Expert interview series: Brad Geiser of Geisermaclang on inspiring trust as a consultant and contractor

Brad Geiser is Business Intelligence Director and CIO of Geisermaclang Marketing Communications Inc. We recently asked Brad about the mission behind Geisermaclang and how their company utilizes contractors to help their clients. Here’s what he shared:

What’s the Mission behind Geisermaclang Marketing Communications Inc.? What sets you apart from your competitors?

To cause positive business transformation for companies facing uncertainty.

Consultancies are used by clients who are uncertain how to proceed but consulting firms are very limited when it comes to execution. Agencies are good at execution, but limited as consultants preferring to work with companies who have a clear idea what they want. Only GeiserMaclang does both consultancy and execution well because of our proprietary interface system.

Your site states that “Inspiring Trust” is a major part of your business philosophy? Why is trustworthiness so important to consultants?

Trustworthiness is not the same as Inspiring Trust (our lead value). Trustworthiness is an internal measure for people with whom you have a frequent working relationship. Don’t get me wrong, that’s important too, but that’s not enough if you want to succeed as a consultant.

Consultants take clients to new and often uncomfortable places. This is impossible to do without trust and a consultant only has moments to make trust happen. To inspire trust is a projection of character encompassing confidence, conviction, expertise, honesty, good listening and communication skills among other things.

On the flip side, what practices or habits have you found make clients distrustful or frustrated?

  • The client needs to feel that you “get it”.
  • The client needs to feel that you have important skills and know important things that they don’t.
  • The client needs to feel that you already know how to solve the problem.

Notice all these are feelings.

How do you use contractors at Geisermaclang?

Three levels:

As lead consultant: You can bring us in as a partner to augment your services (reports, design, content, project management, digital management, supplier acquisition, etc.), we can also negotiate a more favorable service agreement or help you solve problems outside of your area of expertise.
As a supplier: Sometimes we have production requirements that are outside our areas of expertise or outside of our current capacity. We recruit contractors on a per-project basis.
As a subject matter expert: We recruit individuals with recognized mastery in a field to provide direction and credibility to our projects.

What are some of the challenges of working with contractors, particularly those working overseas?

Lack of cultural and environmental context. They know their stuff, but they don’t know how their stuff is affected by the country they are advising.

Lack of customer service or interpersonal skills. Some contractors display arrogance and inflexibility, making them difficult to work with.

What are the must-use tools for working with contractors across international borders?

Aside from the conventional stuff; Chat Apps, Video conferencing and Google Docs are the new basic tools for efficient collaborative working. Chat apps like Telegram greatly speed up the communications process, Video conferencing allows you to connect in a more human, relatable way than text and Google Docs make sharing and collaboration easier across a community of project proponents.

How can contractors and business owners improve their communication and collaboration?

Best advice is to pre-clarify the type of collaboration mode of the team. Co-equal collaboration where consensus is the objective is very different from team leader collaboration where the idea is to win over the main deciding person. There are several collaborative formats. Clarifying which it will be up front prevents a lot of misunderstanding.

What trends or headlines are you following in your world today? Why do they interest you?

Global instability: political, economic, technological, societal. The world has become a lot less predictable and all our work needs to account for the uncertainty factor.
Post-factualism: Rather than become a beacon for truth, the Internet has pulled away the veneer of integrity from many trusted sources and created an environment of subjectivity where no one can prove anything to anyone else.
Transparency replaces Reputation: Everyone lost their reputational pass. No one believes in honest character, only full disclosure, warts and all, generates some measure of trust.

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