Commando Consulting January 2008: Offering Paid Initial Consulting

Over the many years of consulting it's become a common practice for firms to offer free initial consulting before engagements to let prospects "taste" what they have to offer. It's also become an expectation and many prospects expect a bit too much for nothing.

What can be done? I think the answer is to adapt the "start small and build on it" mantra. That is, starting with a small but paid engagement, and then clients can decide whether or not they want to go to the next phase at a higher investment option. So, let's take a closer look at...

Offering Paid Initial Consulting.

Commando Consulting: October 2007 - Five Signs of a Smart Client Acquisition Strategy

As the world of consulting is becoming more and more competitive, consulting firms are basically forced to step beyond haphazard and reactive client acquisition techniques, like word of mouth (hope and pray they come) or the local country club. They have to step up to proactively fill their sales funnels with both short- and long-term opportunities. And this change hits medium-sized consultancies the worst.

Large firms and most solo consultants have always had proactive client acquisition programmes to create leverage, and most tiny firms (between 2 and 10 people) are likely to carry on with their current "fly the seats of their pants" approach. But it's middle-sized firms with an ear count of 100 plus that have to make drastic changes to their operations.

They don't have to, but without systematised client acquisition programmes they will be forced into the stressful world of competitive bidding. And we know that bids, issued by the purchasing and procurement departments, focus on price not on value. So, let's see how to avoid these nasty bidding wars by considering the Five Signs of a Smart Client Acquisition Strategy.

What To Avoid At Presentations

Many consulting firms still live and die by throwing presentations to win engagements. I've just bumped into some good points about what to do and what to avoid at presentations.

Rainmaker advisor, Ford Harding has some advice on what to avoid, entitled 3 x 5 Presentation Don’ts.

And Suzanne Lowe has a great blog entry on Five Biggest Professional Service Presentation Don'ts.

So, if you get your engagements through presentations, it may be a good idea to check out what these experts have to say about improving the quality of your presentations and to avoid the typical traps many of your competitors may be making.

What The Urban Dictionary Says About The Big 4

In case you haven't read it yet, you may want to check out Michelle Golden's blog entry on the Big 4 accounting firms over at the Verasage Institute.

The Good Practice Of Turning Down Ready-To-Buy Prospects?!

Over at Ford Harding's blog I bumped into a great story entitled The Amazing Flip. It tells the story of a firm that basically requires prospects to sell their opportunities to the firm. The firm's default setting of sitting down with prospects is "No," unless prospects can sell their projects to the firm.

It doesn't specifically show from the article, but I can assume that the firm is fully booked with top-notch clients. So, the universal truth is really true that nature abhors vacuum, and if we chase away bad prospects, the n we automatically give way to great prospects and great clients.

The problem I see is that in most consulting firms, rainmakers are not allowed to turn down business. Since so many firms operate on the hooker's mantra of "We do anything for anyone for money," this can be a hard proposition.

In my employment years I was fired twice for rejecting inappropriate prospects. They were either verbally abusive or went a bit too far on haggling. My sales managers told me my job was to turn every hunk of warm meat with a wallet into paying clients.

However, if we consider how much bad clients can cost a firm , this proposition sounds rather practical. Ron Baker at the Verasage Institute rightly says: "Bad clients drive out good clients."

My personal belief is that no clients are better than bad clients. If we have no clients at all, at least we know where we stand and can make alternative plans for the mortgage payment and putting food on the table. But if we are flooded with obnoxious, belligerent ambiguous clients, we never know what can happen next. I've had my fair share of them and probably you too. So, let's be more selective of whom we accept as clients.

Anyway, this is a great article, so go an read the The Amazing Flip.

What Is Bullying Costing Your Consulting Firm?

The Workplace Bullying Institute has just released it's 2007 survey on workplace bullying. It seems the issue is much more serious than most of us think. The findings are both interesting and sad. Well, we've always known that most managers, due to the traditional promotion process, are not suitable for managing, and this survey just proves it. 72% of bullies are incompetent managers bullying their people.

What makes these figures even sadder is that so many consulting firms tolerate bullying because it comes from either "high-performing" prima donnas or "respected" managers in important positions. Even many of those consulting firms that pontificate that people are their most important assets tolerate bullying.

Why is it tolerated? Because it doesn't have an entry in the accounting system, so firm leaders don't relate bullying to financial loss. But obviously there is. And the price is pretty high.

And a recent article in Fast Company magazine, entitled "The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't" explains the staggering costs of tolerating even only one bully in the workplace.

Running The Risk Of Stealing Your Firm's Clients

Fellow VeraSage member, Michelle Golden at Golden Practices discusses a very interesting practice that could seriously impact consulting firms ' profitability, but due to lack of trust in associates , and very often among partners, most firms shy away from this approach.

The essence of the practice is that you let your people work so closely with your clients that they could actually steal their clients from your firm if they left your firm. It tells a lot about trust in your associates and their intention of investing their careers in your firm.