Sorry for getting the author confused. You said Nicaragua, and I just thought it was Phil. Chile, Nicaragua, Philippines, it’s all the same to me.

There are always specific reasons for why things don’t work out, or why a client isn’t ready to receive the advice we have to give. And it’s very difficult sometimes to see past all the reasons why somebody can’t get something done and to try to help them with what they can get done – especially when you think it’s a waste of time.

I have no doubt the person you spoke with wasn’t business ready, and may very well end up getting nowhere with his furniture business.
But I think we should try to help anyway. Yes, I’m being idealistic, but I believe (as you do) that when people are given opportunity and assistance they will rise to their level of ability (of course that’s not the same for everybody), and that is almost always above where they currently are.

Of course I’m saying this from the 30th floor of my 6th Avenue office building, where I’m totally out-of-touch with the riff-raff. So, feel free to ignore everything I’ve just said.

Nic

You’re right. I should have been able to help this guy more than I did. But first, I’d like to provide a little more background.

The organization behind the event is called Agora Partnerships, which provides Nicaraguan entrepreneurs with financing, strategy consulting, and access to networks to allow the entrepreneurs to incubate profitable small and medium-sized businesses that can stimulate job growth and bolster the Nicaraguan middle class.

This organization has a very powerful story, compelling to people like you and me who are businessmen with an interest in development.

However the organization faces challenges in identifying dynamic entrepreneurs who are capable of leveraging Agora’s services to build value. This “client,” for example, was not ready to build a thriving small business (at least in my quick judgment). The fact that he had a very vague idea of what he wanted to do made me skeptical that he was capable of developing the idea and executing.

As a good liberal, sometimes I have the instinct to expect that any poor person CAN DO IT. That person probably has just been locked out because of closed social networks, lack of ability to take risks, and lack of financing. Then comes along someone I have very little confidence in. I wouldn’t trust him to make decisions for me or my business. He makes me think the problems are MUCH deeper, and probably have a lot to do with education. I think back on all my opportunities and times I was encouraged to achieve and learn, whether in school, on a sports team, or with a music teacher. Those are huge advantages over many Nicaraguans and other people around the world. I start realizing that my expectations were wrong. It’s not the case that EVERYONE can do it.

I digress. Anyway, I did not believe that this person was going to ever export furniture. He was not likely to benefit from Agora’s services. So I didn’t reach out and look for ways to really help him.

Yes, I could have done better by him. I should have tried to figure out where he was and where he could go. But we started so far apart, in fact from totally different realities, and the crux that was supposed to bring us together – he’s an entrepreneur with a business problem – was not compelling to me. So we wasted some time. I looked for the next candidate, hopefully someone more prepared, for whom Agora could provide more value.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. What do you think?

The points you made above while (potentially) technically accurate, didn’t do anything to help your Nicaraguan friend. While the back and forth you had may have had some ironical elements to it, something of similar result happens all the time in the consulting industry. It’s a major reason why people think consultants are a waste of time and money. But instead of spending 30 minutes giving advice the would-be entrepreneur can’t use, we sometimes take months to give our clients recommendations that isn’t actionable.

I think the problem is two-fold:

1) We’re whores for money. I hate to say it, but it’s true. Only the most successful Directors are able to say no to bad projects, and honestly, even they probably let their standards slip from time to time. If a client wants to buy a project, it may not matter if you know it’s a waste of time. We’ll do it anyway. The result is, we end up taking on projects that are, a) impractical and ill-conceived, or b) doomed to be still-born, or end up on a shelf somewhere nobody will ever look.

2) We too often are unwilling to stand up to our clients. This is partly because they have all the money, and there is a pretty high correlation between likability and future sales. So, being an arrogant consultant and telling your client they’re wrong is a pretty sure way of having the next phase of your project hit budgeting issues.

Phil, I think you had a real moment here to not just answer the questions your ‘client’ was asking you, but to help him figure out what the ‘right’ questions really were.
Did your client really want to sell furniture to American’s, or was he looking for a business he could start that would leverage the skills he had and help his family create long-term wealth?
Did he really think international sales were the solution to his problems, or was he emulating what he thought international expansion meant?
Was the right question really, “Do you want to export finished pieces or individual parts?” or was it something closer to, “What is it you’re trying to accomplish?”

It’s very possible my suggestions have too much “talk-therapy” and not enough “practical business advice”, but I really think that to help a client is not just to answer their questions, but to help them realize what the right questions are that need to be answered.

(This perspective – and recent realization – may be connected to the feeling that my consulting days may be numbered.)

As much as I agree with you, I have to wonder how much being a successful entrepreneur has to do with ignoring the details. Ignoring the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ to be specific.
I struggle with the idea of going out there and building my own company, and every idea I come up with has multiple reasons for why it might fail. The list of road blocks is endless.

If you think back to before the interwebs was ubiquitous, and if some guy said he wanted to start a shop online to sell books, you might have thought, ‘uh huh, yeah. awesome freakin’ idea. books. on the internet. genius. i mean, why wouldn’t I to wait a week to get a book i’ve just purchased anyway? retard…”

i had a friend who went for a job interview (eons ago) and the interviewer told him of this magnificent idea of building an IT company that would then move into traditional media. Acquisition was one likely means of doing this. My friend went to MIT, and by all definitions is a genius. he thought the interviewer was retarded and decided not to join the company. That interviewer was Steve Case, and the company was AOL. They eventually did manage to get into the media business. You might say the story didn’t end the way everybody had hoped, but the vision was there and it was executed on.

I fear sometimes thinking through the problem too much actually keeps us from making the right decisions because we can see the negative consequences (all to vividly at times) and are then paralyzed into inaction. Perhaps faith and vision are more important ingredients to entrepreneurial success.

Nic