METRO WEST DAILY NEWS
Monday, October 28, 2002

In sync with instinct: Natick's Robinson uses her intuition to assist businesses

By Bob Tremblay

Ask some people what they based a decision on and they might say, "Gut instinct." But would they be willing to base a major business decision on that instinct?

Perhaps they'd be more comfortable relying on someone who bases her profession on that instinct.

That would be Lynn A. Robinson of Natick, a business intuitive who runs Lynn A. Robinson Intuitive Consulting Inc., a Newton company where the gut instinct can help keep firms from going belly up.

"I've helped my clients win multimillion-dollar accounts and conversely I've rescued them from multimillion-dollar disasters," says Robinson, who claims to have a 95 percent success rate with her intuitive recommendations.

Over the years, these insights have helped a health care franchise find a creative marketing direction that opened up new markets for its services, an advertising agency land a major account, an athletic shoe company find the right fit for its CFO position and a personal care company by providing information on industry trends that helped it reposition its brand in 1,600 of its stores, according to the company's Web site.

" 'Business as usual' no longer works," says Robinson, who is also an author and motivational speaker. "Hard work, intelligence and a great game plan simply aren't enough anymore. We're scrambling to discover the path to success and find instead that we've lost our way. I use my intuitive insight to help business leaders get on the right path by enabling them to make decisions with confidence, achieve their goals more quickly, gain insight into what motivates people and better understand market trends."

A former operations manager for a software company who has a master's degree in education, Robinson started doing consultations for friends and friends of friends. Soon her services were in demand and she officially started her company in 1987.

"I had this real fascination with helping entrepreneurs create their business and market their business, and I found that my intuitive skills were very helpful in doing that," she says, explaining her motivation.

How Robinson works with clients can be broken down into the following four steps:

U Step One. "We'll talk by phone and discuss your current situation - issues, challenges, changes, etc. I'll explain how I work and what I can do to help you and your company."

U Step Two. "I'll make some suggestions about how we can best work together. Depending on the situation you present, I might recommend one or more hour-long phone sessions; a meeting or meetings with you at your office; a meeting or meetings with you and your team; a half- or full-day training session to help your staff develop their own intuition; or a combination of the above.

"We'll talk about an hourly, daily or customized plan for services. Once we've decided on the best approach, I'll send you a written proposal."

U Step Three. "I'll use my intuition to provide you in minutes with valuable information you can use to your advantage - the kind of information that could take weeks or months to obtain, if ever.

"For example, product and industry trends, intelligence that can lead to new business, personality profiles of executive candidates, creative marketing ideas for products and services, assessment of partnerships and mergers, fresh marketing strategies and innovative ideas to reposition your business."

U Step Four. "If more (work) is appropriate, we'll schedule our next meeting to continue working as a team."

Companies typically hire Robinson to give themselves a competitive edge. Skeptics, beware.

"There aren't very many business intuitives," says Robinson. "I'm one of the main ones, but it's becoming a growing trend. Business 2.0 (magazine) just did an article on using intuition in business and Forbes did an article also."

It's just that not all gut instincts are created equal. "We all have intuition, but some of us have more of it than others," says Robinson. "It's not unlike an athletic ability or musical ability. We can all play a musical instrument, but we all can't be a concert pianist."

So, is Robinson a psychic? "There's an aspect of what I do that people call psychic," says the business intuitive, whose grandfather, Albert Kenzie, was a psychic who used his abilities as a police officer in wartime England. "However, my work is not based on predicting the future. I don't believe the future is etched in stone. I say what I help my clients create is the best possible future.

"We have facts and figures. It's really what we do with that information that counts. I add the missing link so if a company has data and research indicating 'X,' they might hire me to provide the intuitive element about how 'X' will play out.

"Why business intuition is becoming so prevalent is our culture is changing so dramatically. Just a few years ago, if the data and the research indicated something, you'd have a pretty good chance of it happening. Now there's a huge unknown factor, and business executives are starting to trust their intuition and hiring people who are highly intuitive to help with the decision making."

One task for which Robinson is frequently hired is to perform an intuitive personality profile. "If you're hiring someone for a senior executive position, you can look at their resume and call their references," she says, "But how do you know that person is going to work well within your company? How do you know what their work style is. What their strengths and weaknesses are? Some of that is available on the factual level, but I provide that extra piece of information.

"For example, I was hired by a health care franchise to help them find a CFO. They had someone in mind and I thought she was really an excellent person. She knew her numbers, she was very ambitious, she had a big vision, but I also thought she was very difficult work with, a bit dictatorial, so she needed to work with people who had very thick skins or have somebody in place to act as a buffer. It wasn't a decision of 'Yes, hire her' or 'No, don't,' but 'Here are some of the strengths and weakness.' "

This profile is put together based purely on intuition. All Robinson needs is a name. "The way intuition comes to me and the way it comes to most people is through images, feelings and words," she says. "It's like typing a question into a search engine on the Internet. I ask the question and the information just pops into my mind. For a profile, I prefer not to meet the person. I don't want to be swayed on what they look like or how they act."

Robinson admits that her job is an unusual one. "The worst occupational hazard is everybody thinks I can read their mind," she says with a laugh. "I usually walk into a room and everyone has their head covered. I wish I could just say I'm an accountant or something like that. When you say you're a business intuitive, it always requires an explanation."

Robinson usually works with about 15 clients at any one time in a variety of capacities and sees 50 to 60 people in the course of a year. "Business is growing tremendously, about 50 percent a year. There's a lot more openness to it now," she says. "I'm starting to have to turn people away, and that's a nice position to be in during this economy."

Clients range from Fortune 100 companies to entrepreneurs just starting their business. They include pharmaceutical labs, public relations firms, insurance companies and law firms.

Robinson bases her bill on the scope of an assignment. "More often than not I work on a project basis rather than a hourly basis," she says, without revealing any dollar amount.

For the future, Robinson believes the business of business intuition is going to expand in a big way. "I read a statistic recently that about 85 percent of people who are successful executives were intuitive in one form or another," she says. "They based their decisions a lot on their gut instinct."

Robinson's own instinct has earned her company both profits and praise. "Whenever my business is at a crossroads, I call Lynn Robinson," says Ellis Robinson, president and Access Marketing and no relation to the business intuitive. "She has helped me weather the challenges of replacing experienced staff, anticipate the changes involved with business relocation and select the best of several prospective business partners. Lynn's insights are always practical, on-target and reflective of my goals and values."

We had a feeling she was going to say that.

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