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| Time
for a Change |
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As
we wrap up the third year of publishing Management
Consulting News, it’s a good a time
to make some changes. Over the past three years, we’ve
made many adjustments to the newsletter in response
to ideas from you. With this major overhaul, we hope
that the newsletter will be easier to read, and will
allow us to bring you more information and features.
To
celebrate, we’re giving away copies of Guerrilla
Marketing for Consultants to the first
ten readers who send an email requesting it. The details
of the giveaway are below.
We
will be tackling a revamp of the Management Consulting
News Web site next, so if you have suggestions, send
them along.
If
you have comments on our new look, or anything else,
please send me an email
Mike
McLaughlin
Editor, Management Consulting News
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| Guerrilla
Book Giveaway |
 |
 If
you don’t yet have a copy of Guerrilla
Marketing for Consultants, here’s
a chance to win one. We’re giving away copies
of the book to the first ten readers who send an email
requesting one.
To
win, you must be one of the first ten readers to respond,
and you must be willing to let us publish your name
in the May 2005 issue of Management Consulting
News. You’ll also have to give us
your mailing address, but you can send that if you win.
To
enter the contest, send an email to book@ManagementConsultingNews.com.
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| Interview:
Michael Gerber |
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Michael Gerber Unravels the Myth of the Entrepreneur:
Michael Gerber has faced every obstacle an entrepreneur
can imagine. In the 1980’s, his own business ran
aground. The “experts” encouraged him to
bail out before he lost everything.
He
ignored that advice.
Gerber’s
journey eventually led him to calmer waters, but the
former encyclopedia salesman’s nightmare taught
him a lifetime of tough lessons that forged his thinking
about business and, more importantly, about life.
Best
known for creating what he calls the E-Myth, Gerber
says that most businesses fail because they have “technicians
suffering from entrepreneurial seizures” at the
helm rather than entrepreneurs.
In
his fifth book, E-Myth
Mastery, Gerber sets out to help business
owners avoid the technician’s trap with an entrepreneurial
mindset, and by distilling the traits of a world class
business into seven disciplines.
It’s
no surprise that the seven disciplines begin with business
planning, marketing, and financial management, as these
areas trip up even the most sure-footed business owners.
E-Myth Mastery is the next
logical step in the work Gerber started in earlier books.
This time, he’s created a hands-on guide for entrepreneurial
mastery.
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| IBM
Consulting Takes Aim at the Mid-Market |
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IBM's
Global Services Consulting division announced it will
invest $300 million to beef up its presence among medium-size
businesses. The company plans to train and partner with
smaller, regionally-based system integrators to attract
clients with 100 to 2,500 employees. IBM officials estimate
this rapidly growing market at about $95 billion, with
a 2005 growth rate of 7.4%.
As
part of the market push, look for IBM to offer clients
a portfolio of packaged services that can be sold and
delivered either by business partners, or in collaboration
with IBM. To offset client fears that rates will be
too rich for smaller businesses, IBM plans to offer
SKU-based pricing, rather than using an hourly rate.
IBM
expects to add 10 to 15 regional partners to the program
this year, and hopes to add hundreds more in the future.
If
your clients include small to medium-size businesses,
don’t be surprised when IBM comes calling.
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| Interview:
Cliff Atkinson |
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Cliff Atkinson Goes Beyond Bullet Points:
These days, not many consultants head into meetings
without the requisite set of PowerPoint slides. But
critics are taking aim at PowerPoint and question whether
it helps communication or shuts down thinking.
Yale professor Edward
Tufte, for example, is particularly tough on the
ubiquitous PowerPoint presentation in his scathing review,
The
Cognitive Style of PowerPoint.
Cliff
Atkinson, author of Beyond
Bullet Points, believes he’s
built a better mouse trap. Like Tufte, he too wants
us to dump boring, bullet-riddled slides. But Atkinson
has a creative solution: he taps Hollywood-style storytelling
to transform PowerPoint presentations from endless lists
of bullet points into compelling communications.
Beyond
Bullet Points isn’t a rant. It’s
a sympathetic and accessible guide for bringing life
to your message using PowerPoint. Atkinson relies on
examples, templates, and downloadable information from
his site to wean the reader off mind-numbing bullets.
Read
our interview with Cliff Atkinson 
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| Upcoming
Events |
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Guerrilla
Marketing for Consultants: Join Michael
McLaughlin for the no-cost Webinar, “Guerrilla
Marketing for Consultants” to be held on May 12,
2005.
National
Speakers Association Humor Lab 2005: “Putting
Funny in Your Pocket” will be April 29-May 1,
2005, in Tempe, Arizona.
Wellesley
Hills Group Seminar: “How to Sell
Professional Services: The Rainmaker Program”
will be offered on both May 12-13, 2005, and September
22-23, 2005, in Boston.
Institute
of Management Consultants (IMC USA) 2005 Conference:
“New Frontiers of Consulting: Trends, Tools and
Alliances to Take Your Business to New Frontiers!”
will be May 21-24, 2005, in Kansas City, Missouri.
Top-Consultant
Seminar: “The Art of Selling Consulting
Services” will be June 17, 2005, in London.
National
Speakers Association 2005 Convention: “Dare
to Enjoy the Journey” is set for July 9-12, 2005,
in Atlanta, Georgia.
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| Coming
Attractions |
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 Next
month, our guests W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne
will discuss their groundbreaking book, Blue
Ocean Strategy. Kim and Mauborgne
believe tomorrow’s leading companies will succeed
not by battling competitors, but by creating
“blue oceans” of uncontested market space
that render rivals irrelevant.
Their
conclusions are based on a study of 150 strategic business
moves spanning more than a hundred years and thirty
industries. They describe six principles that any company
can use to formulate and implement blue ocean strategies.
The
next issue of Management Consulting News
will be published on May 3, 2005.
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The
terrible truth is that small businesses are killing
most of the people who create and operate them.
