Through the years we've learned that our client's story is our story. Several years ago a prospective new client asked me, "What is it that separates your firm from the others?" This, as you might imagine, led us into a longer conversation of our potential new client's needs and expectations.

Maybe, just maybe you'll see yourself or others you know in some small way in this story.

It was a cold windy day in November and we had just come into the corporate headquarters and settled into a warm conference room. We had coffee and hot cocoa and there were several people gathered around the table ready for the meeting to begin. I immediately sensed several members of their team needed to feel encouraged, their efforts appreciated. My job was to strengthen their resolve for success. Contributions to their company needed to be embraced. You've experienced this I know. Having an outsider come into your secure environment with no knowledge of what you do or how you do it and He is going to tell you how to manage? Have you felt threatened or at risk? Of course you have. That's exactly how these team members felt.

Introductions were made and the executive opened the discussion expressing the current need for a comparative "benchmark" assessment of spending for services from a major vendor. We discussed current state and desired state. This gave the team a good chance to interact and relax as they shared their knowledge openly and confidently. With each interaction I felt that I was earning the right to proceed while encouraging an atmosphere of cooperative spirit.

Many of the desired results this client was expecting were clearly impacted by communications challenges with the vendor. Additionally, roles, responsibilities and accountabilities needed to be defined. Really, who was to do what and when, and how was success to be measured? I described our assessment and competitive analysis approach and gained concurrence that this method was purposeful and that risk would be mitigated with positive results. We moved the team into action describing next steps and setting expectations. We successfully worked together as a team on that engagement and produced enormous savings with improved services. The Team was the hero! Not FFC. Now empowered, the Team continues to produce improved results. The story is in it's 7th year and growing with performance coaching and network services successes.

The net answer to our client's question is that the FFC team involvement and leadership empowers the client team and they become the medal winners. We transfer the knowledge and successes to the team, continually encouraging excellence through effectiveness.

Did I mention that this team was recently successful in negotiating a new agreement that reduced their company's network services operating cost by 55%?

We continue to work together and anticipate that our relationship will strengthen for years to come.