Attention to detail. Show up to the job site with tools. Bring the ball to the playground.

At the start of my career, the vast majority of business contracts were signed with ink on paper. In consulting, many were signed in person by both a partner in the consulting firm and the client sponsor. The firm’s partners took every effort to make sure what could be practiced ahead of a contract signing was practiced, and the practice sessions included having a pen in the pocket to offer a client at the contract signing. Most of these pens were “nice”, in that the pen was not a Bic ballpoint. At a minimum, the pen had the logo of the consulting company or the client and was a larger diameter than a Bic. The pen was examined to make sure a competitor logo didn’t sneak into the moment. Attention to detail. Some pens were a little more upscale – maybe a drafting pen worth $20 – and requiring special refills and a trip to the stationary store because this was the heady days of the early Internet pre-Amazon. But a few senior managers and partners wielded special pens that to a young consultant were like deadly weapons, and when drawn, serious business was at hand. Some of the pens were older than I was, which to a twenty-something know-it-all mind was ancient.

These pens performed the same function as what a Bic could have provided, which I recall primarily was to memorialize the critiques toward the subpar work of staff and senior consultants who needed to learn. Attention to detail. Everything seemed to flow downhill when I was at the bottom of the hill. Yet somehow, the pens added an enormous amount of seriousness and flair and mystery, supported by the stories of how “client X signed the huge deal with this pen” and a good salesperson would “never ask for a million dollars in exchange for a Bic”. The partners’ pens were the metaphorical fly on the wall, having been part of many business moments in ways up close and personal. None of these pens had bite marks on the cap, and I don’t recall ever seeing one chewed on. To be sure, the asses of consultants got chewed on an hourly basis.

Why was the pen ever present? Because the pen was ready, familiar, and comfortable. The pen was at hand, filled with ink, silent, and worthy of being included. Attention to detail. There were a lot lessons for those who could observe the subtleties including lessons about the pen being available, being practiced, being deferential, and being consistent. Truthfully, on my best day as a young consultant, I might be able to claim being physically available because I would arrive before anyone else and stay longer than anyone else, if needed. But I was not mentally available, practiced, deferential, or consistent. Those attributes would require another 10 to 20 years to develop and require significant daily effort to maintain.

Sure, a Bic gets the job done. The ink will dry and the contract is valid. But handing a Bic to the client seems to discount how important the pen is to the moment. This contract might be the biggest contract the client has ever signed and the client’s career might be in the balance based on how the consultant performs. Clients needs consultants who know what happens next and are ready to act. To assume a client has thought to bring a pen is to assume a client has signed a contract before and knows a pen is required. If the assumption was true, pens would not be chained to the counter of every bank in town, available to sign contracts known as deposit and withdrawal slips. If the assumption were true, the administrative assistants printing the contracts would not have taped a pen to the cover page of the contract. These pens were removed and replaced with a “real pen” because of the practice session described above, but the practices of others did not stop the administrative assistants from providing a pen. Or perhaps the client did think to bring a pen but wants one more attempt at testing the mettle of a consultant by claiming to not have a pen. Clients never test sales people or consultants. That never happens.

The sales executive who gave this pen to me crushed an oversized quota in 2020 when we served clients together as peers and outright annihilated his quota at a new company in 2021. He knows the joy of watching the literal and metaphorical ink flow onto paper and the polar opposite disappointment when a deal falls apart at the last second for the most trivial of reasons in his control. For me, the pen represents both a celebration of our time together and a reminder to be prepared. I am grateful for both.

Create the necessary conditions; attention to detail.