How do consultants impress their clients?

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AI generated transcript:

My very first day in consulting, I was told by a very senior person I need you to print out all their annual reports for the last 10 years. And I said, but that's a lot of paper, what about the environment? He said, no, we need to carry a physical amount of paper to show that we really know a lot. And I was like, that's just crazy but apparently that visual impact made the client think we were super clever.

By the time I, went through my 12 years career, I was operating a very senior level and I'd be in boardrooms all around Europe watching as we presented our very expensive papers and watched the reaction.

And you could see instantly whether people believed what you were saying and whether they bought into it. And most times they didn't. Because they didn't understand it was too complex. But they were too afraid to say anything. Or they loved the idea, but because the person proposing it, they didn't like because of politics, they were like I'm never gonna agree to this. And so you could just see it in their eyes, this look of fear, this look of yeah this is like a great half hour, but I'm not gonna do anything with it.