Secret Tradecraft of Elite Advisors Quotes

“Your job is to correctly assess a situation and then give clients the very best possible tools to effect change on their own.”
― David C. Baker, Secret Tradecraft of Elite Advisors: Covert Techniques for a Remarkable Practice

“The consulting life is a constant challenge. You’re standing naked in front of people who’ve tried their best to figure it out but are stuck. You are with them, but you are pushing them upstream into uncomfortable places. You’re a human with all your own challenges, but you have to let them feed off your own (sometimes contrived) confidence.”
― David C. Baker, Secret Tradecraft of Elite Advisors: Covert Techniques for a Remarkable Practice

“You’re in the expertise business, not the service business.”
― David C. Baker, Secret Tradecraft of Elite Advisors: Covert Techniques for a Remarkable Practice

“This is not your inevitable calling, okay? You have to get over that karma-like insistence that you are destined to succeed. Instead, you’re a multi-capable person who could excel at four or five things, but you’ve let some of those dreams die while you do this.”
― David C. Baker, Secret Tradecraft of Elite Advisors: Covert Techniques for a Remarkable Practice

“An expert is someone whose thinking is regularly sought and paid for.”
― David C. Baker, Secret Tradecraft of Elite Advisors: Covert Techniques for a Remarkable Practice

“Hang in there. Leadership, consulting, and parenting are the three unheralded forces in our world.”
― David C. Baker, Secret Tradecraft of Elite Advisors: Covert Techniques for a Remarkable Practice

“The four things are insight, objectivity, courage, and empathy, all wrapped up in a methodology unique to you, governed by a dismissive perspective about your own future—a disregard for how you will survive.”
― David C. Baker, Secret Tradecraft of Elite Advisors: Covert Techniques for a Remarkable Practice

“Define the ideal size of the first project (in dollars), and how that number fits into the larger relationship you want with the client. Your rationale is that relationships of this scale allow you to be effective and profitable. Describe the typical mix between strategy and implementation in your work. Must you do strategy at the outset, or would you go straight to implementation to get a foot in the door and then swim upstream later? What payment terms work well for you? If you require a significant portion of the fee at the outset, explain why you’ve come to that policy.”
― David C. Baker, Secret Tradecraft of Elite Advisors: Covert Techniques for a Remarkable Practice