California Sober in the consulting business

There was the time, after a closing dinner, when a client who was a born-again Christian decided the cab ride home would be the best time to try to convince my female colleague to give up her ungodly ways.

That happened on the back end of a night of drinks at the hotel bar, drinks at dinner, drinks at the nightclub. It is, in fairness, one of the messier nights I've had in twenty-eight years of consulting. But it isn't the outlier. The outlier is the version of the night that doesn't happen, the one where everyone has dinner, says goodnight, and goes upstairs sober. Because my fear is this:

If you don't drink with clients, they don't trust you. That is, you don't build rapport with them.

A lot of my best client relationships come from staying out late and having drinks with clients.

I think a lot of the work we do isn't as differentiated as we think it is. Firms A, B, and C can all do the job fine. Clients tend to give the work to the firm with the people they like the most. And in this industry, liking gets built over drinks. The times I've had the most fun with clients in my career have been when we were drinking. There have been some messy times (see above), but these have also been some of the times when I've really gotten to know my clients personally. What they care about. What their lives are like. It's been going out for one scotch in the hotel bar that becomes too many, that's often where real connection happens.

So drinking with clients works. My experience in consulting is that drinks with clients is the substrate on which a lot of professional rapport gets built. If you opt out and don't offer something in its place, you pay a cost.

Here's what I don't say out loud, though.

I hate the way I feel after. I don't just mean the hangover. I mean I hate the way one drink wrecks my sleep. How two drinks leave me feeling bloated. At forty-nine, training for a 50-mile race in Moab in October, I feel it more now than ever before. One drink at a client dinner is one bad night of sleep is one wrecked recovery day is one missed or diminished training session. It's a trade-off I make, but I don't love it.

I love it when I find a client who doesn't drink. Who's excited to talk about the non-alcoholic beers or cocktails on the menu. These clients often share interests in fitness, running, cycling, and the other things I'm personally interested in. The connection comes faster and goes deeper. I know this contradicts my opening claim that not drinking with clients means they won't trust you. Both things are true. The default mode is alcohol-built rapport. The exception is the small but growing population of clients for whom not drinking is its own signal. Find one, and the rapport you build is usually better than anything the wine ever produced.

I should also say, because I'm at the point in my career where I don't have to be afraid of being honest, that I like to drink. I love the taste of alcohol. I love the feeling of being a little buzzed, a little more open. And I love the camaraderie that comes from sharing drinks with others. The reason I drink with clients isn't only that the industry expects it. It's also that it's fun. The fun is just rented, and the rent gets paid the next morning, and at this point in my life the rent feels too damn high.

Here is the part I have rarely told anyone, let alone a client.

My real inebriant of choice these days is small doses of mushrooms. I don't do them often, but I love to do mushrooms and run and explore. I love the feeling of being a little high on mushrooms and going dancing, or even socializing in a party setting.

Mushrooms don't have the same negative physiological effects on me that I can see. Besides having trouble getting to sleep if I take them too late at night, I feel 100% fine the next day. They are a very different drug for me now than they were in university. I'm not taking them to trip balls. I'm much closer to a microdose. Something that makes things a bit glowy and keeps my mind open to hearing things that I might otherwise have been closed to when I wasn't high.

I don't often share that this is my drug of choice with clients. The few times I have, it's gone over like a lead balloon. But, and here is the second contradiction in this essay, when you do connect with a client who shares some of your opinions on this, you make a real, lasting, genuine connection. Faster and deeper than any night of drinks ever produced.

So this is where I've landed.

I drink with clients because it works, and because some part of me enjoys it, and because I'm worried the version of myself I'd actually choose to bring to the room, the running, slightly-glowy, mind-open version, isn't always the right fit. The ritual of drinks with clients is real, the rapport is real, and the cost is real. I'm not arguing we should stop. I'm noting that drinking with clients is one mode of rapport-building, and there are others, and the others are usually quieter and deeper and don't leave anyone bloated in the morning. They're scary because they require being a bit vulnerable. Most of the industry has spent twenty years agreeing not to be.

If you're a client reading this and we've shared a scotch in the hotel bar that became too many: thanks. I meant it. I still mean it.

If you're a client who doesn't drink and we've talked about non-alcoholic beers over dinner: I meant that too. More of that, please.

And if you're a client who has ever thought about a small dose of mushrooms and a long run in the desert: you know where to find me.