|
| Thanks to Our Readers |
 |
We’re
starting our fourth year of publishing Management
Consulting News, and thousands of you
have been with us since the beginning. To all of our
readers, thanks for allowing us to enter your email
box every month. As always, if you have issues, comments,
or questions, send them along.
Will You Help?
A
week or so ago, I was notified that my blog, Guerrilla
Consulting, was nominated for a Reader’s
Choice Award by MarketingSherpa. The nomination caught
me completely by surprise, but it’s an honor to
be in such good company. Click to find the Guerrilla
Consulting blog if you’d like to see more.
To make it a true reader’s choice, MarketingSherpa
asks people to vote for their favorites among the blogs
that have been nominated. The Guerrilla Consulting
blog is listed under category 4, b-to-b marketing. The
voting process is simple, so if you believe the Guerrilla
Consulting blog is worthy, I’d appreciate it if
you would cast
your vote.
The deadline for voting is June 8,
so there isn’t much time left. Thanks, in advance,
for your consideration.
If you have trouble with the link above, the URL is
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=333931095143.
If
you have comments on this issue of Management Consulting
News, or anything else, please send me an email.
Mike
McLaughlin
Editor, Management Consulting News
|
| Interview:
Marcus Buckingham
|
 |
What you need to know about Marcus Buckingham’s
latest bestseller, The One Thing You Need
to Know, is that it isn’t the usual
management pabulum. Buckingham slays the sacred cows
of leadership and management theory using his research
on what drives some individuals to be extraordinarily
successful, while others languish.
We
talked to Buckingham about the one thing consultants
should know.
|
| How to Make Business Consulting Work |
 |
Consulting
industry expert Fiona Czerniawska teamed with Gilbert
Toppin to write the new book, Business
Consulting: A Guide to How it Works and How to Make
it Work. The authors present a compelling
argument that the consulting industry ground is shifting
beneath our collective feet, and that now is the time
to do what we tell clients to do: change.
The
book leaves few stones unturned, covering how the consulting
industry structure has morphed, what drives client demand
in this new environment, and what new skills and behaviors
define a successful consultant. Like all of Czerniawska’s
work, this one has a healthy balance between prognostication
and prescription.
This
isn’t Who Moved My Cheese
for the consultant, but a sobering, fact-based analysis
of an industry in transition.
Read
this book and you’ll know how and why business
consulting is transforming. But, the book’s authors
don’t leave you hanging. You’ll also learn
what it will take to be a successful business advisor
in the emerging world order.
Czerniawska,
one of the keenest observers of the consulting industry,
has been featured in Management Consulting
News. You can find our conversations with
her at: Fiona
Czerniawska on What’s Next for Consulting
and Fiona
Czerniawska on Trends in Consulting.
For
more information on Fiona Czerniawska’s work,
visit her site at www.arkimeda.com.
|
| Tom Peters on Presentation Excellence |
 |
Tom
Peters has been on the speaking stump for almost 40
years. That’s an achievement that should get a
“WOW!” from even Peters himself.
If
you want to know his secrets for presentation excellence,
go to the Tom
Peters blog, and follow the link in the post to
the PowerPoint file with his 56 favorite tips. It’s
a great list of ideas from one of the best speakers
on the rubber chicken circuit. Be forewarned: the slides
have Peters’ trademarked, retina-burning red background.
For more tips on public speaking, don’t miss our
interviews with speech coaches Bert
Decker and Nick
Morgan.
And
if you want to read what he thinks about consulting,
management, and leadership, read our interview with
Tom
Peters.
|
| How Small Firms Can Win Big |
 |
By
Michael W. McLaughlin
In
the last few years, the global consulting firms have
had a mixed ride. Client litigation, strategic missteps,
regulatory constraints, and firm spin-offs sent “newco”
firms into a tight market in search of the next mega-client.
The big firms are leaner, but many have familiar handicaps:
top-heavy organizational structure, burdensome overhead,
high rates, and reluctance to pay top people the premium
they deserve for enduring the consulting lifestyle.
Refugees
from the big firms have spread into the industry, forming
their own firms and joining others to take on Goliath.
Except for clients who are joined at the hip with large
firms, in many cases, small firms are winning.
The
fact is that clients aren't defaulting to the big-name
firms like they used to, and many of the blue-chip brands
are competing for work against tough, smaller firms.
Clients are looking for results, and they don't care
where those results come from. If a small firm offers
a better, more experienced team at a lower cost, clients
will take it. A past relationship with a big-time firm
won’t sway the buying decision like it did in
the past.
This
is a golden time for smaller firms, but only if their
marketing is on target and their people are superb.
Realizing
this, the big firms are using their deep pockets to
upgrade talent and bring focused services to clients,
as they continue to pitch the one-stop-shop advantage.
Reading firms' public declarations confirms that the
big firms will also continue to push hard into the middle
market.
Even
so, the narrow, problem-focused small consultancy can
grab a fair share of the work from the giants by bringing
talent, solutions, a track record, and a reasonable
rate structure.
This
battle is far from over.
|
| New
and Notable Books |
 |
It’s
Not What you Say…It’s What You Do,
by Laurence Haughton
Laurence
Haughton’s newest book makes the case that, regardless
of industry, what determines whether or not a company
becomes a winner is “its grasp over management’s
most basic mission—to make sure everyone at every
level follows through.”
Haughton’s
assertion is based on data showing that half of the
decisions companies make to solve problems or take advantage
of opportunities fall through the cracks in less than
two years. The reason: lack of follow through.
Haughton
lays out four creative building blocks to help organizations
develop the all-important habit of seeing decisions
through after they are made.
Contagious
Success, by Susan Lucia Annunzio
Based
on a global study on the factors that accelerate high
performance in workgroups, Annunzio and her research
team discovered some basic and well-documented traits
of successful workgroups, but they’ve also broken
some new ground. Ten of their findings, which comprise
the bulk of the book, are practical and ready to implement.
Consulting
Mastery, by Keith Merron
Drawing
on extensive interviews and his experience, Merron sets
out to define consulting mastery. As Merron says, “This
book aims to answer one fundamental question: How do
I make a big difference as a consultant?” To answer
that question, Merron brings together the thinking of
fourteen “master consultants” and ten executives
who have worked extensively with consultants, and then
he adds his own practical wisdom.
Merron
starts off by pointing out some of the failings of the
consulting industry. He presents his view of a better
way in three sections: understanding consulting mastery,
mastery in action, and attaining mastery.
|
| How Clients Buy |
|
Researchers
at RainToday.com have just released their latest report
on client buying behavior.
The
170-page report, How Clients Buy: The Benchmark
Report on Professional Services Marketing and Selling
from the Client Perspective, sheds new
light on client buying patterns and describes what professional
service providers can do about it.
The
report makes some interesting points. Mike Schultz,
report coauthor and publisher of RainToday.com, says
“Professionals typically pride themselves on their
listening skills. It seems as a group their listening
skills leave a lot to be desired, and if they improved
here they would win a significant amount of more business.”
Additional
details about the report, including a table of contents,
summary of findings, and pricing information can be
found at RainToday.com.
|
| Rules for Rainmakers |
|
 Take
about ten minutes and listen to Mike McLaughlin's interview
Rules for Rainmakers on Sales
Rep Radio.
The
conversation focuses on the practices of top performing
salespeople, such as preparing for sales calls, thinking
about the third sale first, and using a technique called
"sharks in the water" to be sure you're ready
to face a prospective client.
|
| Upcoming
Events |
|
ITSMA
(Information Technology Services Marketing Association)
Sessions: Workshop on “Growing
Your Solutions Business” is June 22-23, 2005,
in San Francisco, California. An Online Briefing on
“Measuring the Solutions Business” is July
12, 2005.
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.
IQPC
(International Quality & Productivity Center) Summit:
The 8th Annual Recruiting & Staffing Summit is September
19-21, 2005, Intercontinental Buckhead, in Atlanta,
Georgia. The summit is a networking and learning opportunity
for recruiting and staffing executives, and it includes
sixteen Fortune 500 speaker
case studies and four 2004 Recruiting & Staffing
Best In Class (RASBIC)
award winners.
|
| Coming
Attractions |
|
Join
us next month when our guest will be Keith Ferrazzi,
bestselling author of Never
Eat Alone, a guide to building success—one
relationship at a time. Ferrazzi has been called the
“ultimate networker,” but it’s a label
he loathes to hear.
We’ll
talk to Ferrazzi about how any consultant can use his
concepts to build a stronger consulting practice.
Look
for the next issue of Management Consulting
News on July 5, 2005.
|
