Secret Tradecraft of Elite Advisors

David has a brand new book, Secret Tradecraft of Elite Advisors: Covert Techniques for a Remarkable Practice. In it he reveals exactly how he manages engagements with his clients, and he’s nervous about how it will be received.

Links

Secret Tradecraft of Elite Advisors: Covert Techniques for a Remarkable Practice

The Business of Expertise: How Entrepreneurial Experts Convert Insight to Impact + Wealth

Transcript

Blair Enns: David, how long have you been an advisor to agencies?

David Baker: 28 years.

Blair: I've been doing it 20 years approaching 21 years. There are these seminal moments in your consulting advisory business--

David: Like when I met you. Is that what you're getting me to say?

Blair: Yes, and it's all downhill after that. There are these inflection points, and I don't think there is a bigger, more invigorating inflection point in an advisor's career than the moment he or she releases a new book and you have a brand new book Secret Tradecraft of Elite Advisors: Covert Techniques for a Remarkable Practice. You must feel great.

David: You would think. I don't.

Blair: You don't?

David: Well, parts of it I feel great. It's like a-- I can't say it's a birthing process. I'm going to get in trouble from somebody.

Blair: Oh, totally. Is like being nine months pregnant for two years, or for me, it is.

David: Here's two men talking.

Blair: Well, with six kids between them.

David: Yes, so in that sense, it's such a relief. I remember talking with Julie, my wife, after this, and I said, you know that might be my last book. I'm not sure I have another one in me. Then two days later, I said, I am excited about my next book. It takes everything out of you. You wind down to zero almost, and then you start to wind back up, but this book, my hesitation about being excited is just that I don't know about this book. I guess we'll get into that a little bit today, but I'm nervous. I'm nervous about it, but I'm also very excited and proud that I got it done.

Blair: I know you're nervous about it. I sense your nervousness about it, and I've sensed it for a while. In fact, we're recording this end of January 2023 as he checks his mental notes to see where he is in time. I'm pretty sure you finished the manuscript before COVID hit, is that right?

David: Yes, I did. Yes. It was late '19, early '20.

Blair: Yes, and then you were sitting on it, and I always wondered, why were you sitting on this book?

David: It was so bad that I had finished it, except for one-- well, I thought I'd finished it. I sent it to my editor, Brent Muth, and she sent it back. I'll edit it, and she said, "I think it probably needs another chapter here." That's all I needed to finish it, and then it sat for more than two years, and I forgot that she had edited it already. I sent it back to her.

Blair: With the new chapter.

David: With the new chapter, and she said, "I already edited this," and it's like I just let it die in my head. You just sort of like, okay, I'm not stoking this fire. I kind of had this memory marker, and I just messed it up, but it just didn't seem like the right time because of everything that was happening back in whenever it was, February or March, we're looking around wondering if we're still going to be around, and we're wiping off packages that people drop on the front porch. It just seemed like a weird time to do a book, and then also Amazon de-emphasized books. They decided that they were going to use their warehouses and they're shipping people to send people hand sanitizer and diapers or whatever it was that they thought was more important than my book.

Blair: I love the indignation in your voice.

David: That was part of it, too.

Blair: Global pandemic.

David: But then people here, they're thinking about survival. They're not thinking about creating a remarkable practice. The time just didn't seem right.

Blair: Okay. There's also something about the content of this book because this book is different, isn't it? This is you really opening the kimono to your practice.

David: It is, yes.

Blair: There are a lot of parallels between your business and our listeners' businesses. They're all advisory businesses in some way or some form. You do lean a lot on your own practice as examples for some of the things that you teach and talk about, but this book is really all about your own personal learning from your business as opposed to what you've learned from your clients' businesses.

David: Yes. There's two things buried in there that are making me nervous. This is the entire source of my anxiety. One is that when a client reads this, they're going to see some of the ways that I manage an engagement and I hope it doesn't make them uncomfortable. That's part of it because you're basically seen inside, but the bigger reason is the title is Secret Tradecraft of Elite Advisors: Covert Techniques for a Remarkable Practice. Elite and remarkable. I'm afraid people are going to read this thing and say, "Oh, he thinks he has an elite, remarkable practice, and he thinks that you all should be like him," and that not how I feel at all. I'm not saying this is a remarkable practice and I'm elite. I am not saying that. I am successful, I'm not trying to deny that, but that's not the point of this book. Anyway, I'm just afraid people will misuse-- I just can't wait to see the first Amazon review that talks about that. It shouldn't bother me too much.

Blair: This idiot thinks he's elite.

David: Yes and remarkable.

Blair: Yes.

David: That is not the spirit of this book. It's a confident, slightly apologetic. It's like, Oh, screw it. I'm just going to say it.

Blair: Oh, let it go, man. Fuck them all if they can't take a joke. [laughter]

David: Well, yes, there is something. I haven't been nervous about any other publishing project, but this one does make me nervous. Then the other thing is too, I think I overpriced it. It's $32 and it's too late to change it because it's already buried in the barcode and it's all over the book itself and I can't really change it. I think I'm going to catch some hell for that too, but I don't know.

Blair: It's a good sorting mechanism though because if you want to be an elite advisor and have a remarkable practice and you won't pay the $12 premium or whatever it is, you're never going to be an elite advisor with a remarkable practice.

David: That's true.

Blair: I think it's just going to filter people out. When you said to Julie that you think this might be your last book, my first reaction was I laughed to myself and I thought, "You've got a lot more books in you." I'm not going to take that back. You do have a lot more books in you, and I expect to see some of those come to life. This does read a little bit like what Daniel Kahneman called an old man book. What I mean by that, I said to you, it's like, it feels like it's just full of fatherly advice for young consultants out there.

There's no disparagement in that at all. It's a wise book of somebody who's, "Hey, here's what I've done. Here are the mistakes I've made, here's where I've landed, here's where I've just given up caring about the things that just aren't important. Here are the areas where I care deeply. I think you should think about deeply where maybe you haven't thought about it this way." There are books that are filled with advice, most books are, but it's got this sage wisdom about it. I don't like blowing smoke up your ass.

David: Yes. I wish you did more of it. [laughs]

Blair: This is the one time a year. I've read the book three times. I read an early manuscript and really liked it. I read it again after it was printed and really liked it. Then I read it a third time in preparation for this. I was just going through it thinking, damn, this is so good. I think I said to you, your previous book, The Business of Expertise, 6, 7 years ago.

David: Six, yes,

Blair: Six years ago. We've been doing this podcast forever because I remember distinctly having the conversation about the launch of that book. It has sold really well. It has made a big impact in the world. I think this new book is going to shatter the sales of The Business of Expertise. I think this is going to blow up.

David: If it does, that'll be a big surprise to me. I think of this book as appealing to a smaller slice of everybody that read Expertise, which I think you ought to read first, unless you're already tightly positioned, then it doesn't matter. Of all the people that read Expertise and enjoyed it, I'm guessing that maybe a third, that was my goal, is to get about a third of those people to read this. In fact, it shows up in the print run. I printed half of what Expertise printed the first print run, so that was my expectation. That would be a wonderful surprise. I don't think it'll happen, but it'd be a wonderful surprise.

One of the mistakes, not the writing mistakes, but one of the operational mistakes I made with Expertise is I didn't release all three versions at once. There was one, and then later The Kindle and then The Audible. I didn't know what I was doing. Anytime you're going to do more than one version, you should release them all at once. I did that in this case, and The Audible version was the last of the three versions. I told Julie over in the house and said, "Okay, I'm headed over to the office. I'm all set up over the next two days, I'm going to record the book." Then Marcus, who's our podcast producer, he was going to get it all prepped and send it to Audible and everything.

She looked at me and she said, "I know what's going to happen. You're going to come back here." Because I walked back into the first chapter. "You're going to come back here and you'll going to tell me how good that book is?" I just laughed and I said, "No, that's--" Then I read the first chapter and it's like, "Damn, this really is good." I fell in love with it again. I was like, it's simple. I think, oh, there should be probably more in here, but then, no, I'm proud of this. I'm really proud of it. I'm happy to plant a flag on this book. Here I am, getting all proud again but if somebody misunderstands the spirit of the book, then it's fine.

Blair: Yes. When I started preparing for this, I was going through the content again and I thought, "Oh, well let's do a deep dive into the content." Then I realized, ah, what's the point? We'll hit on a couple of things. I really want to talk more about your goals, your fears, a little bit about the process of-- but some of the content, so when it comes to the content, you start off the book in your introduction, trying to ward off bad consultants, like the influencer types. You have a little bit to say about-- I can read it if you like, but you clearly are concerned that in the wrong hands, these covert techniques will be misused. Do you want to talk about that a bit?

David: Yes. Some of them are clearly manipulative, especially if you understand that manipulative is not an evil word, it's just a truth and it could be used for good or evil, just like a gun could be used for good or evil. Manipulation can be good, it can be bad. I'm just disgusted at the group of consultants and advisors out there. It seems to me in the past, the percentage of advisors who were good was really much higher than it is now. Now you have all these hack people and growth bros and it's like, oh, it's so disgusting to me where most of them are not really teaching substance. It's more like an unidentified multi-level marketing scheme where they are teaching you how to be as much of an influencer as they are. It's all about the technique, it's not about substance.

Blair: Join their affiliate program.

David: Exactly.

Blair: I'm going to read this paragraph. Sorry to cut you off.

David: Okay.

Blair: In the wrong hands, this book will be misused. It'll allow idiot consultants who have no business in the business to create a second life and extend their influence. It will reveal the secrets to attracting gullible followers who have more money than discernment. These fraudsters will show up all over the internet with hacks for this and secrets for that. Meanwhile, they will have done nothing of substance in their work lives.

David: I totally stand behind that. Maybe it should have even been stronger.

Blair: Well, I edited it out a bit. It gets a bit stronger.

[laughter]

Blair: I see somebody who's, you're certainly not at the end of your career, but you're 28 years in, you've amassed a lot of knowledge of how to do this. You have a reputation. You've created so much value in the space that you serve. You are very well positioned to write this book. When you started your consulting practice or at any point in your advisory career, were there books on consultants or being a good advisor that really spoke to you?

David: What's weird is I'm a very avid reader, but the one segment of books I don't hardly read at all [chuckles] are business to business books.

Blair: I noticed that you read voraciously fiction, but business. You read so many blog posts. You send me so much stuff. I think, ah, how do you have time to read all this stuff? I read business books, but not the blogs.

David: You read business books so that maybe we're splitting the world up and we're helping each other.

Blair: Maybe we are.

David: There have been some very influential, your manifesto, honestly was very helpful to me. That was later halfway through my career. Some of the early books by Ries and Trout around the immutable laws of marketing and that kind of stuff, I loved the fact that they were so concise and I could look out at my world and it just seemed true. Michael Gerber, the first half of his book, The EMyth stuff, really struck me.

Then David Maister, probably the most impactful in my own personal life and exchanging a few emails with him meant a lot to me. Peter Block, I don't know him, but some of his stuff, Alan Weiss, Dan Sullivan, the way he packaged up the business stuff I thought was really, and then I got to mention the most fun I've ever had is watching the series called House of Lies with Don Cheadle. Have you seen that? I just love that show. [chuckles]. I learned a lot about consulting, [chuckles] not the way it should happen, but the way it does happen.

Blair: These numbers are FMA.

David: FMA?

Blair: Yes. From Marty's ass.

David: Oh yes. [laughter] Those are the books that have influenced me, but there have not been many current books that have influenced me. That doesn't mean there aren't any good ones. I just haven't read them. Lots of authors that I read a lot.

Blair: You've cited all the usual credible sources. One of the threads that I want to pull at that you cover in the book is, you could call it work-life balance, but you really talk about the importance of to a healthy or a remarkable practice of the advisor's health, mental health, and confidence. Those three things are related, but they are distinct. I know you struggled with at least two of those at times. I really felt like a little bit that I was reading a glimpse into yourself, but I know you so well so this story is fill in the blanks, but as I'm reading it, I'm struck by those of us who are born or for whatever reason have innate confidence. We're so lucky.

As Dan Sullivan says, "In an entrepreneurial organization, the most valuable asset is the confidence of the entrepreneur." You go so far as to say one of the things your clients are doing in your advisor role is they're borrowing your confidence. Because you point out that in some of your engagements, your clients, they're just lacking it. It's your job to show up with confidence and allow them to borrow some of that for themselves.

David: When you realize that that's part of your role as an advisor, you hopefully will take it very seriously because you don't want to send one of your clients down the wrong path with some false hope and it's going to hurt them. The whole confidence thing comes into play, especially if your own emotional makeup is such that there's some fragility around your emotional health like there has been for mine all my life.

That statement you just read about the importance of confidence for an advisor. How do you be a good advisor if you're struggling with something emotionally or mentally yourself? That is a constant source of struggle. Then on top of that, this field, it's not like I'm working in a dangerous coal mine.

Blair: You're not at physical risk.

David: No, but people aren't going to pay money to an advisor usually unless they've done everything they can think of and they're just at a loss for how to fix it. The truth is that they have actually thought of many of the right solutions. They just haven't had the courage to do them. You are swimming upstream, you're pushing a rock uphill and every call with a client is some sort of a conflict. It's a friendly conflict because they have chosen to interact with you, but you are changing their thinking and you are pointing out holes and it is just flat exhausting. You can do a good job of that if you have less mind clutter and enough confidence to pull that off. When you start questioning yourself and your value and your perspective, it's really hard. It almost feels fake to be a good advisor. That's part of what I was trying to raise there.

Blair: I'm sure you've heard a lot of your clients talk about it and maybe even ask you directly how do you deal with imposter syndrome? What's your response to that question and what do you think of the question?

David: I think it's a great question. I think some of the answers are maybe a little shallow around it. It feels to me like imposter syndrome a certain amount of it is absolutely critical to doing good work. We're not talking about whether you are or not facing imposter syndrome. To me, it's more about to what degree you are. If you are a great advisor you are out ahead of your skis a little bit. Not so much that you're flipping upside down every day and breaking things, but you need to keep learning. I was in a call this week with somebody and I made a statement about what their client base should look like and she immediately jumped in and said, "Oh, that's just, no, that doesn't apply to us." I remember all these thoughts go flooding through my mind in just a split second.

It's the life of the consultant because two things had to be true in my response to her. One is I need to not shy away from what I'm pretty darn sure is true from a lot of research and a lot of experience, but I need to leave the door open for being wrong here because every time I've learned something significant, it's been because I've been wrong and I've had an assumption that turned out not to be true. That interplay in your head can mess with you and you can react one way or the other depending off if you're feeling cocky that day or if you're really second guessing yourself another day.

Regardless of how you react, it is exhausting and like I said, I'm not working in a coal mine, it's not that. I think the mental health of an advisor is more impactful. It has more of a role than it does in some other professions. I was just trying to raise that point that you can't be a great advisor unless you are somewhat self-aware and you have fences around your life so that you can keep doing it for an indefinite period of time.

Blair: Physical health, you just think of there are times when you're dealing with whatever ailment and it affects-- like it takes a certain amount of your concentration because some of your brain is always concerned or working on this or when your physical health affects your ability to get a good night's sleep. All of these things tend to compound, play with your mind a little bit. You lose your confidence it can go downhill pretty fast.

David: Yes, and kind of build on itself. That's why I felt like even though this is a short book it's only something like 25,000 words I felt like for it to be a complete book we need to talk about not just technique but about you as a person showing up to be a good advisor. Like you said at the beginning, almost everybody that listens to this podcast is an advisor in some way. Now, maybe that's not how they came to it in the industry and maybe they've made things over the years in some ways but as they get better and better at what they do, they're going to be doing less and thinking more. Everybody is an advisor to some degree in this space. I'm just hoping it's helpful to those folks too.

Blair: Yes, I'm sure it is. There are two more content threads here I want to pull on. Something that just shines through in this book is your putting the truth on a pedestal. It's so important to you personally in your own work that you say what needs to be said, that the advisor be in a position to be able to speak the truth. I've said to you and on this podcast and to lots of people about you that what makes you a good advisor is you're willing to tell somebody that their baby is ugly.

There are two things I think that allow you to do that. One is you have a low need to be liked within a business context. You don't need your clients to like you. You're not driven by thinking, well, I hope they like me. You're driven by this other thing which is the absolute requirement to deliver value. To you, that means speaking the truth. I think that is part of the essence of David Baker the advisor and the human being. Man, it just comes shining through in this book.

David: I hope so. What haunts me about that whole theme is something you said years ago, never be afraid of just the truth. I forget exactly what the context was but I've thought about that many times. Then the corollary to that is okay if you're not afraid of the truth then the sooner you find it out the better. I had been a truth teller before that but that put it in a slightly different context for me.

I had a conversation with Jonathan who works with me on the M&A side and we were reminding each other that we're right in the thick of a deal that if it happens, it could be close to a $500,000 fee for us. If it doesn't means nothing. We were just reminding each other's like listen, we're going to do what's best for the client. Don't think about the fee. My goal is that every year I live I get more willing to hear the truth and that I find better ways to express the truth to other people. Yes, that is a big part of who I am and it's not easy but I feel really good about it.

Blair: Yes. I think we'll stop there in the content front. I'll just make reference to this other thing. I don't want to dive deeply into it but in the printed book it's on page 35. This is for a remarkable practice for elite advisors but you do model out the stages of an advisory business. These three main stages of initial when you're just starting out and then developing and then mature. You have this matrix where you identify things like providing references, speaking opportunities, productization of your services, how you bill the amount and how you travel where you stay, the scope enforcement and et cetera, et cetera.

Then you've got like the way that you should be thinking about this and handling it in different ways depending on where you are in this development matrix initial developing and mature. As an example you say so speaking opportunities early on in the initial stage you will take a panel spot on a panel.

David: The things you love

Blair: Well, I learned from you over 15 years ago don't do panels. I say as a matter of policy I don't do panels. Then when you're developing you're doing breakouts. Then at some point, you get to this mature stage of the elite advisor. You only do keynote. That's one example. You also talk about providing references where in the beginning and you discuss this in more detail in the book but you say initially you offer lots of references. Then when you're at the developing stage, few references and rarely, and then at the mature stage, none. Your reputation speaks for itself. Do you want to speak to the last point? We've covered it before, but I don't get tired of hearing you talk about it.

David: Yes, I actually have it in my frequently asked questions on the side. Four or five times a year somebody will ask for a reference and I'll say, "I understand why you're asking." It's reflexive just to ask for it but I've just developed a policy around that and so I very rarely will do that. Here are the four reasons why, and I'll just explain it to them. The stupid thing is it would just be quicker to give him references. [chuckles] I have plenty of them, than going through that explanation, but it's just something about I don't like to do reflexive things as busy work. I don't want to prove myself to anybody at this point. It's like, "By God, there's two and a half million words of stuff out there. If you don't know how I think at this point, then you just need to start reading and then come back and then you're not going to ask for references."

The whole point of all of those categories in that chart though is that you have to be patient with yourself. You can't see somebody that really amazes you, like I always admire David Macer. You can't just become that person. Developing your practice is a step-by-step thing, and that's great. In fact, I'm not sure any of us, there's other levels for me to go to that I'm excited about too. I don't know if we'd know what to do if we could just step that fast. The whole point is about just being patient and recognizing that there are certain things that are appropriate in your consulting career right here, but not necessarily later. We could probably tie that to all kinds of things like even RFPs. [laughs]

Blair: I really like the way you laid it out. Again, this is not just in that chapter, but throughout this idea that you are on a journey to the elite advisor. At least that's the goal. You don't start out there. Your practices are a little bit different in the beginning, but then they evolve and you do things. Even before we hit recording, you said to me, "I only do client conversations." I think you said Monday to Thursday, 9:00 to 3:00.

David: Yes.

Blair: You're more confident, you're more competent, as a result, you do a better job of enforcing the boundaries and other criteria that make you good at what you do, therefore, you get better at what you do and it's a loop, isn't it?

David: Well, taking care of yourself is not just selfish, it's what you do so that you can keep doing good work for your clients. The processes you come up with as an agency are not just designed to protect you, they're designed to protect your clients. You're going to make exceptions along the way, you have to. You have to be flexible, you have to be empathetic, but you also have to know what it takes to run a great firm like you want to run, whatever your firm does and that means boundaries. Part of what it means to be a remarkable practice, which is what I'm hoping to be, means boundaries.

It almost hurts you to enforce them because just like they did in the past, there's parts of you that want to be super responsive, but the better part of you knows that if you do this for this client, it's going to become an exception that builds on itself. Then, first, it's going to hurt you and then it's going to hurt your clients. That's part of it. I think too many advisors are apologetic and needy. I don't think that's good for them and I don't think it's good for their clients either.

Blair: We spent 30 minutes talking about this book that when we kicked it off, you expressed how nervous and unsure you were about it. 30 minutes later, I'm telling you, this is a very good book, if you were to stop here. I think this is the book that you will be most known for that will have the biggest dent in the universe. What is your goal? Where do you think this is going to rank in your published works?

David: I don't think it will. I think Expertise will be the height of that mountain and this will be coming back down for a smaller group of people.

Blair: That book was crap. [laughs]. Just kidding.

David: Maybe half of that. If it's any more than half, I would be tickled pink. If this thing becomes a big seller, I would be shocked.

Blair: In terms of total units sold.

David: Yes, total units sold.

Blair: I think you're going to surprise yourself. When I was getting ready to record here I was looking for a copy of The Business of Expertise and I had to unwrap it because it was shrink-wrapped. I don't know, I guess I keep giving them away. I was remembering when The Business of Expertise came out you sent me a bunch of books and I kept giving away signed copies on Twitter.

David: I know.

Blair: I would sign my name on your book, so send me some books because I want to give away way more signed copies of Secret Trade Craft of Elite Advisors: Covert Techniques for a Remarkable Practice by David C. Baker, signed by Blair Enns.

[laughter]

David: Well, thanks for letting me talk about the book. Appreciate it.

Blair: Oh, it's been my absolute pleasure. I'm so excited for you. I'm so excited about this book. There's nothing more valuable I do than writing books, and I think you feel the same way. This is such a good book. Everybody go get your copy, buy multiple copies. They're only $32, which is overpriced, but please do it.

David: [laughs]

Blair: Thanks, David.

David: Thanks, Blair.