Offliners, this is a "must-read"...

[JohnMcCabe]

I was just scrolling through the feed for the Makepeace Total Package, and I came across this article by Bob Bly. It was written for web designers, but it applies equally to any offline consulting...

The Worst Self-Marketing Strategy Ever Devised… and Why It Fails So Spectacularly | The Total Package

If you don't have time to read the whole article, here's the most important part:

My (Bly's) advice:

* Never give unsolicited advice or criticism.
* Don’t offer solutions until you really know what the problem is - and the only way you can really understand the problem is for the potential client to tell you.
* If you want to show the potential client how smart you are, stop pontificating. Instead, ask intelligent questions and listen to the answers.

[Harry Behrens]

I remember when I was involved in MLM... around 1998 or so... one of our strategies was to put a classified ad in the newspaper and put our email at the end. One email I got was from a guy who told me my classified was badly written, that it would never get anybody to act and that he could fix it up for me if I hired him. What followed was a couple rounds of *nasty* emails back and forth that wasted both our times.

So while I have done the thing of having work ready to go for a prospective client (in the sense of having a nice niche-related website of my own already online to show what is possible during the presentation) and it did help me, I fully agree that the "critiquing" or "constructive criticism" angle is definitely one of the worst things you can do.

[James Foster]

John, this post was terrible. Hire me and I'll tell you how to fix it