is 15 years later.?Guess which one is my trusted advisor?

Given the title of this post, you probably?assumed?it is the third agent.?If so, you are correct.?However, conventional wisdom would say it should have been one of the first two. They wanted to understand my need and add value. The third one just took my order.

I often hear leaders tell their staff not to be an “order taker.” They advise them to add value to the process.

The problem is that many internal functions misunderstand how their business partners define value. They force their customer through excess processes, discussions, and activities that often delay delivering anything of actual value.

Imagine how tedious it would be if for every purchase that you wanted to make, you first had to convince a salesperson that you were asking for the right thing. Now consider how often you do that to your?business partners.

The greatest value that you can provide your customer, whether internal or external, is to make their problems go away quickly and effectively.?My problem was a lack of insurance. I chose the person who created the fastest and straightest path to a policy.

The pushback that I hear is that customers do not always know what they need.?They need our expertise to figure out what their true problem is.?Without it, they might select solutions that will waste their (and the organization’s) time and money. In other words, we believe that our value is saving our customers?from themselves.?While well meaning, this type of thinking is misguided.

First, people, especially executives, often have a pretty good idea of what they need.?It might not be a perfect or holistic solution, but it usually is not completely out in left field either.?It may not solve their problem entirely, but it will most likely move them a little closer.?The faster you start working on their solution, the sooner you can have a conversation about what might be missing from it.

In my case, I have an undergraduate degree in economics with a minor in finance. I had a pretty good understanding of my insurance needs.

Second, in most organizations there is pretty little risk of an isolated, one-off decision doing much damage.?I have yet to see an organization collapse because people went to a training program that wasn’t really needed or bought a one-off piece of software that didn’t quite meet their needs.

In other words, there really is much less risk from your customer making a bad decision than?you?think.?The greater risk for you is being seen as an obstructionist who cannot deliver on a simple request.

Becoming a trusted advisor is a long game. It is based on on-going, repeat interactions.?Use that to your advantage.?Deliver on the small stuff so that you’ll have an opportunity to later discuss the big stuff.?The first word in trusted advisor is “trusted”.?If you cannot do what someone asked, why would they trust you to do something else??

At this point, I have changed my insurance policy four times on the advice of my agent.?Once it was in place and my immediate need was met, I was much more open to hearing about other types of policies and additional considerations for selecting one.

I also have my wife’s life insurance policy, several retirement savings accounts, and my disability insurance policy with this agent.?At the time that she set up my first policy, I never imagined that I would have so many of my financial services products with her.

She is my trusted advisor.?She is the first person I go to with a question about my personal finances.?I have gone from having one product with her to eight.?

I have no idea what happened to those other two agents.?Perhaps they are still waiting to discuss my needs.?I wasn’t looking for a trusted advisor.?I was looking for someone to make my problem go away.?My agent did just that.?And, in doing so, she became my trusted advisor.

A good trusted advisor knows when it is ok to take an order and when his or her client may need some additional help thinking through a problem.?Defaulting to either one every time will quickly make you irrelevant.

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Brad Kolar is an executive consultant, speaker, and communication coach with Avail Advisors.?Avail helps leaders simplify their problems, decisions, data, and communication. He can be reached at [email protected].