From the category archives:

30 Second Launch Pad

30 Second Launch Pad: A very different 3 R’s

by Peter Osborne on November 30, 2010 · 0 comments

“Making the very complex…awesomely simple” is no mere catch phrase, it is truly John Spence’s mission in life. Driven by an insatiable curiosity to understand the fundamental aspects of what it takes to achieve and sustain excellence in business and life, John Spence has earned a reputation as a leading authority in the areas of Business Excellence, High-Performance Teams, and Advanced Leadership Development, making him one of the most highly sought after executive educators and professional speakers in America.  John has presented workshops, speeches and management consulting to more than 300 organizations including Microsoft, AT&T, IBM, GE Capital, Merrill Lynch, Abbot Labs, Qualcomm and dozens of private companies, government offices and not-for-profits. John is also the author of “Excellence by Design: Leadership” and “Awesomely Simple” and has been a guest lecturer at more than 90 colleges and universities across the United States.  John is on Twitter as @awesomelysimple and you can find him on LinkedIn here
  

John Spence, author of Awesomely Simple

What do you know today that you wish you knew when you were starting out?  That to be successful in the consulting business you must be not only be a superb thinker, a truly exceptional listener and know your material inside and out – but you also have to be excellent in sales.  If you are an independent consultant or the managing partner of consulting firm, a large portion of your time will be spent growing the business and cultivating new clients.  If you do a spectacular job with your current clients, the vast majority of your future business will come from positive word-of-mouth referrals, but even then there is still going to be a portion that you have to go out and hunt for.  So you need to be enthusiastic about being a highly professional consultative salesperson and positioning yourself as a true Trusted Advisor in order to keep expanding your business and moving into new markets.

What was your most important decision starting out (e.g., financial, organizational, marketing)?  That unless requested by the client I would not use any contracts in my business.  I’ve been a consultant, speaker and executive trainer for 18 years and have done probably 90% of my engagements… some in excess of $250,000… all on a handshake.  I let my clients know that if I do a great job they can simply pay me what we agreed on, if I do an absolutely spectacular job they should feel free to give me a bonus, and if I did not live up to their expectations in any way – they should pay me nothing.  This lets them know clearly that I’m focused on helping them and doing whatever I need to do to earn their business and deliver more value than they expected.  By the way, after working for more than 300 companies worldwide, I have never had a single client failed to pay the full amount we agreed to… or more.

Can you offer one piece of advice to help a new consultant get through the first six months?  Focus on two key things:  1. Be absolutely superb at what you do, spend hours and hours and hours in preparation, strive to be so incredibly valuable that the client feels like they would be a fool not to keep you around to help them. 2.  People pay for results not for ideas.  It’s great if you’re a fantastic thinker and have amazingly cool theories and ideas – but clients pay for results… ROI, increased profits, decreased expenses, new competitive advantage, accelerated processes, higher efficiencies, expanded markets, more loyal customers… never ever just for ideas. 

What’s your elevator speech?   I have built my entire career around making the very complex awesomely simple.  I base this on what I call the three R’s.  The first R is Research; I have read a minimum of 100 business books a year every year since 1989 as well as thousands of pages of articles and research in the areas I focus on… leadership, high-performance teams, building a winning culture, strategic thinking and superior customer service.  The second R stands for Real Life; at the age of 26 I was named CEO of an international Rockefeller foundation with offices in 20 countries around the world and have owned or operated eight other companies since that time.  The last R stands for ROI; in  every speech I deliver and every workshop I facilitate I’m driving as hard as I possibly can for ACTION.  It is nice to get motivated and excited about really great ideas and cool concepts,  but at the end of the day it all comes down to turning those fantastic ideas into successful results in your business. That is what I do.

If you’re interested in John’s book, you can order it here (affiliate link):

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30 Second Launch Pad: Be fully ‘present’ with clients

by Peter Osborne on October 17, 2010 · 0 comments

Randy Block

Randy Block brings more than 30 years of expertise in executive search as a certified career coach. He has guided all levels of professionals in the areas of career transition: changing careers, choosing a career direction, evaluating/negotiating offers, executive career marketing, finding jobs, getting organized, as well as finding opportunities for self-employment, freelancing and consulting.  Through his company Block & Associates, Randy now works with small companies as a staffing partner and plays a key role in building successful teams with effective staffing processes.  Randy is on Twitter as @boomeradvisor and you can find him on LinkedIn here.

 
What do you know today that you wish you knew when you were starting out?  It takes time and capital.  I was lucky that I landed engagements early as revenue starters, but I still had to draw on savings etc. while I built the business.  How long?  About 18 months to decent profitability.   I also found that friends in general would not “buy” from me.   They would give me good  referrals.  I made the transition from recruiter to coach. It took about two years to “unbrand” myself.  I still had clients calling me for searches after I told them I was no longer in that business.  At one level, it seems that strangers are an easier market.  It’s important to know that I bought two life insurance polices from friends!

What was your most important decision starting out (e.g., financial, organizational, marketing)?  The decision to make the decision.  I keep waffling about leaving a lucrative search practice.  One day I told myself that I will decide on Friday.  I did and jumped off the diving board.

Can you offer one piece of advice to help a new consultant get through the first six months?  Listen, listen, listen.  Ask good questions. The way you connect with anyone is being fully present.  When people know that they have been understood, they are much more willing to help you (and perhaps buy).  Keep in mind that services and product are bought and not sold.  People today don’t want to be “sold to.”

What’s your elevator speech?  The purpose of a tagline or elevator speech is to engage with others.  I have a tagline that answers the question “What do you do?’  My reply:  I help professionals transform their values, strengths and talent into revenue today.”   Typically they respond with a comment or ask for an example. I choose a story that I think they could relate to the best.  I keep the story under two minutes.  Note that I don’t use a title or say how I do it.

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30 Second Launch Pad: Build a community

by Peter Osborne on October 14, 2010 · 1 comment

Chris Brogan

One of the best-known and most-respected voices in the social-media world, Chris Brogan consults and speaks professionally with Fortune 100 and 500 companies like PepsiCo, General Motors, Microsoft, and more, on the future of business communications and social software technologies. He is a New York Times bestselling co-author of Trust Agents (affiliate link), and a featured monthly columnist at Entrepreneur Magazine.  Chris’s blog is in the Top 5 of the Advertising Age Power150, and he recently launched a new blog called Escape Velocity, which is dedicated to helping people build up their abilities, their commitment, their confidence, and their resources to achieve what he calls escape velocity – the energy and trajectory to move away from things we don’t want towards things we do.  Chris is president of both New Marketing Labs, a new media marketing agency serving primarily Fortune 100 and 500 clients, and Human Business Works, an online education and community company for small businesses and solo entrepreneurs.  He is also the co-founder of the PodCamp new media conference series, exploring the use of new media community tools to extend and build value.  His newest book is Social Media 101 (affiliate link).

What do you know today that you wish you knew when you were starting out?  I know how to build communities and tie them to marketplaces. 

What was your most important decision starting out (e.g., financial, organizational, marketing)?  My most important decision was exchanging hours for money until I figured things out. I did a lot of hours of my own time for no pay but this learning curve acceleration got me to my earnings faster. 

Can you offer one piece of advice to help a new consultant get through the first six months?  Experiment, execute, and expand into a community. That’s what I see successful people having to do. 

What’s your elevator speech?  I help big companies act more human and I help smaller companies do cool things to stay human.

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30 Second Launch Pad: Find your niche

by Peter Osborne on June 21, 2010 · 0 comments

Mark Jankowski

Mark Jankowski co-founded Baltimore-based Shapiro Negotiations Institute (SNI) in 1995 to help individuals and organizations realize their fullest potential by building stronger relationships and improving their Negotiation and Influencing skills. Drawing on his experiences as an attorney, investment banker, sales manager, and entrepreneur, Mark empowers clients to connect SNI’s systematic approach to Negotiation and Influencing to their real life endeavors.  For more information on Mark, you can go to his bio on SNI’s website or his LinkedIn profile.

What do you know today that you wish you knew when you were starting out?   I was not fully aware how much time administrative tasks would take. Arranging travel, setting up phone calls, closing sales, marketing, making copies, billing, etc have to be accounted for when determining how much time your consulting career will take. Therefore, maximizing your hourly rate is vital because every hour of work probably requires another three hours of sales, marketing and administrative time. 

What was your most important early decision (e.g., financial, organizational, marketing)?    We decided to only pursue a niche and not be a Jack of all trades. Expertise is a valuable commodity, particularly when there is an overload of information and your clients need someone who focuses on parsing that info and just giving them the exact info they need when they need it.  Find your niche. 

Can you offer one piece of advice to help a new consultant get through the first six months?  Exercise :) . There is a great deal of pressure in the first six months as you see expenses mount with no revenue in the door or potentially on the horizon. You will need to blow off steam to make sure that you do not get an ulcer. Not only that, but people tend to think more highly of consultants who are in good shape.

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30 Second Launch Pad: Develop clear goals

by Peter Osborne on June 17, 2010 · 0 comments

Patricia Debski

Patricia Debski is a principal at Roadmap Marketing LLC, where she brings more than 20 years of business, product, and marketing experience to helping companies get more out of their marketing dollars and drive results from their marketing strategy. She was most recently at the DuPont Company where she held leadership positions in the Building Innovations and the Printing and Publishing businesses.  For more information on Patricia, you can go to Roadmap Marketing’s website or her LinkedIn profile.

What do you know today that you wish you knew when you were starting out?   That you need a supportive but self-imposed infrastructure  (think an office, a schedule, meetings, formal objectives, etc.)  and defined energy sources  (besides caffeine – think networking, taking a class, attending a seminar, learning about an industry, etc. ) to keep you moving towards your defined goals – making sure you have defined goals!

 What was your most important decision starting out (e.g., financial, organizational, marketing)?  Rather than go it alone, I contracted with an existing consulting firm (3-4 yr old) for work and committed to supporting another small firm that needed my talents and was an outlet for my interests in working with smaller businesses (vs. corporate).   Also, I had already been volunteering my time and experience with other small businesses, either on an advisory committee or  in a business and marketing coaching capacity, which not only kept up my network, but gave me credible experience in the small business segment.
 
Can you offer one piece of advice to help a new consultant get through the first six months?  Be clear on your revenue and personal goals – do the upfront planning work and create quarterly (and monthly) goals with tasks and keep it in front of you. Always refer back to it.  I kept a funnel picture to track prospective clients and noted where they dropped off, where they advanced to a proposal, and which ones committed.  The picture keeps you grounded on what’s really happening.

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30 Second Launch Pad: Get that first contract

by Peter Osborne on June 15, 2010 · 0 comments

Michael D. Brown

Michael D. Brown is president of StrategyMark, Inc., which provides consulting services in the specialty chemicals industry; managing partner of TZ Chemicals International Pty Ltd, a consulting and data publishing firm he helped start in January 2010; and one of the founders of Consultant Launch Pad.   A consultant for 12 years with 30 years of experience in marketing and business management of coatings and engineered plastics, Michael is considered an international expert on the specialty chemicals market and speaks regularly at trade organizations and the financial community.  For more information on Michael, you can go to the About Us page of this website or his LinkedIn profile

What do you know today that you wish you knew when you were starting out?   The one thing I wish I knew when I started was how to properly assess the risk/reward of leaving a corporation and starting a business.  I did some modest scenario planning but didn’t fully grasp BOTH the full extent of the risk AND the full extent of the rewards.  I should have talked to more consultants, both well-established as well as those just starting.  Specifically it would have been helpful to know the volatility of income (even for established practices!), the long hours, and, in my case, the heavy travel.  Conversely, I did not fully appreciate the degree of satisfaction I now have as a consultant and how good I feel about being in business for myself.  Simply – I wish I had known more about the “lows” and the “highs!”

Knowing what I  know today, my decision to consult would not have changed, but the way I managed my personal finances in the early years might have changed a little.  I would also have started my own practice much earlier.

What was your most important decision starting out (e.g., financial, organizational, marketing)?  My most important decision was deciding that my passion for strategic planning and consulting would never be fully realized or appreciated as an employee of a corporation and I would be better off professionally and financially as a consultant.  I was fortunate to have the opportunity at that time to enter the consulting profession as a partner in a small well-established firm.  Looking back I realize the importance of entering the market this way as it gave me the opportunity to learn the significance of having a focused value proposition and “elevator speech,” to learn the consulting business and to gain confidence while doing so with some financial stability.

Can you offer one piece of advice to help a new consultant get through the first six months?   My advice for a new consultant is to focus on getting that first contract!  Certainly you should put time in to your value proposition, business plan, company organization and marketing, but the impact of having cash flowing is immeasurable to your confidence and ultimately your success.  You should learn from this first contract more about your skills (and any gaps), you commitment and where your value proposition and business model need tweaking.

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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.

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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.

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