If you do that, you will never make it as a facilitator, because people will not come and confide in you. Firstly, you are too busy for them to come and waste your time, and secondly, because you are an expert — how can they possibly interest you in their petty ideas? Thirdly, you are difficult to meet, and finally, you are intimidating. Experts represent authority, and authority intimidates people.

Facilitators do not ring clients, they ring them back. If clients disappear, leave them alone. It could very well be that they have changed their minds or have financial difficulties, family problems, or simply lost interest.

The best thing to do is to wait for them to reappear, and if they never do, keep a friendly and positive attitude. Remember that it is their lives we deal with. Hands off then, both physically and psychologically.

And thank God for it. Because if it did work, we would be in the unenviable position of presiding over the disrupted lives of those we have motivated. To me, there is not a more pathetic sight than a person who has been manipulated into a career or enterprise that has nothing to do with his/her inclinations and natural talents.

Therefore, a grasp of the fundamentals of management is required before we engage in successful facilitation. No matter how big or small a business is, three areas of activities need to be taken care of:
— the technical skills necessary to produce the goods or services one wishes to sell;
— the ability to market one's goods or services;
— the ability to financially manage one's affairs.

These three areas I call the "Management Trinity." If anyone of the above is missing, the business is not a business, it shouldn't be called one, and it will never succeed.

It must be said at this point that it is extremely difficult to find a person who is capable of competently carrying out all three functions. Personally, I have never met anyone who could produce the product, market it, and manage the finances of the business. Plenty of people try to do it, many do it badly, but nobody I have ever met has been equally passionate and proficient in all three areas.

Often a client will be talented in producing and selling the product, or in producing and organizing the financial bookkeeping. What is very rare is to find someone who is equally passionate about marketing and bookkeeping.

Here our wit, cunning, experience, talent, or whatever you want to call it comes into play. How do you co-opt people into nonexistent businesses that are often underresourced and undercapitalized?

You have to package your client's dream and sell it. You have to become an advocate for lavender farms, smoked fish, and so on. You have to extol the virtues of such enterprises and to convince one or two other people to become involved in the project in question. In a sense you momentarily fulfil the marketing role of the "would-be" company with the added psychological advantage that you are more credible since you have no financial involvement in it.