Guerrilla Marketing for Consultants

Alan Weiss, Ford Harding, and Jeff Thull

We've got a great issue of Management Consulting News this month, so have a look.

Have you ever been snared in the presentation trap? It’s easy enough to walk into, according to Jeff Thull, one of the featured authors this month. Thull says too many of us waste time creating presentations that clients don’t care about, and he suggests a simple way to avoid the trap.

If you’re looking for new sources of revenue, Alan Weiss points out that subcontracting is a profitable and overlooked option. No need to reinvent the wheel, though. Before diving into subcontracting, have a look at Weiss’ article for the dos and don’ts.

And if you want a fresh look at negotiation, Eric Patten and Kerry Patterson continue their six-part series by focusing on how consultants can negotiate with clients and still want to work with them after the negotiations.

We also have an interview with Ford Harding, author of Rain Making and Creating Rainmakers. Harding discusses what it takes to be a rainmaker, whether it makes sense to be a specialist or generalist, and if cold calling works.

And there’s more. We continue our series on writing compelling marketing letters, and we’re joined by Jim Stroup, a consultant and author, who wants to help you take some of the anxiety out of negotiating.

Read the August issue of Management Consulting News.

What's Next in Consulting?

No one can predict the future of our business but Fiona Czerniawska, consulting industry strategist, gets it right most every time.

Czerniawska isn’t certain she knows exactly why the surging demand for consulting services isn’t leading to higher fees, but she gives us a few solid theories in the July issue of Management Consulting News.

She also lets us in on the trends in value-based pricing, marketing, and she tells us which firms are winning the thought leadership race. 

In their second article for Management Consulting News, Kerry Patterson, coauthor of Crucial Conversations, and his colleague Eric Patten have advice for consultants working to breathe life into a project vision: spend as much time teaching accountability as creating the vision. Patterson and Patten give us a roadmap to confront issues of team performance while keeping projects on track.

In his column, “The Writing on the Wall,” Alan Weiss draws the important distinction between what buyers need and what they want; suggesting that consultants who address a buyer’s need move quickly up the value—and fee—curve.

You’ll also find articles on how to craft the direct mail marketing letter, start a consulting business, and engage senior executives in any client organization.

Read the July 2006 issue of Management Consulting News.

Read the July 2006 issue of Management Consulting News.

Do We Need Another View on Leadership?

Have the pundits written and said all there is to say on the subject of leadership? You might think so, but maybe not. Aubrey Daniels, author of Measure of a Leader, says we’re missing the boat on this critical aspect of business success.

In the March 2006 issue of Management Consulting News, Daniels points out that, “Although leadership has been dissected and written about for hundreds of years, the failure rate for American business leaders is 50 to 60 percent. Clearly we still have a problem.”

Daniels thinks we’re looking at all the wrong things when we evaluate our leaders. “More often than not,” he says, “the leaders who are held up as role models are charismatic people. Leadership is not a personality trait. But charismatic profiles tend to make people believe that’s all there is to it.”

Daniels says that to evaluate the success of a leader, we must examine the behavior of followers. He also says that we should measure the effectiveness of leaders using quantitative methods, rather than relying on judgment. He provides specific predictors of leadership success and a method for applying them in any organization.

Have a look at the interview with Daniels.

The March 2006 issue of Management Consulting News also includes:

• How to sign up for a free Webinar on improving your presentation skills

• Retirement Planning for Self-Employed Consultants, by Frank Armstrong

• Results of a new study on the effectiveness of marketing professional services

• Four Ways to Stop Margin Erosion, by Jeff Thull

• Six Tips for Coaching Success, by Omar Khan

• Are Performance Appraisals Useless?

• CIO Spending Trends in 2006

Read the March 2006 issue of Management Consulting News

Navigating the Healthcare Maze

Paul Zane Pilzer, author of The New Health Insurance Solution, describes America's healthcare system as being " at a breaking point where nobody is served."

In the February 2006 issue of Management Consulting News, Pilzer goes on to suggest that consultants working at firms should consider opting out of their company healthcare plans, or at least removing their spouses and children from them.

Pilzer tells those employed at firms that “… your employer is the last person you should want to provide for your healthcare, from a privacy, financial, and value standpoint. Employees with families should get the family, meaning spouses and children, off the company plan. In most cases, that will save them money.”

Have a look at the interview with Pilzer.

The February 2006 issue of Management Consulting News also includes:

• An article by Charles H. Green, author of Trust-Based Selling, titled Should Clients Trust Your Sales Pitch?

• The latest findings on customer rage--yes, rage
  

• A note to Ethics consultants

• And more

Read the latest issue of Management Consulting News.

Selling Doesn't Have to Be So Hard

Why do some consultants generate leads and win project work with ease, while others wait for an eternity just to get a response to an e-mail or a voice mail sent to a prospective client?

In the latest issue of Management Consulting News, Jill Konrath, sales strategist and author of the new book, Selling to Big Companies, has the answer. Her advice is practical, relevant, counter-intuitive, and it works.

Have a look at the interview with Konrath.

Read the latest issue of Management Consulting News.

Curing the Five Dysfunctions of Teams

Few consultants can succeed in the business if they're not good at working on teams.

And consultants face a unique teamwork challenge: they often collaborate with clients and others on projects with high expectations and compressed schedules.

In the recent issue of Management Consulting News, Patrick Lencioni, author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, talks about project team dynamics and what can be done to help any team effort run more smoothly.

Have a look at the interview with Lencioni.

When Smaller Is Better

Facing mounting pressure to achieve more and more, faster and faster, business leaders grasp at big-bang solutions. But initiatives for large-scale change often fail because employees and managers lack the ability to implement the grand schemes planned at the top.

In this month's issue of Management Consulting News, Robert Schaffer explains a different way to succeed with large-scale, complicated changes: the Rapid Results approach. Schaffer is coauthor of Rapid Results! How 100-Day Projects Build the Capacity for Large-Scale Change. He tells us how to take clients’ big projects, tackle them on a small scale to achieve measurable results quickly, and then build on that success.

Read the interview with Robert Schaffer.

Check out the November issue of Management Consulting News.

What's Your Return on Customer Rate?

Are you capturing the maximum value from your scarcest resource, your customers and clients?               

In this month's issue of Management Consulting News, we feature two pioneers of Customer Relationship Management, Don Peppers and Martha Rogers. Their latest book Return on Customer is called a “conceptual breakthrough” by Scott Cook, founder of Intuit.      

Peppers and Rogers make a compelling argument: that maximizing your Return on Customer rate will also maximize shareholder value—and they have the numbers to back up their assertions.            

Read the interview with Don Peppers and Martha Rogers

You'll also find an article on the relationship between creativity and consulting value by Luc de Brabandere, a Boston Consulting Group consultant and the author of The Forgotten Half of Change.

Read the article by Luc de Brabandere

Why Solution Selling Fails

Jeff Thull, author of The  Prime Solution, suggests that most consultants’ approach to business development is like doctors requiring patients to diagnose their own ailments.

Part of the problem is an overdose of “solution-based” selling, which Thull believes is a losing approach to differentiation.

Thull has an antidote for this problem, and he shares it with us in this month’s issue of Management Consulting News. Read the interview with Jeff Thull.

Daniel Pink on A Whole New Mind

Free Agent Nation author Daniel Pink is back again with A Whole New Mind. In his recent interview in Management Consulting News, he talks about the growing importance of right-brain skills for consultants and other professionals.

He says “The scales are tipping away from what it used to take for people to get ahead—logical, linear, left-brain, and spreadsheet-type abilities—in favor of abilities like artistry, empathy, and big-picture thinking, which are becoming more valuable. Left-brain skills are still absolutely necessary in our complex world. They’re just not sufficient anymore.”

Pink goes on to say that consultants need to think about whether they are doing the kind of work that can be offshored or automated. “Accountants, for example, may become this generation’s blue-collar workers. They are imperiled by cheaper workers overseas, and by the ability to put many accounting measures into a system of rules in a piece of software,” he says.

Take a look at the interview with Daniel Pink and let me know what you think.