Rose was an experienced international management consultant and a darn good one. I had a new client, a non-profit that was just organizing and needed someone to put on a management workshop for its staff, and I chose Rose to do that. Rose was very self-confident and had a strong personality, so I worried a little that she might overpower some of the inexperienced participants, but she did a great job and everyone was really happy, including me.

In the final debriefing after the assignment, Rose and I chatted about a number of things. I shared with her my concern that the demand for our kind of consulting might fall off dramatically in coming months and years, due to major changes in the business environment. She understood what I was saying, but said she had plenty of business right now and was discussing new assignments for the future, so she was not very worried.

Eight months later, a year later, I don't remember now, I got a telephone call from Rose. She asked if she could come in and talk to me and I said, sure, come right in! I had no idea why, but I always enjoyed talking to her, so I was happy to agree.

When she arrived, she told me that my concerns were justified. Some of her assignments had been canceled and new assignments were not coming in. She was very hard-pressed to keep up with her expenses and she was worried that the situation could get worse. So she was considering a major career change.

Rose loved working with elderly people. Her skills and experience in international management work had no direct bearing of any kind on working with the elderly, but she really wanted to do it.

It occurred to her that many of the centers and agencies serving the elderly depended on grants from government agencies and foundations. In her career, Rose had helped many clients prepare grant and contract proposals for the government and foundations. She felt she could use that experience to help these centers, but she didn't know how to approach them. After all, her resume said nothing about working with the elderly in the US. Did I have any suggestions?

I told Rose, let's turn this around. Let's pretend that you have come to me, a man who hires people in international development work, and told me that you had spent two or three decades writing grant and contract proposals for groups working with the elderly in the US. You had a long resume, clearly indicating your competency and success. You know my clients also submit project proposals to funders and you wanted to do the same for them. You knew you might not be able to justify a fee similar to what you usually charged, but you hoped to get as close as possible. Did I have a job for you?

I told her that I would have thanked her for her interest, but unfortunately could not help her. I admired her work and could clearly see she was a seasoned professional, but the agencies to which she wrote proposals were not the same agencies my clients dealt with. Their agencies had different formats, different expectations, and even a different jargon that they expected in a professional proposal. I could not justify offering her services to a client, even at a discounted rate, when I could offer someone with the right kind of experience for the assignment and had the track record to prove it.

I told Rose to try a different approach, one that she might not think of. I told her to find a center or agency whose work she admired and ask to have an appointment with its director or HR person. I suggested she say something along the lines of the following.

"I am a professional with many years of experience writing successful grant and contract proposals as my resume demonstrates, but I realize that this experience is outside your field and not with the agencies you normally go to for funding. I know you cannot justify paying me as a proposal writer for a grant or contract important to you without my having the right background.

"I have a love for your field and a deep desire to help. Perhaps you have the possibility of qualifying for a grant or contract, but have no time or staff to apply for it, and no money in your budget to hire someone else to do it for you.

"I would like to write that proposal for you, but I will do it for free. If you must have some kind of contractual agreement, then pay me one dollar. What I ask from you is the request for the proposal, a couple copies of applications you have made successfully in the past, access to the factual and statistical information that I will need to complete the proposal, and some of your time to review my work and help me understand where I have gone wrong and what I need to do differently. I am a professional and I have had to learn this sort of thing before. I know I can do it again.

"This way we both win. You get to apply for money you would otherwise have to forego and I will gain valuable experience that, some day in the future, may justify asking to be paid."

I told Rose she could not expect this to be easy or fast. After all, she still had to do some of her old work to pay bills so that would make it more challenging too. But if she was as passionate about doing this as she had shared with me, then I thought it was an idea worth considering.

Rose listened silently to every word I said, thanked me, told me she would give it serious consideration, and went on her way. I had no way of knowing whether it really appealed to her or not.

Once again, I cannot remember how much time passed, but one day I received another completely unexpected phone call from Rose. She said she had called to thank me, that she had taken my advice, done it, been successful, and was now being paid for her work. She loved what she was doing.

I told her how happy I was for her and reminded her that I might have made the suggestion, but she had done the work and deserved the real credit. That was it. Maybe we spoke for three minutes, but she was direct and to the point, vintage Rose!

One day much later when I was thinking back on our conversations, feeling good about giving advice that worked, it dawned on me that, even though I had not been thinking of it at the time, Charles' story very likely had played a major role, unconsciously, in my saying what I said.

It was a good reminder to me that my "bright ideas" usually, perhaps always, have their roots in someone else's ideas and experiences, if I just stopped and thought about it. It is all well and good to encourage others to practice a little humility once in awhile, but even better to remember to practice it myself!

Charles had everything he needed to demand the top rate, but chose a different path for good reasons that paid off in the longer run. Rose did not have what she needed to demand any rate, so she had to make an even better offer, but it also paid off in the longer run. What they both did was make an offer that any reasonable employer would find very hard to refuse.

I do not know where Rose is now. I am embarrassed to admit it, but I have forgotten her last name after all these years, so I can't use Google to check! But if I could, I would call her to thank her for having called me to thank me. As a result of that three-minute phone call, I can share more than a hypothetical alternative, but an alternative that was tested and worked. Thank you, Rose.

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