How to Be a Successful Consultant

Don Matlock

• Publisher: Woodslane Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781921874031
• Topic: Betriebswirtschaft
• Subtopic: Beratung

Written in an easy-to-read style, this work is suitable for anyone who operates as a consultant. How to be a Successful Consultant contains strategies and techniques for increased success by focusing on key topics such as: self-promotion, communication, building credibility and building and maintaining relationships. If you have decided to become an independent consultant, you face two challenges: being good at what you do, and being good at bringing in the business. You might be a management consultant, an architect, a writer, a trainer, an engineer, a product-placement expert, a designer, a stylist, a musician, a financial advisor, a computer- systems analyst or something else, all occupations that require specific and different sets of skills. However in every case you need another set of skills, common to all, knowing how to seek, obtain and serve clients. Thats where this book comes in. Youll find strategies and techniques to help you be more successful in here. Its about planning, building, and maintaining relationships with your clients and prospects.

Chapter One

Making the Decision

Making the decision to leave your present situation and start out on your own is by far the hardest decision of all. There are hundreds of questions you will need to ask yourself (and mostly answer positively) before you can confidently make that decision:

• Am I good enough to pull the jobs in on my own without big company X standing behind me?
• Am I experienced enough — have I been around long enough to learn the tricks and avoid the pitfalls?
• Am I old enough, do I have all the skills required?
• Will I have to engage others at the start for the skills that I don’t have myself?
• Am I mature enough, and thus will I be respected and accepted by target personnel given the status and age of those same people?
• Regarding the skill level — am I seen in the current market as one of the better people in a highly competitive environment and thus will I get enough chances from some of the better prospective clients?
• Is the industry I will be working in awash with quality prospective clientele or is it a very limited market with lots of dogs and fleas?
• Who will my competitors be and how can I develop a creditable story as to why the client should choose me instead of the known big company X from which I came?

These are but some of the very many questions you will ask yourself about yourself, and about the industry you are contemplating entering, and thus whether you think you will survive and succeed within it.

There are a lot of other questions on the personal side as well:

• Will my partner support me both personally and financially in the earlier stages if it gets tough?
• Will the security of the family be threatened if I do not succeed within an initial “give it a go” period, and how much capital or borrowing ability do I need to sustain me/us during that same initial period?
• How well do I expect to do financially in the medium to longer term versus giving up the current career path?
• If in the short term I do not do well enough, will I be able to get back into the market from which I came and pick up from where I left off with appropriate financial return?
• Am I healthy enough to take the risk of working alone, at least for an initial period?
• Where will I run the business from and what will my recurrent overhead cost structure be – how much will it cost me to set up the office?
• What qualifications and licenses (if any) do I need to hold to compete successfully against my competitors?

The decision, when considered amongst all of the above, is somewhat scary, yet it is important to be aware of and contemplate most of these important considerations – the fool who just charges in without any quality of forethought is bound to fail because he or she has not really contemplated the consequences of what they are possibly getting themselves into. However, alternatively, one must consider the positive side, and in that respect T.S. Eliot’s saying “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go” is also a very relevant contemplation here, as is the old Chinese proverb “The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it”. Particularly relevant when you hear from some people that they doubt whether you will succeed.

But back to where we were, the question still begs itself—which of all of these and other questions are the most important given the industry you want to be in and where you presently stand in your job and career, your age, your health and your family/partner and financial commitments.

The answer for me was: at age 37 I was old enough and experienced enough to have the respect of those people I would want to secure as clients, as well as having the necessary technical skills to do the work at least as well as any of my competitors. When combined with my marketing and selling skills, learnt the hard way over the preceding 10 years in the same corporate market, getting those same people to use me instead of big company X competitor was achievable, but would have to be worked at very hard with a great deal of timely persistence.

As well as the above, my financial commitment, albeit with a family of six, had been deliberately set at as low a level as possible in the expectation that one day I might actually be able to consider having my own business. (If you happen to read this book early enough in your student or working life, the lowest level of financial commitment, and at least initially, family commitment, takes considerable pressure off the decision to start your own business.) I also had very strong support from my wife (and co-director) Cheryl to have a go. We had enough money to sustain us for a period of twelve months, even if during that time I was not able to earn any income at all. I was able to set up my own separate office in the Melbourne City CBD with some paid secretarial assistance on a very low recurrent overhead structure. I was healthy and very fit. If I was out of the employed market for the same twelve months, it would be a short enough period to allow me to re-enter the market without loss of seniority or remuneration.

I decided to go. The moment I did, the insecurity about the decision all but disappeared. I was so busy in setting myself up for the challenge there was no time to consider the down side any longer. You would find it no different should you also make that same decision.

STAGE ONE ACHIEVED!!

Chapter Two

Contacts, Contacts, Contacts

The most critical question facing you once the decision to ‘go’ is made is: who are likely to be my clients? The search for the answer to this then triggers a host more, including:

• Where do I look for them?
• How do I assemble the initial contact information, in what form do I keep it in?
• How do I keep it up to date?

These are the most commonly asked questions for very good reasons. The answer to the first question is simply: no better place to start than people I already know!

Start off by gathering every business contact you presently have, or have ever had (though you should not actually contact them until you have finished any non-competitive period imposed by your contract with your previous employers), as well as personal contacts you currently have who are in any industry or profession. Compile your own business directory, divided by category (alphabetical listing, by entity, within each category) for each type of industry or profession in which your personal and business contacts do business, irrespective of the categories from which you expect paying clients will come. This should be in electronic form and continually updated and added to, but with a bound copy always with you – at work, whilst at meetings and while traveling, at home or when you go on holidays! As an aside, you will learn very early in the piece that when you are a consultant there are two things your clients will never allow you to be: sick or on holiday. If you are sick, unless you are near death, you just keep working anyway, for your own sake let alone theirs.

The very last comment above reminds me of a funny, but true story about my experience with Bell’s palsy (in brief, a viral infection to the facial muscles that control the total functioning of your face, including your eye and mouth function) down the left side of my face in early November 1990. My doctor advised me at the time to take at least 3 weeks off with complete rest whilst on a cortisone tablet program to arrest the viral infection and to start to hopefully see the sagging face go back to normal. I was very busy at the time and could not afford to take the time off, so unfortunately I just had to keep working. At the time of being diagnosed I had to attend an important meeting with a client, and I rang him in advance to warn him of my condition, as it is most obvious when you look at the patient (furrows on one side only of your forehead, for example). I also added that I would need a straw for the coffee, as I couldn’t drink properly with the condition. When I arrived the coffee came without the straw. He thought I had been joking, so we called for the straw amidst great laughter for the poor monster from the deep! It took eight weeks for my face to get back to normal, and a further four weeks for all my facial functions to operate normally. And I was one of the lucky ones – it can be permanent.

Back to the directory. Its details should include the personal title (e.g. Mr. Mrs. Ms etc) of the person, their full name and correct business title, the full company name and mailing address, brief reference to industry type e.g. “Food – Consumer goods”, the person’s direct phone number and the entity’s switchboard number, fax number, mobile number, email and website reference, the name of the person’s PA or EA (if applicable) and lastly, a business summary column which describes in brief detail what the business is. The reason for the second-last point about the PA or EA’s name is that you can win a lot of silent brownie points if you always remember to address the contact’s PA or EA by name. There’s nothing false about it. It’s simply common courtesy to try and remember someone’s name, and in my own case, I very much enjoy speaking with the many PA’s and EA’s I have met over the years.

The electronic record should be updated and added to on a daily basis, with a bound hard copy run off each month, but with hand written amendments made to it on a daily basis during the month until the next re-run.

Whilst the electronic record can always be referred to on the screen in the office or on the notebook, practice has taught me that it is always best to also have the bound copy at your fingertips wherever you are for easy and immediate reference.

As will be explained later, this is the most important document you will use, as it is both your client and prospective client base, your total contact network, and in time it will also be the primary source of your information base (see Section 5.4 to follow). A suggested pro-forma sample of the make up of the directory is included as Document 1, on the accompanying CD and on-line.

You should also separately develop a much larger master file, by contact, to continuously record any data and information on all contacts (including website information and/or web reference). There is no particular format for such a file. It is basically just a continuing chronological record of available information.

The next important questions to ask are:

• What is my target market?
• What can I offer each type of prospective client?

To answer both questions, you have to first exhaustively consider, given your past experience, just how many services you can offer – and may be called upon to offer – and to whom. Given that you are now more than likely in a sole-principal role (thus avoiding any of the conflict of interest issues you might have had when you were employed), you may be able to provide services in a purely advisory role or as a broker, depending on the industry.

During this process you must think outside the box to make certain that there is not one stone unturned as to any service or partial service you can provide from your menu of services – bearing in mind that it is unlikely that the entire menu can be offered to all categories of prospective clients. (During this most important preliminary phase, whatever may enter your head in relation to both aspects should at least be written down and considered.)

Put simply, this means that if the full menu of your offering numbers, say, 15 products and/or services, you may only be able to offer 3 of that total menu to a particular category of potential client.

By simultaneously and comprehensively compiling both the services you can offer and to whom you may offer them, you should arrive at a point where you are satisfied that the process has left no opportunity unnoticed.

Chapter summary:

• Gather all the business and personal contacts you have ever had, and put them into a business directory.
• Make certain that all the details recorded against each person are completely correct.
• Always have a hard copy of your directory with you at any time, including at home and on holidays.
• Develop a secondary, much larger master file for information reference purposes.
• Think of how many services or product offerings you can offer, and to whom, by category.
• During this process, try to consider all angles so no opportunity is missed.

Chapter Three

Your Business Plan

The purists will argue that you should not start a business without a business plan. In a conceptual sense that is correct, but it is the extent of the initial plan, which is the key here. Many very well developed and extensive business plans have been lavishly put together before the business starts, only to go into the bottom drawer of the office desk and thereafter gather dust. Therefore the following questions need addressing.

• Do I need one at all, and if so, how extensive or developed should it be?
• For what initial period should it cover?
• Can I do it myself?
• When do I review it, and/or renew it?

It almost goes without saying that there should be an initial business plan, but it may only need to be broad in structure and content, and for the first twelve months only. Remember that we are dealing here with a small consultancy business in the service industry, not for example a manufacturing business requiring, possibly, substantial production and office premises from day one, together with plant and equipment and an appropriate level of personnel, etc. The bigger the business is in relation to physical, personnel and financial resources, the more extensive the initial business plan and its term needs to be.

The other fundamental reason for this approach is that in the first twelve months of your business you are unlikely to be exactly sure where your endeavors are going to take you, and thus the maximum amount of flexibility should best be allowed for.

Although we refer to the first twelve months above, it can also happen that your business may take on a new and significant direction at an advanced time in its history. Such was the case with MCA. After approximately four years of operation, a multinational company, with whom I had a longstanding relationship, asked me to sell a branded product for them. This was my first assignment of such a nature. They were not in a position to do any work on the targeted buyers, so they asked me to do that on my own and review it with them.

In order to do so, I visited a major supermarket to ascertain what other products of a like or related nature were on the shelves. Much to my amazement, I discovered ten double supermarket isles of all forms of branded products across the categories of skin-care (the category of the product I had for sale), hair-care, toiletries, cosmetics, a myriad of over the counter (OTC) pharmaceuticals across a vast array of market segments, vitamins, veterinary, and a huge number of household cleaning and related products. It was staggering: my immediate reaction was “wow – there is huge potential here for the ownership of many of these to change hands on a perpetual basis – there will always be brands for sale with buyers looking for them!”.

I made up my mind there and then, that once I had completed the sale of the skin care product, I would go to all the suppliers of such products and propose that MCA be the (and preferably the sole) advisor/broker to the total market for any and all proposed sales and purchases of any such brands.

As soon as the skin care product was sol...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Testimonial
• Foreword
• CD and proforma files
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter One: Making the Decision
• Chapter Two: Contacts, Contacts, Contacts
• Chapter Three: Your Business Plan
• Chapter Four: Preparing Your Sales Presentation
• Chapter Five: The A-Z of Gaining a Client
• Chapter Six: The Fundamentals of Negotiation
• Chapter Seven: Standardising Processes and Systems
• Chapter Eight: Incorporating Sound Organisational and Time Management Skills
• Chapter Nine: Maintaining Flexibility
• Chapter Ten: Measuring Results - and the Successes
• Chapter Eleven: Keeping Fit and Healthy
• Chapter Twelve: Staying Relaxed and Enjoying Your Role
• Chapter Thirteen: Establishing Success – When They come to You
• Chapter Fourteen: And some Last Lessons!
• Other books from Woodslane