As a board member at an HOA (homeowners association) one of the residents kept asking me, “Why can’t you do this? Why don’t you do that?”

Finally, in polite desperation, I said, “Why don’t YOU do it?”  If you feel strongly about it, take the ball and run. If you wait for others, it may never happen. Just do it!

So it is with consulting. Waiting for others to act will not solve a problem, nor will it make things better.

Here is an example from my consulting practice 20+ years ago. At the time, there was a dearth of information on electromagnetic field levels in hospitals. So when I saw a session on the topic at a conference, I high tailed it to the meeting room.

But instead of learning something new, the meeting consisted of a bunch of researchers asking each other if they had any information to share. Furthermore, they complained about a lack of funding to do field research.

Annoyed, I discussed this with my business partner who had been at a different session. Over a beer (highly recommended in the engineering world) we devised a study to get the answers, which we would fund ourselves. “Let’s just do it,” we said.

Upon return from the conference, we contacted some past clients at two prominent hospitals (one a world famous clinic) about doing a quick survey of various locations within their hospitals. We would supply the equipment (which we already owned), record the data, write a report, and share the results. No cost to anyone.

We spent two days over the Christmas holidays, when the hospitals were not busy. We got solid data, and had fun doing it. In one case, we had to dress in scrubs while making measurements in a surgical suite. It was the closest I came to becoming a brain surgeon 🙂

Kimmel & Gerke performing surgery on a lap-top computer.

We shared the data, but it did not stop there. We offered it to a leading magazine in the medical device community. We had been writing a technical column for them as part of our long term marketing strategy.

The loved it, and with our help, turned it into a technical report they offered for sale. The money earned from the report was minuscule, but the publicity was priceless! It further established our firm as a world-class leader in our niche. Not too bad for a couple of goof ball engineers out in Minnesota.

The report was well received, as it provided needed timely information. Meanwhile, the researchers were still twiddling their thumbs, while we gained visibility & credibility critical to our success as consultants.

We just did it!  And you can too, but YOU need to take the initiative. Not only in consulting, but in life itself.

Cheers — Uncle Daryl

Ideas are good, but “ideas + action” are what get results.

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