From the monthly archives:

May 2010

Must Read: D.School Bootcamp Bootleg

by Peter Osborne on May 30, 2010 · 0 comments

http://dschool.typepad.com/files/bootcampbootleg2009.pdfDo I need an MBA to get a consulting job?

It’s a question I hear every now and then from people trying to make the decision about consulting.  I hope not — since I don’t — but you need to be able to explain what makes you different, what skills you offer and methodologies you use (or might use, depending on the situation).

That’s why a New York Times article in January about reinventing the MBA curriculum got my attention.  As one person put it, “At business school, there was a lot of focus on ‘You’ve got a great idea; here’s how to build a business out of it.’  The d.school said, ‘Here’s how you get to that great idea.’”

The “d.school” is a reference to the growth in “design thinking,” which has been described as a process for practical, creative resolution of problems or issues, the essential ability to combine empathy, creativity, and rationality to meet user needs and drive business success.  There’s an engineering focus to all this (the Stanford d.school is part of the Engineering School), but that’s missing the point of today’s posting.

So here is the point: The Stanford d.school has posted a terrific document on its site that outlines what drives the development of great ideas.  The D.School Bootcamp Bootleg starts with seven mindsets — including “Bias Toward Action” and ”Create Clarity From Complexity” (my favorite) and ”Show, Don’t Tell.”  It goes on to introduce modes like “empathize,” “define,” and “test.”  And then it outlines a variety of strategies (or methods) that are integral to design thinking.

Lest this sound overly academic — and some of the pieces will lead to glazing of the eyes — the Bootleg will help you better understand your customers or come up with that “one big thing” before you go too far down the road. 

Business books seem to be getting shorter lately…and packed with more usable information.  This one is 36 pages and well worth your time.  Read through it.  Think about how you’ve used the concepts without actually knowing you were employing design thinking.  Pick some things to try.  Keep them if they work and try something else if they don’t.  

Use this document — but think of it as a toolkit — and when the time comes perhaps you can overcome the lack of an MBA with a skill set that enables you to develop great, marketable ideas.  Or even better, maybe there’s something in here that will enable you to articulate a methodology you’re already using or may find useful in your consulting practice.

How about you?  How have you used some of these methodologies — interviewing for empathy, powers of 10, and so on?  What worked and what didn’t?

{ 0 comments }

30 Second Launch Pad: Go to work every day

by Peter Osborne on May 23, 2010 · 0 comments

Sam Waltz

Sam Waltz is director of Mergers and Acquisitions for RLSassociates.com Investment Banking, Mergers & Acquisitions and founder of Sam Waltz & Associates LLC Business and Communications Counsel.  He is also former chair of the Public Relations Society of America. For more information on Sam or to contact him, click on his LinkedIn profile or go to his website.

What do you know today that you wish you knew when you were starting out?  I guess I may have been a slow learner, but in the first few years after 1993 I learned that (a) the professional competence and achievements that earned great commendation inside a big company like DuPont had much less immediate value outside DuPont in the short term; that (b) I needed to rapidly expand my perspective and understanding of business to an altogether different level than I used in DuPont (which I joined in 1977 and left in 1993); and (c) marketing and business development were more critical than even I had imagined, and I worked in that competency.Finally, too, consider a couple of other things.  Geography is part of your branding, and I picked a great Delaware location, on Route 52 in Greenville, DE, but I’ve realized that my practice would have been altogether different if I had located it just up the road in the Greater Philadelphia area, (e.g., Great Valley or King of Prussia).  And give some thought, even at the beginning, to “asset-building.”  Not so much financial assets, but business and practice assets (e.g., Intellectual Property (IP) via core business processes such as Content Knowledge).  For example, I found that our own clients valued – more than I’d ever realized – our intimate knowledge of our Delaware/Delaware Valley market, and our ability to help them “navigate the market” in political, civic and business terms.

What was your most important early decision (e.g., financial, organizational, marketing)?  Call it a decision, or personal branding, or marketing, or whatever you want to call it, but…

I decided early in 1993 when I founded Sam Waltz & Associates LLC Counsel upon leaving a senior role in the DuPont Company’s External Affairs function that, if I wanted to sell our professional services to Business Leaders, I needed to be one.  So, within the scope of my own interests in Public Policy and Public Affairs, I became involved as an active volunteer in the State Chamber and County Chamber legislative committees, which led me within just one year to be elected Delegate, and ultimately Chair, of Delaware’s Delegation to the 1995 White House Conference on Small Business convened by President Clinton.

Similarly, within that concept that I call “tithing with your time,” I became active nationally in my global professional society, www.PRSA.org, leading to a seat on its board of directors/executive committee in 1996, and serving as its national/global president in 1999.

Those two areas, different sides of the same coin, were critical to me in building a personal brand and a professional brand, both within our market and within our industry.  Each required lots of time, and each still requires time because I remain very active, but the result was enormous personal and professional satisfaction with some business residual benefit as well.

Can you offer one piece of advice to help a new consultant get through the first six months?   Go to work every day.  Rather than wait at home on your phone to ring, rather than wait on business to come to you, go out and find it.  Find it through early meetings every day, through volunteer committee work, through helping people regardless of whether they’re a paying client, to building your brand and marketing yourself.  In other words, your day and your work is not just about the work you do, but it’s about building your business. 

What people too often fail to realize is that being a consultant is being self-employed in a business, and you have to do many, even most, of the things that anyone in a business must do.  When I hung out my shingle in 1993, I started every day that I could with a 7:30 or 8 a.m. meeting, getting me out of the home office, full-speed ahead, suit and tie.  Some peers who left DuPont who were not successful hung around at home, not in business attire, running errands, mowing the lawn, and they found their resolve to launch a consulting business was all-too-quickly eroded.

{ 0 comments }

Strong references help fill your customer pipeline

by Peter Osborne on May 23, 2010 · 0 comments

Your technical skills will only take you so far…

Building a successful portfolio career requires you to have customers — a word I far prefer to clients — who speak well of you.  In many cases, these happy customers will be your best source of new business.

LinkedIn is just one place where your references can sing your praises, a great place actually because you eliminate the reciprocal reference (“you recommend me and I’ll recommend you”) that can undermine the power of a positive recommendation.

But keep in mind that as important as a great reference is to you, it may quickly become an after-thought to the person with whom you worked.  So it makes sense to ask for the reference at some point during or just after the project and then provide some specific direction, particularly if the reference is going to be in writing for your LinkedIn profile or in a specific place on your website.  Think about the questions you’d ask if you were looking to hire someone like you:

  • Was he easy to work with?
  • How much supervision did he require?
  • What makes him different from his competitors (i.e., from others who offer similar services, particularly those who might charge less)?
  • Did he show up when he said he would?
  • Did he deliver what he said he would (i.e., Did he meet expectations or exceed them)?
  • How were his invoices (e.g., clear, detailed, and reasonable for the work delivered)?
  • Would you recommend him to others (or, under what circumstances would you hire him again)?

The technical aspects of your skills are important, but successful consultants are trustworthy.  They deliver something unexpected, and they build relationships.  Your references should reflect those qualities.

What other questions would help a client provide you with a great reference?

{ 0 comments }

Welcome to the Neighborhood!

by Peter Osborne on May 23, 2010 · 0 comments

Welcome to Consultant Launch Pad, where we want to help people decide if they’re cut out to consult or do contract work and then help them set up their businesses and find customers.  Our success depends on inviting visitors who have been doing this for awhile and are willing to offer their advice and counsel. 

Many people are predicting that portfolio careers are the future — working for many different clients, being with one employer for a much shorter period of time.  They believe many of the jobs that have been lost are not coming back.  Some people are here because their choices are limited — they can’t find the right jobs (executive level or otherwise) and they need project work just to pay their mortgages and feed their families and prove what they can do to a prospective employer.  And this neighborhood is getting bigger by the day.

We’re still in the early stages of construction; after all we want the people who live here to have a voice in what their home and community looks like.  We do want to point your attention to a few features that we think you’ll like:

  • You can ask questions (or provide answers to other people’s questions) in the Forum but it’s also a place to network, share suggestions, and collaborate.   We’ve started a few discussions, but want you to ask the questions.  Please register on the Forum page (we’d like everyone to provide user names when they participate).
  • Everybody likes Free Stuff, and we’ll be adding new things all the time to that section (you can find it on the Navigation Bar).  Free Stuff includes Downloads of checklists, charts, and other resources that will help you regardless of your experience and a page with Links to blogs and sites we’ve found useful during our travels.  Let us know about other terrific ones you’ve come across.  Please add your suggestions to the Comments or send them to us separately.
  • 30 Second Launch Pad enables experienced consultants to share what they’ve learned over the years.  If you’re interested in contributing, please let us know.  These will start as blog posts, but you can find them all together by clicking on the category listing or under — yes, you guessed it – Free Stuff…along with an Elevator Speech page.

In addition, the one thing we know is that we don’t know everything, so we’ve posted some Guest Blogger guidelines under the Contact Us tab.

There’s a lot more cool stuff coming very soon, all geared toward one of our three primary Missions.  Please come back often and see how construction is going.  And let us know what you think.

Welcome to the neighborhood!

{ 0 comments }

30 Second Launch Pad: Focus, focus, focus

by Peter Osborne on May 13, 2010 · 0 comments

Ed Callahan

Ed Callahan is a Philadelphia-area EOS implementer who helps organizations clarify, simplify, and implement their visions.  For more information on Ed or to contact him, click on his LinkedIn profile, read his Stay Focused blog, or go to his website.  

 What do you know today that you wish you knew when you were starting out?  Match your consulting practice to a passion; don’t just create an extension of what you have been doing in your career up to this point. If you are passionate about doing something, it will give you the fortitude to stick to it through the inevitable difficult days while you are building your practice. I am now on the third iteration of my practice in 10 years, and I have finally accomplished this particular piece of advice as an EOS Implementer where I combine my business experience and my passion for being a small business teacher.

What was your most important early decision (e.g., financial, organizational, marketing)?  I stopped billing myself out on an hourly basis. It rid me of the hassle of keeping track of my hours and having to justify them to the client. I transitioned to a monthly retainer, paid in advance, with contract-based expectations as to deliverables from both me and the client. Much simpler and a great qualifier of real prospects, as distinguished from tire kickers who want you to work on commission or equity only.

Can you offer one piece of advice to help a new consultant get through the first six months?  Focus, Focus, Focus. Focus your value proposition. Focus your target market. Focus your messaging.  Build a very narrow brand in which you can become the dominant player.  Ideally align yourself with an existing set of intellectual property/business proposition so that you can focus all your energies on getting clients. Generating cash early should be your only objective.
 
You can find Ed’s elevator speech on the My Elevator Speech page.

{ 0 comments }

Assess your value to a client before they do

by Peter Osborne on May 12, 2010 · 0 comments

Getting to know your prospective client will make for a great marriage later

Networking and sales prospecting will only get you so far.  At some point, you need to convince a potential client that you will provide value that exceeds what they’re paying you (i.e., ROI).  Whether you’re responding to an RFP or meeting with the prospective client to discuss their needs, you should be trying to figure out how to answer some or all of these questions:

  • Can you add something worthwhile to the company’s total output?
  • Can you help the company get closer to achieving its goals?
  • Can you make the company more efficient (i.e., streamline processes, market more efficiently, save them time)?
  • With the budget available, can you do a comprehesive and effective job?
  • Do you have skills that don’t exist somewhere else in the company (or are resources so stretched that the person or people who do have them can’t be moved to this project)?
  •  Will this project be seen as a must-have or a nice-to-have (i.e., will you have executive support)?

Ask open-ended questions to get at the answer to these questions throughout the sales process and then ask yourself two questions:

  • Are my skills a good match for their problems or needs?

The answer to this question will lead you to the next one:

  • Is it worth spending additional business-development time on this prospect (i.e., developing proposals and presentations and attending meetings?

Focusing on this approach will help you sell more effectively, enabling you to focus your most precious asset — your time — on the right prospects and help you to tie your core competencies to the client’s most pressing needs.

{ 0 comments }

Five ways to get more business from LinkedIn

by Peter Osborne on May 11, 2010 · 0 comments

LinkedIn is probably best known for helping business people network to find jobs.  But many successful consultants are finding that their LinkedIn network can also be a great source of new business.  Here are a few ways you can find new clients:

Request targeted recommendations.  Take your list of core competencies and ask people you’ve worked with — clients, former co-workers, and business partners — to write recommendations that highlight your key selling points (particularly if they counter the normal objections you face).  That’s right.  Provide some specific direction.  It’s one thing for you to claim that you’re good at something, but recommendations that say you’re great at that thing build credibility and trust.  This is particularly important if your practice is more greated toward a portfolio of 1099 projects, rather than focusing on one or two long-term clients.

Build your industry network.  You may already have searched LinkedIn’s Group network to find industry associations and networks that you can join.  Doing this will expand your potential network (it’s much easier to invite someone to join your personal network if you’re in the same group or groups), increasing the likelihood that you may know someone who knows someone who can support your business proposal.

Let people know when you post.  Many consultants take advantage of the ease of WordPress and other blogging platforms to post on subjects of interest within their areas of expertise.  One great way to drive traffic — and again, build credibility — is to match the subject of your blog post to appropriate LinkedIn groups and start discussions.  Think like the reader and write a great head that captures the thrust of your posting (perhaps with a question) and then quickly summarize your main points and then provide a link to your blog.  Consider asking the reader who decides to comment on your posting to copy his or her comment on both the Group Discussion and your actual blog.  I will often block and copy the stronger Linkedin comments into the blog Comments myself to advance the discussion. 

Set aside time to answer some questions.  Use LinkedIn forums to answer questions that demonstrate your knowledge and experience.  You build credibility with strong answers and may well expose yourself to a potential client who use LinkedIn’s advanced Answers search to find your answers.  I’m a big believer in karma so helping someone else could come back in positive ways if you…

Ask questions in areas where you need help.  There are hundreds of different categories on Answers, so I suspect you can find answers to many of your questions related to your new consulting business.  And if you can’t find an answer, there are many experienced people out there who will likely respond if you clearly explain the challenges you face.

Please consider sharing how you’ve found new clients through LinkedIn.  In future posts, I’ll share other ideas.

{ 0 comments }

What’s your core competency?

by Peter Osborne on May 10, 2010 · 0 comments

There are times when standing out from the crowd is a bad thing. Marketing your consulting services isn't one of them.

What makes you different? 

It’s a question individuals and organizations often struggle to answer effectively.  Why should someone hire you over your competition?

C.K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel wrote an oft-downloaded article for the Harvard Business Review back in 1990 on defining your competitive advantage.  Core competency, elevator speech, value proposition, secret sauce — the concept is the same:  Whether you’re making the decision to consult or you’re already up and running, success depends on your ability to verbalize your core competency or competencies and to position yourself as offering someone nobody else can (or does). 

Building a great elevator speech will be a recurring theme on these pages.  From Pralahad and Hamel’s point of view, here’s what you should be thinking as you develop a list of core competencies:

  • Is it a significant source of competitive differentiation?  Does it provide a unique signature to how you describe yourself?  Does it make a significant contribution to the value a customer perceives in your product or service?
  • Does it transcend a single business or market niche (i.e., does this core competency give you an advantage with more than one target customer)?
  • Is it (or will it be) hard for competitors to imitate?  In general, they say, competencies that arise from the complex harmonization of multiple technologies will be difficult to imitate.  This combination of resources and embedded skills will be difficult for other firms to acquire or duplicate.

Prahalad and Hamel argue that few firms — much less individual consultants — are likely to be leaders in more than five or six core competencies.  If you’ve compiled a list of 20 to 30 capabilities, odds are you haven’t yet identified your true core competency.  Once you have, however, you are far more likely to be able to focus on value creation and meaningful new business development rather than a shotgun approach to marketing or opportunisitic expansion.

{ 0 comments }