At the end of each business day, our clients do not care about our job titles. And neither should we.
First, our clients do not know what our job titles “mean.” How many times have we sat in a meeting or conference with colleagues who also carry the same job title that we do? The same job title in different organizations carries a different weight to it.
Unless we are clones of one another, how we deliver on the very same job title that another person also has, varies. Our delivery to colleagues and customers is as distinctive as each one of us.
Sure, job descriptions and hiring practices try to reinforce delivering functional consistency. Ultimately, however, our job titles are not as much about meeting internal performance requirements as they are about creating client expectations on how we deliver. To them.
Not only because of our job titles. But also, because of who we are, as Professionals of Worth.
Our clients will tell us, if we bother to ask, that the most valuable people in our organizations most often do not have fancy job titles. Or make lots of money. Or follow a traditional educational pathway.
That is why our clients do not care about our job titles.
Over time, job titles are worthless to clients if these titles do not translate into valuable service delivery.
Smart clients, valuable clients, are adept at locating Professionals of Worth inside our organizations. These individuals, in a variety of the most non-sexy-sounding functions, are the reasons our clients do business with us in the first place.
- While clients are happy that we are the CEO of our early-stage startup, they question our ability to actually run that business, sustainably.
- When we tell clients that we are sales rockstars, they become skeptical about whether our focus is about them or the next contest.
- As a big data wunderkind, if we continuously design to dazzle clients with our expertise, does poor end-user experience scream that we are out of touch with what really matters most to clients?
At the end of the day, clients solely focus on the enduring value of what we do for them, continuously, over time.
Fancy job titles do not indicate “what it is really going to be like” working with us. When we are seated at the business table, with colleagues and clients, wrestling with big hairy issues requiring both courage and critical thinking skills, no one is checking out our job titles on our LinkedIn profiles and professional resumes.
That is why our clients do not care about our job titles. And neither should we. Our titles do not have our clients’ backs, over time. We do, as Professionals of Worth.
How would you define yourself, if you no longer could use your job title? Discover how to do this. Create enduring value for clients. Click here to learn more.
Babette Ten Haken catalyzes organizations and associations, like yours, who want to leverage a more profitable workforce to retain the customers you work so hard to win. Her One Millimeter Mindset™ speaking and consulting programs leverage collaboration to catalyze professional innovation, workforce engagement and customer retention. She is a member of SME, ASQ, SHRM and the National Speakers Association. Babette’s Playbook of collaboration hacks, Do YOU Mean Business? is available on Amazon.com. Her professional speaker profile appears on the espeakers platform.
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