Published on LinkedIn on July 9, 2015.
This anecdote is true, infused with my own quirky sense of humor.
I have a client that calls me occasionally. He has his own in house estimator, recently hired. They bid on multi-million dollar infrastructure projects. His calls (or emails) are always prefaced with “You gotta help me out here.”
I got one of those calls right before the weekend. He was awarded a serious contract. Now he is scared. Can I rework the numbers for him just to make sure? He already did it in house, and he also got the numbers reworked by another consultant (with fees lower than mine). But they are quite conflicting, and now he is even more confused and uneasy.
I got the opportunity to work through the July 4th weekend, just to help him out here. I worked “with” his in house estimator, and just by his questions, I knew that he was uncomfortably out of his league.
My product worked for him. So he wanted to know what was the software that I used. He told me that he wants to buy it.
So I wonder…..If I buy a drill – will I become a dentist?
If I buy a stethoscope – will I be a doctor?
If so, then what do I have to buy to be a psychologist?
Oh, and the most important lesson that I learned is that I don’t need to be embarrassed to ask my favorite restaurant for their recipes. That would be a perfectly reasonable request.
