30 Second Launch Pad

 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.

 

 MICHAEL BROWN: GET THAT FIRST CONTRACT

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.

 

PATRICIA DEBSKI: SET REAL GOALS

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!

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.