Guerrilla Marketing for Consultants

Methodology

A debate persists in the consulting industry about the role of methodologies and tools in the sales process.

Some argue that, once you utter a word about "how" you plan to do the work, the client begins to perceive you as a commodity, rather than an adviser. Others suggest, with equal vigor, that a consultant's methods and tools are central to any sale.

In my opinion, both positions are right--and wrong.

Any experienced consultant will tell you that our business has few hard and fast rules. What works for one client doesn't necessarily work for another. What we really need is flexibility, not dogma.

Naturally, clients will ask you to help solve a problem or envision the future. And it's foolish to talk about how you will get there until you and the client agree on what needs to be done.

But it's equally wrongheaded to believe that prospective buyers should have no interest in your methods. Most clients want that vision of the future and a road map to get there. Providing both, in the right proportion, can help close a sale.

If you tell a senior executive, for instance, that you'll help shave 15 percent off the company's inventory costs, don't be surprised when the client asks exactly how you'd do that. Brush that question off, and expect to be shown the door.

When hiring, say, carpenters, most people don't care if they plan to uses 21 oz., Anti-Vibration Hammers for the job. They leave it to the pros to do the job the best way possible.

Services buyers, though, do care how you will do the work. They want to know how your team will manage the project and communicate with the client's people. They want to know how much disruption to expect, and how you will produce the promised result.

The challenge is deciding what level of detail is appropriate for your audience at various points in the sales cycle. Of course, focus first on what needs to be done. But be ready to answer the inevitable "how" questions.

Closure

Clo-sure: a bringing to an end; conclusion

As a project winds down, consultants and clients make that final push to wrap up every detail and stay on schedule. It's common, though, particularly on longer projects, for that last burst of activity to fall short, and so the scheduled end date slips.

In spite of superb planning, some projects will take longer than expected. But you want to avoid a sloppy ending--at all costs. The best, first step to a crisp project ending is to talk to the client about closure from the outset. And then repeat at regular intervals.

You can take simple steps to create a mindset of closure, like scheduling the wrap-up meeting at the beginning of the project, keeping the project end date front and center with the client, setting the stage for how the client will move forward once you are gone, and pushing back on requests to revise the schedule.

Consultants often tolerate delays at the end of projects for the sake of client goodwill and future business development. The attitude is laudable, but this type of flexibility can sap your profitability and convey a message that you don't know how to close out an assignment.

Clients place high value on consultants' skill in facilitating tough decisions. When tough calls linger, don't be surprised to observe tension in the client relationship. Even minor undecided issues can cause delays, so make sure they don't creep up on you at the end.

It's hard work to keep a project on track. Recognize that many schedule delays are subtle expressions of resistance to change. Once you become complicit in that resistance, you're part of the problem, not the solution.

Compromise

It's not easy being a CEO these days--or any executive, for that matter. And in times of tumult, many CEOs turn to their consultants for counsel. But there's a move afoot that is changing how some senior executives get the help they need.

They're listening to their peers instead of to consultants. Why the shift?

According to some executives, consultants' advice is too abstract, and many consultants seem more concerned with extending their contracts than rocking the boat with controversial, forthright advice.

Earlier in my career, one of my colleagues believed his client's business was on a collision course with bankruptcy unless the client's executive team made a corporate course correction. The client disagreed, but offered a substantial, non-competitive contract to advise the company on implementing the strategy my colleague questioned.

Instead of shifting gears and taking the contract, my colleague declined and told the executive exactly why. As soon as consultants compromise their principles in exchange for a contract, it's the beginning of the end of the client relationship.

Few behaviors are more transparent than self-interest, and the act of trying to save a contract can lead to much bigger losses in the end. Knowing that a consultant has the courage to walk away from a lucrative project, which is rarely easy, is exactly what will keep clients coming back for more.

Clarity

"The client didn't implement the team's recommendations,"  complained one consultant.

It's always more interesting for you, and valuable for the client, if the client acts on your recommendations. After all, consultants are hired to get things done. But many of us have worked with clients who failed to implement the improvement programs they paid for.

Often, this failure to launch is attributed to poor timing, lack of budget, or shifting client priorities. But what might also be missing is a lack of clarity as to how the client should proceed. For any project, getting started is usually the hardest part.

Bringing clarity to those first halting steps can be the consultant's most important contribution to the client's success. As you create recommendations for clients, think about the challenge of transitioning from analysis to the implementation phase. For each recommendation, be clear with the client about its purpose, outcome, implication, risks, and remedies. Be explicit about the precise steps the client can take to convert recommendations into reality.

It's easy to blame a client for a lack of will when a consultant's recommendations are shuffled to the bottom of the list. But maybe the consultant is equally to blame. Nothing clears the hurdles of money, priorities, and politics better than complete and clear direction on how the client should proceed.

The real question is how many consultants are willing to light up the implementation path for their clients?

Consult This!: 62 Tips for Consulting Success

Here's a new, 70-page e-book offering a range of ideas for you to consider as you work to become a better consultant.

The book is free, and the material is a compilation of posts from this blog, organized into seven sections:

• Managing your Practice
• The Consulting Process
• Marketing
• Pricing your Services
• Proposal Writing
• The Language of Consulting
• Selling your Services

Click over to the download page to receive your copy of Consult This.

The Path to Profit

It's hard to argue with the notion that the shortest path to new business is to expand your services with existing clients. After all, an incumbent consultant with a strong track record should have an advantage. 

For many consultants, though, it's tough to convert that advantage into profit on a consistent basis. 

I recently presented some thoughts on this subject at a webinar hosted by Primavera Systems. In the session, we discussed five account management strategies that can transform single-project transactions into multi-project, long-term relationships.

The webcast is free, so have a listen.

Building Strong Relationships on High Performance Teams - Team Self Assessment

Successful teams are most consultants' lifeblood... without them, even your best recommendations go nowhere.  Besides launching a team well and  enrolling  support from the right people,  it is critical that you  establish an environment that creates strong working relationships between team members.

It ain’t about ropes courses…. developing strong working relationships on a team is not something you do by holding an event.  It starts with the chartering process we discussed in a previous post in this series — the process of building agreements about what the team will accomplish, negotiating with the leader, the sponsor and each other, and working together to begin to deliver products sets the stage.  Making commitments to clear goals that you have been part of setting establishes the foundation for working together.  Once the team is launched, I focus on several things.  Today I will talk about team self assessment.

Techniques such as the Before / After Action Reviews used by the military or a simple Plus / Delta (what worked that we should continue to do and what should we change) is a powerful tool for the team to use to continuously self assess, become comfortable giving each other feedback and learn to pay attention to and apply the feedback.  What makes it work?  There are three things:

• Start with clear written desired outcomes for each meeting.  This is a key part of successful meeting design.  Team members feel good about working together when they accomplish things.  Having clear goals and well run meetings helps them focus on what they need to accomplish.  It also sets them up to analyze what worked and what did not work at the end of their meetings.

• Facilitate the debrief process so that the team digs into root cause of why something worked well or did not.  Don’t just accept the surface statement response when someone says “such and such worked well”.  Ask them “Why?” or “Say more”.  Get them to explain what it was that team members did that caused a positive or negative result.  Remember, we want to identify what we can do, do differently or stop doing, to improve.  Even more important, bring the results of the debrief back to the next meeting and have them review what helped and what they said they want to do differently at this meeting.

• Periodically (maybe every 4 - 6 weeks) schedule an hour with the team to review all the plus / deltas or after action learnings from the prior period.  Help the team identify trends: where they are making progress and where they may still be getting stuck.  Where they made progress, help them identify how they did      that.  Is there a good lesson learned there to share with other teams?  Where they are still stuck, have them identify the cost of not solving this and dig deeper to understand what is getting in the way of solving it.

It ain’t about no ropes course....  What else have you found helps build strong relationships on teams?

High Performance Teams -- Enrolling Support

So far, this series on Building High Performance Teams has covered chartering, launching teams, sponsorship and key stakeholders.  Based on a few activities I have been involved in during the last couple of weeks, and “how do I address this” questions I have also been asked during that time, I realized I should talk about how to enroll support for your team’s work — whether that is enrolling the resources you need on your team, enrolling the managers of those resources or enrolling key stakeholders.  As a consultant, this can be particularly difficult (and important) if the resources you are trying to enroll are the client’s, since you are just a passing phenomena (a nice way to say a pain in the ….) who they can outwait.  But it is also important if you are competing for resources within your own firm or need people on a project that they are not interested in being on (remember that project from hell last year that you told the team they would love…) I’ll start with the most fundamental… enrolling team members (yours or the client’s).

It’s actually a very simple conversation… simple because you let the person do most of the talking.  The basic format for the conversations is:

• Explain what the team is about and why this person is important to the team… “this is why I want you…”  This should be short and to the point.
• Then ask: “What would it take to have you excited about being on the team?”… at which point just be quiet and listen.
• Once they are done, you can ask questions for clarification.
• Then, based on what they say, you may be able to talk about how some of the things that excite them can be met on the project or concerns can be mitigated, things you may need to consider or look into and things that you cannot address.
• If appropriate you may also discuss: “Here’s where you may have to stretch… and how I will support you.” 

Why is it so important to be quiet and listen without interrupting?  In cases where the person has concerns, you will typically hear those first. Great… you are letting the person begin to work through their concerns by expressing them.  You may also be learning about things that can be easily addressed.  More importantly, once the person finishes expressing their concerns (dumping their angst), they usually begin talking themselves into all the positive things that can come from being involved.  They may caveat it with expressions like “This could never happen, but if it could…” but they are beginning to explore the possibilities.  Let them go, and focus on what you can learn… what is important to them, how could participation help them get there, what concerns can be mitigated.  Often, you don’t even have to say anything; the person will have talked themselves into being excited and enrolled.   Much of what you discuss can be built right into the charter. This demonstrates to the team member that you are taking them seriously, and ensures you don’t forget about it.

How often have you had problems getting the support of the manager that person reports to?  They probably also see you as a “passing phenomena”. It can have major impact on your team member’s performance if their manager is supporting having them involved. (You have probably been on a project which your manager agreed to have you participate in, but didn’t really see it as one of your priorities… remember what that was like!)  The enrollment conversation with this resource manager follows the same pattern:

• Briefly explain what the team is about and why this person is important.
• Then ask: “What would it take to have you excited about “Jane” being on the team?”
• Once they are done, ask any questions for clarification.
• Then, based on what they say, make any necessary commitments, such as coaching the resource in a particular area, agreeing that they will get certain training or exposure, etc.
• If appropriate you may also discuss where ”Jane” may have to stretch… and how you can support her.

The conversation with a key stakeholder is also similar to the team member enrollment conversation, but in this case you are asking for the key stakeholder’s support in certain areas (and possibly involvement of them or some of their resources if necessary.)

Even if the person does not have a choice, this can be a powerful tool to get them more engaged and supportive… and it takes so little time for what you get from it. 

Try it… you’ll like it.

The Sponsor Can Make or Break You

Building High Performance teams... continued

A project team without an effective sponsor is like a child trying to grow up without an effective parent… it can be done but it sure is hard. 

How does this relate to your client projects? Well how often have you made the sale to Mr. / Ms. Big and then got assigned to an underling as your key contact… rarely seeing Big again until something blows up? In the mean time, Underling has a very different view of what the project needs to accomplish, has you down in the details instead of at the strategic level you are expected to be at, and you find yourself doing a lot more work while not delivering on Big’s expectations?

The problem is that while Underling may be the right person to be working with day-to-day, you have no sponsor.

Having the right client sponsor for your project requires having the right person focused on 8 key activities that allow them to have maximum impact without a major investment of their time. The 8 activities are:

• CHARTER a project team to solve a critical strategic priority
• ENROLL a leader, key team members and key stakeholders
• ASSESS progress with the team and agree how to ADJUST as needed
• Help the team and greater org LEARN from their experiences
• CHAMPION – ensure the org understands why the project’s important
• INFORM the team what else is going on that can impact them
• RECOGNIZE individuals and the team when they stretch
• Ensure the results have impact… INTEGRATE them into the mainstream

Back to the example with Big… s/he was probably heavily involved in framing the project to solve a critical strategic priority. Now you need to keep Big involved in the rest of the Chartering process… getting shared vision with the team on how the team will accomplish the goals. This can be done by involving them in strategic points in the team launch process. In the same way, you want to establish a process up front (during the sales and contracting process) about how you will keep Big informed and in control of the process. Be clear that this is important for your business to be successful as well as for Big’s business.

Setting the expectations that they will be involved in key tollgate reviews helps you keep them involved in Assessing, Adjusting and extracting Learnings. It also provides venues in which they can Inform the team about what else is going on that can impact their work and gather information and insights that helps Big Champion the work to others and Recognize great performance.

If you successfully keep Big involved periodically throughout the process, you minimize getting out of synch, provide a venue for them to maintain ownership of the results, provide opportunities for interaction between the team and Big, maintain your direct link to Big and increase the odds that the results will be Integrated into the mainstream and have the intended strategic impact. Well worth the effort.

Other important factors to consider in establishing the sponsor’s role include:

• Getting a sponsor with the appropriate level of “clout”
• Getting a single sponsor — not a steering committee — to work with the team
• Ensuring that the sponsor is not stepping into the role just because they want to ensure they have final say on all decisions.  The sponsor needs to be accountable for the success of the team.

Setting up the right sponsor, and ensuring they understand the role you need them to serve is just as critical for your internal project teams.  Make sure you have someone who is passionate about the necessary results and has the right level of clout.  Then set them up for success by contracting their involvement in the 8 activities and how you will support them.

Building a High Performance Team matters to your bottom line

Whether you are a solo practitioner or a leader of a significant size consulting practice, your ability to manage the critical factors that lead to high performance teams will directly impact the success of your engagements and therefore, your bottom line.  If you are leading a large consulting practice, the immediate implications for building strong teams within your practice are clear.  But even if you work alone, your work with your clients will typically not be successful if you cannot create a successful team environment between yourself and the members of the client organization you are dependent on to support your work.  Even more important... many of the techniques necessary for building a high performance team are the same techniques you need to apply to the implicit team you form between yourself and the leaders you are doing your work for.

Last fall, I wrote posts about three of the critical factors in team success:

1) The process of chartering the team -- building clarity and alignment between the team, the leader and the sponsor

2) Steps that are key for launching the team in a way that sets up their future success

3) Engaging key stakeholders.

After a longer than planned hiatus from the topic (pesky clients always seem to get in the way), I would like to continue sharing my point of view, posting about critical factors such as effective sponsorship, enrolling support and building strong relationships on the team.  I hope you find these useful and look forward to hearing other factors that you find important.