Type and hit ENTER

  • Home
  • Articles
  • About
  • The Book
  • Media
  • Speaking
  • Subscribe Free
  • Advisory
  • Contact
GET CONNECTED

 

"Witty, clever and extremely relevant in these godforsaken Zoom times." Zoë Foster Blake

Book on sale now from Penguin Random House.

  • Home
  • Articles
  • About
  • The Book
  • Media
  • Speaking
  • Subscribe Free
  • Advisory
  • Contact
Five Things I Learned At Client University
Share
Client University grads
Articles

Five Things I Learned At Client University

June 15, 2020
-
Posted by Ian Whitworth
https://ianwhitworth.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Uni.mp3

Audio version 7’30” or listen on Spotify


 Client University: Skill Up For Post-Virus

 

Thinking about developing new work skills to equip you for whatever mad changes lie ahead?

The traditional approach is go to a university, but they are expensive. And closed.

Here’s another option you can start now, to help set you up for the post-virus wasteland. You won’t get a nice framed certificate, but it’s free, the lessons are much more up to date, and as a handy bonus, it’s the best sales tool there is.

Ask your clients about their business.

Get them talking about their products, their processes, their management style. They’re so up for it, because much of their life is talking to prospects, friends and family who just aren’t that interested.

Show some genuine curiosity and you’re instantly enrolled in free business school. Just say “how did you come up with that?” or “what works for you in that situation?” and it’s game on.

I’ve been doing it for decades, and it’s honestly the most useful thing I’ve done. Far more than the business qualification I have somewhere in the cupboard.

You always learn something. Not just for work, but for your life in general.

Five random handy things I’ve learned from clients that were useful or just interesting outside of work:

 

1. Coffee Doesn’t Really Need Sugar

 

A well-made milk coffee doesn’t really need sugar. Milk is about 5% lactose sugar. Proper foaming breaks the long lactose chains down into smaller, sweeter sugars. The product designers at an appliance client taught me the mystical arts of espresso coffee, and I’ve loved working on those skills ever since. It’s science you can drink.

Plus your friends will be impressed by your barista moves. You can keep your skanky pods, Clooney.

 

George can’t even look at that coffee, learn to grind, extract and froth bro

2. Dirty Phone Habits

 

After drunks leaving phones in cabs, the next most common phone insurance claim is people who dropped it into the toilet. The worst version of this – and I know some culprits here – involve music festival toilets.

Keep it in your pocket, you filthy animals. You’re pushing our premiums up.

 

“Find my phone” can’t save you now

3. The Killer Helicopter

 

From the same insurance client: the most common tourist joyride helicopter out there is a Code Red safety risk. I saw all the accident data, and the chopper in question was near uninsurable thanks to its off-the-dial kill rate.

The manufacturer claims it’s the pilots, but you be the judge. I wouldn’t get in one of those helicopters to escape a burning building.

All my readers are valuable to me, please do not go up in one.

 

 

Client University Safety 101: avoid the Robinson R44

Just no, readers

 

 

4. Corona: Bad Virus, Worse Beer

 

Beer is the opposite of wine. There is no nice ageing process. Beer is like milk, at its best the day it leaves the brewery, and it’s all downhill from there. Would you drink milk shipped from the tropics on the other side of the world? Heat and light are the natural enemies of beer. That’s why the hipsters all use cans now.

And it’s one reason why all beers in clear bottles taste like bin juice. Also I think those beers are literally brewed by the marketing department.

 

5. Spend Less On Tyres

 

Lower your cost of your car tyres a lot by saying “I want durability tyres, not performance tyres”. Because they love fast cars, tyre sales reps like to sell you tyres designed for ultimate high-speed cornering performance, as if that’s a thing you need for your trips to the shops and school.

Those qualities also make them wear out real fast. Thanks old tyre client for that secret knowledge.

 

Michelin man

The only tyre guy you can trust, just look at his happy face

 

Cheers clients! You’ve saved me money, helped me eat and drink better, and saved me from perishing in an avgas fireball. And that’s not even touching on the work skills they’ve taught me.

 

How To Seem Like A Genius At Work

 

There are two ways to seem like a genius in business:

  1. Be a genius (difficult).
  2. Take basic innovations from elsewhere and be the first to apply them in your industry.

As a non-genius, stolen ideas have helped my businesses a lot. Thinking up your own, all-new ideas is really time-consuming and they might not work anyway, because most customers are terrified of new things.

I prefer ideas road-tested with someone else’s money.

A friend has a thriving business resurfacing driveways. He conquers new suburbs block-by-block with a sales strategy lifted directly from a book he read on holidays. Was it The Sales Secrets They Didn’t Tell You At Sales School?

No, it was American Gangster. Is it wrong to build a business on ideas from the notorious Frank Lucas, the leading heroin distributor of 1970s Harlem? I’d call it ingenious and a much more entertaining story.

 

 

Client University, Frank Lucas-style

Welcome to business school with Frank Lucas

 

I just joined the advisory board of a corporate law firm whose mission is to help major firms change how they work. I know nothing about law, though I’ve learned a lot lately and it’s heaps interesting. I’m basically there to suggest ideas I’ve nicked from elsewhere, to help make this firm different to others.

And selfishly, I’ll end up with tons of law info that will help in our own businesses.

Whether you call it learning or thieving, it works.

 

Make Clients Like You

 

It’s basic How To Win Friends And Influence People stuff: be interested in them and it’s much more charming than crapping on about yourself and your product.

The best way to be interesting is to be interested.

Personal charm aside, it does make you more valuable to them. Clients are immersed in their own industry, and their world view is limited to what their competitors are up to. If you can bring them news and ideas from outside their goldfish bowl, they’re interested. You can help them solve problems.

You’re operating on another level compared to competitors who just know their own product.

Note: there’s a difference between news and industry gossip. That’s a very different sales approach, one that will end with closed doors and a career as an eternal drifter.

 

Career Tip: Don’t Get Locked In

 

If you’re in the early part of your career, and you haven’t quite found your niche yet, take a job that’s client-facing over one that isn’t. The information you can pick up just builds, layer by layer, until you’re a master of general business knowledge that you can apply in any situation.

You won’t get that if you’re trapped in a closed-off department, where your only teacher is Kent from IT.

And the beauty of client university is: you never graduate, it just keeps going. The more you learn, the better questions you ask. Your conversations go to a higher level. You learn the secret language of people who are really good at stuff.

It’s a lifelong practice that keeps paying off.

So out you go and learn. Fly, my pretties.

 


 

If you’re new here, I write a story like this each Tuesday, drop your email here and get it in your inbox each week.

 

June 15, 2020

Related News

Other posts that you should not miss.
JobKeeper Zombies
Articles

COVID Zombieland: End Times Survival Tips

September 28, 2020
-
Posted by Ian Whitworth

No point in sugar-coating this, weaker businesses are going to die as JobKeeper winds down. Let's try to stop your business being one of those.

Read More
September 28, 2020
Posted by Ian Whitworth
Grant Cardone vs Parkinson's Law Smackdown
Articles

Cardone 10x vs Parkinson’s Law: which makes you more cash?

February 7, 2022
-
Posted by Ian Whitworth

Business book smackdown time. This week, The 10X Rule vs Parkinson's Law. One has made me a lot of money, and the results might surprise you.

Read More
February 7, 2022
Posted by Ian Whitworth
Business theatre skills
Articles

The theatre of business: six rules to stand out and get remembered

April 26, 2022
-
Posted by Ian Whitworth

Hey it works for Elon Musk. 6 essential theatre rules that apply right across the world of business. Each will help you stand out and get remembered.

Read More
April 26, 2022
Posted by Ian Whitworth
← PREVIOUS POST
Why Don’t Your Staff Do What You Tell Them?
NEXT POST →
I Was A Teenage Shoplifter And An Ignorant White Guy

1 Comment

on Five Things I Learned At Client University.
  1. Dominic Ryan
    June 16, 2020 @ 11:36 pm
    -

    Good stuff Ian. I have passed the information of a certain type of helicopter to the founder here: no more ‘$100 burger’ jaunts for him!
    I used to work for one of the best ‘geniuses’ around – built a global brand on the idea of doing things a little better than the competition. And recognising the power of PR and voice of course …

FREE E-BOOK

SUBSCRIBE
MOST POPULAR
  • Last-minute grocery businesses are a massive bag of dicks
    June 27, 2022

    It’s a business model that seems to have cherry-picked all the worst, hardest, most expensive elements of running a business.

  • Scotty Marketing
    3 post-Scotty lessons: good marketing is not like that
    May 30, 2022

    Don't be a product that people only buy once. How to make marketing a force for honesty and profitability in your business instead.

  • Undisruptable South Korea deal
    Undisruptable’s first international publishing deal
    January 31, 2022

    Undisruptable will see its first international release later this year and it's not in a country you'd expect.

  • “An Australian business classic.” Reviews of Undisruptable
    July 12, 2021

    The reviews are in and they are very good.

ABOUT IAN WHITWORTH

Ian Whitworth is a reformed advertising creative director turned entrepreneur with a successful national group of businesses that he doesn’t work in day to day. Read more

POPULAR TAGS
management
branding
Sales
Marketing
jargon
Persuasion
Covid 19
Nickelback
Pitching
Coronavirus
strategy
MBA
startup
Copywriting
Motivation
Business
CEO
Design
Graphic Design
Business Travel
Elon Musk
Frequent Flyer
David Attenborough
Advice
Lacey Filipich
Saxton Speakers
Scene Change
Penguin Random House
Gary Vaynerchuk
Sales Pitch
Tendering
Planning
Conversation Skills
Customers
Customer Service
AI
Shingy
LinkedIn
Simon Sinek
Success
Presentations
Mr Pigden
Motivators
Entrepreneur
Ian Wright
Archives
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • Contact
  • Subscribe
  • Privacy
  • Terms & Conditions
© Whitworth Communications 2020
Five Things I Learned At Client University - Undisruptable