Archive for the ‘consulting’ Category

A personal relationship makes all the difference

Monday, May 12th, 2008

I am working on two consulting possibilities at the moment. #1 is right in my sweet spot, basically leveraging the work I’ve done the past fifteen years. #2 is more of a stretch, and would ask me to work in a few areas where I have peripheral knowledge or no experience at all.

I have a pretty good shot at one of these. The other I have no chance to land at all. Which is which?

If you guessed that I have no chance at opportunity #1, you’re right. Why? The people associated with opportunity #1 don’t know me at all. They found me (and other possibilities) at a recent trade show. When we talked on the phone, they wanted several references for identical projects. Given that I’m pretty new to the consulting game, the references were similar but not identical. Other folks can provide the precise references they want. Fifteen years in the business wasn’t worth much.

The folks at opportunity #2 I’ve known for a few years. With my last company we competed for business with this group, and lost. But we built a good relationship, and have kept in touch since. Now they have a need, and want me to help them. They’re confident I’ll learn the things I haven’t done before (and I am too, though I expect to make a few mistakes along the way). What’s most important for them is the confidence they have in me (and vice versa) given our relationship.

This is instructive. Personal knowledge and confidence in your supplier’s abilities are more important than individual CV line items. And if you don’t know someone, risk aversion causes you (with good reason) to limit your search to suppliers that can prove they’ve done exactly what you need.

When I was younger I might have stewed over the injustice of this all. Today, I respect the folks in opportunity #1. I would do exactly what they are doing if I were in the same position. The lesson is to work hard at developing more relationships like #2. That’s where the true opportunities are.

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Posted in consulting, networking, relationships, sales | Comments

Influential business quotes

Friday, February 29th, 2008

“You have to be from somewhere,” Terrell Holland, GTE, 1984.
My boss at my first job out of college, Terrell was urging a group of new hires, me included, to develop deep skills in some part of the business before trying to branch out to other disciplines. And despite not having done any engineering work or software development for fifteen years, I still find that I approach problems with an engineer’s mindset. That’s where I’m from.

“Time kills deals,” Gordon Adams, EDS, 1994.
I’ve talked about this before. And I’ve read criticism of this saying. What Gordon meant was, assuming a deal is worth doing for you and the customer–you can’t wait for the deal to come to you. You have to go get it. And I still believe that.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha,” Bruce Leonard, EDS, 1996.
Bruce ran our division at EDS and I went to him for some career advice. I was considering going back for a PhD, but wanted to talk about senior management as a possible pathway. I had told him that it seemed to be that there was a huge gap between my capabilities and what was needed to be a senior manager. That executives were somehow different in a quantum way from us midlevel folks. And he laughed.

“When I first started my own practice, I learned this: I was not in the law business; I was in the sales business,” Don McFadden, 2006.
Don is my father-in-law. I’ve heard people say this about consulting: “I love it all except the selling part.” Then you are in the wrong business, my friend.

“What I learned from Lenny Bruce was: You don’t need the entire audience…. If you’re too needy of that entire audience, you won’t find your own style. [When I saw Lenny Bruce, he] had only a third of the audience with him. And he didn’t mind that at all,” comedian David Steinberg on Fresh Air, 2007.
I’m not a standup comedian, but this affected me. It’s easy working in business to try to steer to the middle of the road–to try to make everyone happy. But it doesn’t work, and worse it limits the value you have. To be all you can be, you have to say what you think, and accept the consequences that some people (maybe most people) won’t agree.

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Posted in consulting, leadership, legal, sales | Comments

Making and keeping commitments: a must for success in business

Wednesday, December 12th, 2007

In a brief but potent post, professional-services expert David Maister points out the importance of keeping commitments. (I touched on this topic in an earlier post.) Writes Maister,

It is OK to need more time as long as you ask for it ahead of time. It is OK to struggle and ask for help.

It is not OK to break your commitments. The fastest and surest way to fail is to break your word.

It’s a concept so basic as to seem trivial–yet the inability to create and honor commitments between co-workers, between managers and workers, and between workers and clients destroys value every single day, in every company, all over the world.

Maister focuses on one side–the responsibility of the assigned party to honor commitments. The other side also has responsibilities. Often people ask for commitments in a wishy-washy manner, which at minimum creates confusion and ambiguity, or at worst enables commitment-phobes to feign performance by using ambiguity as a rationale for non-action. Here are some examples:

  1. Manager A sends out a note to entire team asking for something to be done.
  2. Worker B sends email to co-worker, stating, “It would be great if you could do task X by next Friday. If I don’t hear from you by tomorrow I’ll assume that’s OK.”
  3. Client C makes the same demand several times, ignoring any counter-proposals made in the meantime, hoping to wear down the vendor until they simply agree out of fatigue.

In these cases, the ultimate responsbility, unfortunately, reverts back to the assignee. You frankly can’t allow people to get you to do things without creating the environment for a strong commitment. You need to probe and negotiate: “Which of us do you want to take this on, boss?” “I just got your note and I’m afraid I can’t meet your desired date. Can we discuss and come up with an alternative?” “Help me understand why you want it done this particular way.” etc. And then work to shape the request into a proper commitment that you can perform.

The environment that W. L. Gore Industries created (profiled in the new Gary Hamel book), is ideal for commitments. Any staffer asked to do something can accept or refuse the commitment. Once accepted, the commitment is expected to be completed. And a rigorous 360° review process incents people not to refuse every commitment (Bartleby the Scrivener wouldn’t last long at Gore).

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Posted in collaboration, commitments, consulting, customer management, management, organizational behavior | Comments

For consultants, adopting the "Google 20%" is vital

Tuesday, December 4th, 2007

Let me paint you a picture. You’re a consultant, and a company makes you an offer: Please work full time on our account. We’ll take all the hours you can give us. Imagine, further, that this assignment lasts two or three years. Then, as with all consulting arrangements, it ends.

Now what do you do?

Paradoxically, the assignment has been so good that it has left you unprepared for the next one. And the more of yourself you devoted to that one assignment, the less time you spent keeping your contacts up to date, learning new skills, and marketing to other clients.

No one would trade the two-year client for a six-week client, but the six-week client cannot put your consulting business into the kind of long-term jeopardy the two-year client can.

The answer? Adopt the “Google 20%.” Recall that Google asks each of its employees to dedicate one day per week to new projects of her choosing. A consultant who does the same automatically has a bank of time to spend on projects that, while they may not have a near-term payoff, are vital to the long-term health of the business. Examples: reading new literature, writing journal articles, taking on speaking engagements, trying brief assignments that open up new areas of experience, writing a blog, writing a newsletter, serving on an advisory board, developing a product idea…. The list of useful projects is endless, if only you dedicate the time and commit to using it productively.

It’s not a strategy that’s easy to implement. Convincing the client to take a little less than all of you can be tricky. Fitting in the 20% work around client needs also takes flexibility. And forgoing the immediate income can be very, very difficult.

But the payoff is great. Rather than being at the mercy of your client (no matter how wonderful they are to you), you are in control of your career and destiny. Frankly, continuing to build your skills (even in areas outside your current assignment) is something your clients should demand of you anyway.

(Photo by michelleho via stock.xchng)

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Posted in Google, business development, consulting, marketing, networking, product development, sales | Comments

Consulting or consulted to? Avoid these mistakes

Thursday, June 7th, 2007

Rick Sklarin over at Crimson Consulting’s fairly-new blog has posted “Top Eight Reasons Why Consulting Won’t Work.” It’s a good overview of problems that can befall an engagement if consultants or their customers aren’t careful. I’ll be consulting the list from time to time, I’m certain.

Rick mentions that “each of us have stories about real clunkers, the consulting projects that went south.” I’d love if he shared some of his–we learn really well from stories of others’ mistakes.

Posted in consulting, learning, mistakes | Comments