|
Consulting
Career Opportunities
Top-Consultant.com reports that the global
Management Consultancy recruitment market has gone crazy--creating
immediate career opportunities for you at firms like:
- Accenture
- Booz Allen
- Capgemini
- PA Consulting
For all the latest fast-track consulting roles visit:
http://www.top-consultant.com
Top
of page ^
MCNews'
One-Minute Survey
With all the declarations made about the
progress, health and state of the consulting industry,
we thought we'd ask your opinion.
We've devised a three-question survey,
which will take one precious minute of your time to
complete. Your answers are completely anonymous, and
we'll report the results in next month's issue of MCNews.
Just click the link below (or paste the URL into your
browser) to help your fellow readers get a sense of
the market we're facing.
Take
the MCNews Survey
top
of page ^
Meet
the MasterMinds: Tom Stevenson on The Relationship
Advantage
 Tom
Stevenson held management positions at IBM for more
than twenty years, and was vice president of sales and
marketing for several high-tech firms.
He's now a consultant and with co-author Sam Barcus,
wrote The
Relationship Advantage: Become a Trusted Advisor and
Create Clients for Life.
MCNews talked to Stevenson about how consultants can
create enduring client relationships by getting back
to the basics that made firms so successful in the past.
* * * *
MCNews: How would you characterize an ideal relationship--if
there is such a thing--between a client and a consultant?
Stevenson: The word that comes to mind is interdependent.
In an ideal relationship, the client and the consultant
focus on working together for the mutual satisfaction
of the client. The consultant transfers the necessary
skills and process to the client so they can truly collaborate.
By that I mean they're working together because they
choose to. They could just as easily choose to work
apart, but the relationship is so strong because of
the focus and the value that they become interdependent.
MCNews: So what's your view on the current state
of the typical client-consultant relationship?
Stevenson: The fact is that a lot of trust has
been broken. The corporate and accounting scandals have
tarnished consultants, bankers, and top executives alike.
As a result, client relationships with consultants
are not as strong as they were. They're more tenuous.
Consultants have to work harder to maintain relationships
(and their billing rates) because of the events of the
last four or five years.
I also noticed that, toward the end of the boom in
the 1990s, some consulting firms abandoned their traditional
pyramid approach: Instead of matching the level of the
consulting practitioner to the corresponding level in
the client organization, they brought in salespeople
or business development specialists to go out and close
business with clients.
Most of these salespeople didn't grow up in the firms
and didn't have the firms' culture and values. And that's
dangerous.
That's exactly the plight of the corporate sales force
that I've been trying to address. So when I saw consulting
firms do it, I was really surprised because consultants
wrote the book on keeping those relationships intact
at all levels with the client.
Abandoning that has been doubly harmful because trust
was damaged at the same time that relationships were
being handed off to closers who were hired off the street.
I think many of these salespeople have since been let
go, and now consulting firms are trying to figure out
how to get back to the relationships they had before
they transitioned into the business development model.
I know not all consulting firms went in that direction
but I was surprised when I saw many consulting firms
fall into the corporate sales trap.
MCNews: By corporate sales trap do you mean putting
a salesperson between the consultant and the client?
Stevenson: That's exactly right. Think about
the corporate sales model. In the technology area, for
example, corporate sales force turnover is 35% to 40%
a year. At that rate, it doesn't take long to turn over
an entire sales force.
If relationships are based on trust that is built
over time and you're delegating the relationships to
salespeople, you're entrusting that function to the
most junior people in the firm in terms of their longevity.
That's why this approach has never worked.
As long as you keep handing relationship responsibility
off to the newest people in the firm, they will continue
to turn over because they can never really meet the
expectations of the senior practitioners have who should
be doing that job themselves.
MCNews: Is it your view that when these business
development people go into client organizations instead
of the partner or senior manager that clients see them
as pure salespeople rather than problem solvers?
Stevenson: That hits the nail on the head. And
even if they do have the inclination to be problem solvers
or problem finders, they don't have the history with
the firm and knowledge of its processes to do that.
They can't execute.
All they can do is make an appointment and hope they
can bring in someone else. And, as you know, that first
appointment is critical. If you use it just to set the
second appointment and you can't execute real-time in
front of clients, you're perceived as wasting their
time.
MCNews: If a consultant does have the ideal, interdependent
relationship with a client, does that necessarily translate
to loyalty from that client?
Stevenson: Well, I think attaining that relationship
advantage with a client implies that you do have loyalty.
But that's not a free pass. I think it was Eastern Airlines
that said you have to earn your wings every day. You
have to keep the focus on the relationship or it will
slip away from you.
If you lose that focus or if the partner or senior manager
expresses less interest or shows up less frequently,
I've seen once loyal relationships fizzle. When weekly
visits become monthly and then yearly visits, clients
may be disappointed.
MCNews: Besides having an interdependent client relationship
and delivering work as promised, what other factors
drive client loyalty?
Stevenson: Presence. There's a tremendous
impact when you show up at the right time and you show
up consistently. Too often, once you start a project,
the partner or senior manager fades into the background.
You've got to deliver the work, but you've got to continue
to deliver it through the lips of the people who got
it started. That way, the client sees that there's consistency
in the handling of the relationship and knows that person
is always going to be there which leads to the promise
of more work in the future.
Of course, you can't just make appointments with clients
purely to develop the relationship. If you show up without
a focus on a specific client issue--without a client
agenda--I think the trust meter starts to run backward
on you.
MCNews: Are there two or three innovative relationship
strategies that you think help build client loyalty?
Stevenson: Continue to use the pyramid approach
so that you keep all the different levels covered in
the client's organization. And deliver on time. One
other thing: I've noticed that consultants are particularly
good at meeting the client on neutral ground by participating
in community organizations and events.
When partners or consultants participate in the
March of Dimes or work on the Olympics or chair committees
for non-profits, that brings them together with clients,
executives and potential clients. To me that is the
best referral mechanism for consulting work.
It's a strategy that corporate people don't employ
and generally don't know how to employ.
MCNews: Why don't corporate salespeople do more in
community activities?
Stevenson: I think they choose not to because
they're not around very long. It's also because of the
productivity stress on salespeople. If they're not making
sales calls or sitting at their computers entering data
into their sales information systems, they're perceived
as being time wasters.
It seems consultants by their very nature are involved
in community work all the time. In many firms, consultants
are given incentives to participate in such events.
The idea is to meet more people and build your own network.
If something comes from it, that's fine, but if it
doesn't you've done something that's worthwhile anyway.
Getting business is not the primary reason for doing
it.
If you say I'm going to volunteer in a specific organization
because these three people work there and I want to
get business from them, it often doesn't work.
MCNews: When you work with consultants or clients
to help them gain the relationship advantage, what one
thing do you see that needs immediate improvement?
Stevenson: I think it's the ability to truly
focus on the person who needs the help. There's a lot
of lip service paid to that, but it's easy to lose focus.
What's out of whack is this incredible focus on
oneself and one's need to talk about how great one is
and how many of these problems one has solved before.
Instead, consultants should go back to the fundamentals
of doing research, understanding the client you're talking
to, understanding the client's customers, suppliers,
and issues and probing to find out if there's mutual
ground where you can meet to solve a problem.
Consultants have gotten away from that and have become
a little smug. When you meet a client, if all you're
doing is talking about yourself, even if the client
is giving you time because you're highly recommended,
that translates to arrogance.
So I work with people immediately around that perception
of arrogance and say look, you've got to focus on
that person and you can't do it unless you invest the
time to learn about her or him before you meet. And
then the guiding principle once you're with the client
is this: it's not what you say; it's what you ask.
That's what's going to get it started, and I find that's
broken everywhere.
That's why we hammer so hard on research. When you
talk to clients and you've really done your homework,
you can feel that there's a different level of engagement
because of the quality of the questions that you're
asking.
If you haven't invested any time or if this is one
you're sliding by on without research, you either ask
superficial questions or you revert to talking about
yourself. Those are the only two options you have.
MCNews: If you could give our readers one piece
of advice, what would it be?
Stevenson: I would say to keep the integrity
of the consulting business as pure as it can be. Because
of the trust that's been broken, people look at you
differently these days than they did five years ago.
We've been through a bloodbath, but clients need somebody
to help them, and that's where consultants come in.
But I think they've got to be very careful to go
back to their roots and approach clients with all of
the tools and process that created trust in the past.
Because I sense it's a little haywire right now.
MCNews: Thanks very much for your time.
If you want to find out more about Tom Stevenson, email
him at TomS@austin.rr.com.
Was this useful? Send a quick e-mail
with your thoughts.
* * * *
Top
of page ^
Negotiate
This!
Consulting with clients is often a series
of negotiations, whether it's about fees, project scope
or the implementation of recommendations. Here are a
few resources to help hone your negotiating skills.
Strategic
Negotiation: A Breakthrough 4-Step Process for Effective
Business Negotiation, by Brian Dietmeyer
with Rob Kaplan.
Start
with No, by Jim Camp.
Artful
Persuasion: How to command attention, change minds and
influence people, by Harry Mills.
"Becoming
an Ethical Negotiator," by Martha Lagace,
Senior Editor, HBS Working Knowledge.
top
of page ^
Making Change Work
Consultants can tell war stories about client change
programs that just didn't go right. Maybe it was an
ill-conceived business process, poor communication or
a buggy, new information system that sabotaged the effort.
But, in the end, the change program didn't meet the
client's objectives.
A study by McKinsey
& Company of 40 major change programs found
that 58% of companies failed to meet their targets and
20% captured only a third or less of the expected value.
McKinsey's consultants offer us 12 widely recognized
factors for managing change, organized by level in the
client organization.
| Senior Managers |
| Commitment |
Put initiative at the
top of the agenda |
| Communication |
Relate single, clear,
compelling story--no mixed messages |
| Financial incentives |
Reward senior managers
if initiative is successful |
| Non-financial incentives |
Provide recognition
for strong performance |
| Leadership |
Identify owner/champion |
| Stretch targets |
Uphold goals with mantra-like
consistency |
| |
|
|
Middle Managers
|
| Decision authority |
Exercise consistent
control over a defined set of tasks |
| Skills in managing
people |
Provide feedback to
employees on status of initiative |
| Skills in managing
projects |
Achieve measurable
milestones in timely manner |
| |
|
| Frontline staff |
| Skills |
Consider training on
key aspect of initiative |
| Tools |
Make technology and
techniques available to employees |
| Motivation |
Clearly reward excellent
performance to improve morale |
McKinsey's study also found that strength on any one
level of the organization--senior managers, middle managers
or frontline employees--gives companies a better chance
of success. Take a look at your own projects against
this simple framework to estimate your client's "chances"
of success.
Source: The McKinsey Quarterly Chart Focus, June 2004.
top
of page ^
How to Prolong the Crisis
in IT
The
Meta Group, a provider of information technology
research and advisory services, released a study of
650 companies which indicates that 72% of those companies
believe that low IT employee morale is currently a serious
issue in their organizations.
It's no wonder why. Computer system design firms, professional
service firms and the IT subsidiaries of large companies
now employ almost 250,000 fewer employees than in March
2001, according the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
You can chalk up the reduction to any number of factors,
including downsizing, outsourcing and more efficient
operations, but the situation is bound to drive morale
in most IT shops into the single digits.
Meta found that most companies have responded to the
crisis with typical short-term fixes like employee recognition
programs, employee satisfaction surveys, minimal spot
bonuses for good performance and even suggestion boxes.
To their credit, many firms have loosened the purse
strings and let employees pursue additional skill development.
Savvy consultants will advise their clients that these
tactics will only temporarily win the hearts and minds
of their highly prized workers. Today, transparency
is the key.
Corporate executives must be clear about their intentions
with initiatives such as outsourcing, layoffs and other
activities that impact the perceived security of their
IT employees. Sure, short-term pay adjustments and feedback
mechanisms will help, but they won't stop that valued
employee from sending out a resume if the grass looks
greener on the other side of the street.
Source: Meta Group's 2004 IT Staffing and Compensation
Guide.
top
of page ^
Top 10 Beaches in America
Dr. Stephen P. Leatherman, AKA "Dr.
Beach" recently released his 2004 rankings for
the top ten beaches in the US.
Dr. Beach's top ten list is now in its fourteenth year.
According to the Tampa Tribune-Times,
"Leatherman's list of America's Best Beaches has
become to the seashore what the Oscar is to actors and
movies."
No doubt beaches in other parts of the world could
give these some competition, but in the US, the ten
on the list are some choice spots.
America's Top Beaches for 2004 are:
1. Hanauma Bay, Oahu, Hawaii
2. Fort De Soto Park, Florida
3. Ocracoke Island, North Carolina
4. Caladesi Island State Park, Florida
5. Main Beach, East Hampton, New York
6. Hanalei Bay, Kauai, Hawaii
7. Crescent Beach, Siesta Key, Florida
8. Coast Guard Beach, Cape Cod, Massachusetts
9. Cape Florida State Park, Florida
10. Coronado Beach, California
You can find out more at www.drbeach.org.
top
of page ^
 Guerrilla
Marketing for Consultants: Sneak Preview
Jay Conrad Levinson, the father of Guerrilla
Marketing, has teamed with Michael McLaughlin, Editor
of MCNews, to develop the new book, Guerrilla
Marketing for Consultants. It's due out
in October 2004.
The book is an owner's manual for a consultant's career.
In it, you'll find strategies and tools for handling
every aspect of marketing a consulting practice--from
building market visibility to creating winning proposals
and pricing your services.
You'll also find unbeatable guerrilla strategies for
selling your services and creating profitable client
relationships once you've been hired.
top
of page ^
This Month in History
On July 3, 1929, foam rubber was developed
at the Dunlop Latex Development Laboratories in Birmingham,
England. British scientist E.A. Murphy whipped up the
first batch using an ordinary kitchen mixer. His colleagues
were unimpressed--until they sat on it.
On July 4, 1054, Chinese and other astronomers
observed a supernova, a violently exploding star
that was visible in daylight for twenty-three days and
at night for almost two years. Rock paintings in North
America suggest that Indians in Arizona and New Mexico
saw it too.
On July 5, 1865, speed limits of 2 mph
in town and 4 mph in the country were imposed in Britain.
The "Red Flag" Act also required three drivers
for each vehicle-two on the vehicle and one to walk
ahead carrying a red flag.
top
of page ^
Coming
Attractions
"If you don't have the right strategy, you're
toast," says Jack Trout, best-selling author and
marketing consultant.
Trout, who recently published Trout
on Strategy, is recognized as one of the
world's leading marketing strategists, and he'll give
us his best advice for creating breakthrough strategies
for consultants.
We'll also have an interview with Jerry Weinberg, author
of the classic book, The
Secrets of Consulting. The secrets Weinberg
reveals are as relevant today as when they were written
almost twenty years ago.
Look for the next issue of MCNews on August 3, 2004.
top
of page ^
The
End Page
"Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning
of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
- Winston
Churchill
Thanks for your subscription
to MCNews. You have been subscribed as: $subst('Recip.EmailAddr')
MCNews is published on the first Tuesday of each month.
If you received this issue from someone else and wish
to subscribe, please visit www.ManagementConsultingNews.com.
You can look at our privacy policy at www.ManagementConsultingNews.com.
We welcome your comments on the Newsletter, the site
or about what you'd like to see on either one in the
future. So, please don't be shy. Send your comments
along to us.
You may forward this Newsletter in its entirety
to anyone you wish. If you wish to use any individual
part(s) of the Newsletter or the web site, please request
permission in advance from the editor. For details,
please see the Terms
of Use.
Management Consulting News is located at 410 Pine Street,
Mill Valley, Ca. 94941
Michael McLaughlin
Publisher
Management Consulting News ISSN 1539-2481,
Washington, DC, USA
Copyright © 2004 Management Consulting
News All rights reserved
top
of page ^
|
