Consulting Journal: Style - Business meals and entertaining

Style: Business meals and entertaining

by David Blakey

Should you have meals with clients? Should you entertain clients?

[Monday 15 February 2010]

Business meals with clients are a good example of the need for consultants to develop a set of perimeters for their time. There are two majors dangers for consultants in managing time. There are still, of course, all the other dangers that other people need to consider in their management of their time. These include watching television, especially when the television programmes are dross, attending sports as a spectator, unless one's own child is playing, and aimless socializing, such as going to a bar with colleagues at the end of the week. Everyone who is serious about running their own business must consider all these and decide whether or not they will do them. Consultants have to be even more wary than most people about gaps in their time management. They are often involved with a number of clients and each of those clients requires some time of consultants apart from the paid time on assignments. Many clients want to know their consultants better and want their consultants to know them better. They may chose to do this through having meals with them.

The first time management issue with meals is that they may not occupy a fixed period of time in the consultant's day. Clients sometimes use business meals as a perk for themselves that their employer regards as work. To consultants, meals represent lost time, without fees.

Breakfast

Business breakfasts are an intrusion into the start of your day. It is better for you and your family if you have breakfast with them. Some consultants make breakfast the focus of their day with their families. Many consultants have said to me that the occasions that they miss most when they are away from home are breakfasts with their family. So, if you have a family, I think you should resist going to business breakfasts.

Even if you do not have a family, breakfast is the time when you can consider and plan your day. While you eat and drink, you have nothing else to do but think. So you can go through papers for a final time or just sit and think about the issues that you likely to face that day. You should not give up this time voluntarily.

Lunch

The best meal to choose for this interaction is lunch. The best lunchtime environment that I have known is a client who had a dining room for senior staff, with lunch served each workday at 12:30. Unless senior managers were out of the office, they would arrive at their regular seat at around 12:30 each day. Lunch would last until around 13:30.

There were several advantages to this. Although the lunch-hour appeared to be down-time, a lot of the conversation was about work, with people talking informally about issues that they faced, seeking advice or co-operation. The entire senior management tier was able to consult among themselves. It was also an opportunity for people to talk about their families and their social lives. This closeness helped to make them a more cohesive team. They were friends as well as peers.

At the other extreme is the long, wasteful lunch in a restaurant. Some people may arrive late. Others may use the occasion as an opportunity to eat expensive food or drink alcohol. The surroundings may lead people to act out of character. I have heard more ignorant, boastful and offensive statements made during lunches in restaurants than at any other time. If you must accept an invitation to lunch in a restaurant, you should make it clear when you accept that you will be there promptly and for a limited time, and that you will not drink alcohol. You should also try to set an informal agenda: are there any issues that the client wishes to discuss?

I have one simple piece of advice to offer to any consultant considering inviting a client to lunch: don't. I do not know of any contracts being awarded to a consultant as a result of that consultant treating a client to lunch.

There may be instances when consultants have not been awarded contracts as a result of not treating a client to lunch. I would ask whether you really wanted to work for that kind of client. I am certain that you are more likely to retain your clients if you are chosen on merit and then continue to display your merit.

Dinner

Dinners with clients are like lunches, but more open-ended. Many business dinners start in a restaurant at 19:00 and end in a nightclub at 03:00 the next morning. Alcohol is often drunk more. Additional guests may be present. There will undoubtedly be less focus on business matters.

Avoid dinners.

Conclusion

My advice is therefore to avoid all business meals, and especially to avoid being the source of entertaining, which wastes your money as well as your time.

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