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| Resolve |
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As the year wraps up, I think everyone is hoping for better economic news in the months ahead. Many consultants are feeling uncertain about the market for services, mostly because they're sensing uncertainty from their clients. I'm hearing about longer sales cycles and delayed projects.
In a challenging economic environment, consulting services are often the first casualty in a company's drive to reduce costs. And, naturally, some clients are taking that approach.
But in times of trouble, there may also be opportunities. As the New Year approaches, where are your areas of opportunity? Maybe you can think of one or more new clients you'd like to work with. Or, perhaps you've got a brilliant idea for a new service offer, publication, or marketing strategy that you'd like to focus on.
I'm not a big fan of the annual New Year's resolution ritual. But I am in favor of staying flexible as the business environment changes. So, take a little time over the next few weeks to think about how you can turn the market turmoil to your advantage. Decide if, and how, you might change something in your business to respond. And then, resolve to do it.
Enjoy this month's issue.
And send me an email if you have comments.
Mike
McLaughlin
Editor
Management Consulting News is a publication of MindShare
Consulting.
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| MCNews 12 Index of Professional Services |
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US Economic News |
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McNews 12 Index |
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Just when you thought it couldn't get worse...it did.
In November, the US government committed an additional $800 billion to two new loan programs, bringing its cumulative commitment to financial rescue initiatives to a jaw-dropping $8.5 trillion.
Most of that money is earmarked for loans or loan guarantees, asset purchases, and stock investments on which the government may eventually see a return. So far, less than half of that money has been used, but the numbers still make you dizzy.
The government largess has not helped the market lately. Accenture seems to be weathering the storm better than most, limiting the damage to a -6 percent annual return. All of the other companies in the MCNews 12 Index are facing double-digit losses in stock value for the year.
Of all the companies in the MCNews Index, only Hewitt has managed to hold onto a gain in its stock price over the period of the last two years. From the inception of the Index in January 2007, Hewitt's stock price has gained almost 6 percent, while all of the remaining companies face heavy losses in their stock values.
The MCNews 12 Index companies were, once again, hit hard last month by the stream of bad economic news, and are now facing a year-to-date return of -27.0 percent. Investors are now asking themselves if this is the time to buy.
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MCNews 12 Index |
YTD
Change |
S+P 500 YTD Change |
| Nov 2008 |
652 |
-27.0% |
-33.0% |
| October 2008 |
692 |
-22.5% |
-27.6% |
| Sept 2008 |
833 |
-6.7% |
-16.6% |
The MCNews 12 Index reflects general investor sentiment about the state of the global professional services industry.
The twelve publicly-traded companies included in the MCNews 12 Index account for roughly $80 billion in combined annual revenue, and serve clients around the world.
Learn more about the MCNews 12 Index 
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| Interview:
Robert Cialdini |
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 "Whenever we interact with other people, we can be more effective if we know how to get our points across persuasively."
Robert Cialdini is an expert on persuasion and influence. He is a psychology professor at Arizona State University, and the President of Influence at Work. He's also the author of the classic book Influence: Science and Practice, now in its fifth edition. The book covers the latest research on how influence works, and also includes advice on how to recognize and defend ourselves against the influence tactics of others.
We asked him about his latest thinking on how consultants should--and shouldn't--use the techniques of persuasion to influence clients and others.
Read
our interview with Robert Cialdini
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| Avoid Drawn Out Sales Cycles, by Jeff Thull |
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 "We'll need some time to think about it." For the salesperson, this non-committal buyer response signals a host of potential problems: Additional meetings, more people getting involved, and requests for details that raise the potential for more questions--all barriers to winning the deal. These frustrating and costly delays lengthen the sales cycle, put the opportunity at risk, permit competitors to get a foothold, increase direct sales expense, and allow other valuable opportunities to go unattended.
Why does this continue to happen?
Read the article
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| The Top Ways Clients Buy |
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 For most clients, finding the right consultant is a three-step process: Identify potential firms, assess the choices, and decide who to hire.
An online survey of 220 professional services buyers conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit reveals how clients are using a combination of referrals, online resources, and one-on-one interactions to help decide which provider they want.
The top three ways clients find service providers are: Peer and colleague recommendations (65 percent); existing contacts at professional firms (43 percent); and search engine inquiries (38 percent).
When clients need help, 67 percent of them consider the providers they've worked with in the past, but they also conduct research on others who may have the services and skills they need.
As clients conduct that research, their opinions on providers are most influenced by one-on-one meetings (74 percent), provider Web sites (41 percent), and case studies and white papers (39 percent). For the majority of buyers, once they've narrowed their list to the finalists, the decision comes down to competence and expertise.
For consultants, the news is good. Clients are actively engaging with online content and using search engines to find professional services firms.
Keep your practice well-placed in the search rankings to give you the visibility you need to grab the attention of potential clients. But if you do attract them to your site, be sure your content supports your claims to competence or you'll lose those potential clients before you even have a chance to talk to them.
Download the complete report for no charge.
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Networking 101 |
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You might be interested in this new guide for professional services providers that the team at RainToday.com released: Face-to-Face Networking Guide: A Primer for Relationship Building.
The 54-page primer offers solid advice on the basics of networking, and includes worksheets to help readers turn a networking strategy into action. You can download the guide, plus all of RainToday's how-to guides and tools, when you sign up for a seven-day free trial of RainToday's annual membership.
If you choose, you can cancel the membership at any point during the free trial and you will not be billed. And you can keep all of the content you downloaded during the seven-day trial.
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| Memo: Are Your IT Clients Making This Mistake? |
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 During the next year, almost one-third of women in high-tech careers plan to leave their current positions and look to other options, due to frustration about barriers to their advancement.
A report by the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology at Stanford University finds that men are nearly three times more likely than women to attain high-level technical positions. Also, women make up an "increasingly smaller proportion of the workforce at every level" in technology firms.
It's not like women haven't been trying to make their marks in IT organizations. More than two-thirds of the women surveyed reported that they deliberately put off having children to pursue their careers. The result: Women in IT are skeptical that employers fairly reward work based on merit, and they believe that employers view them as "less technically competent" than their male counterparts.
With the short supply of top talent, you'd think IT executives would get a clue that there's at least a partial solution to their recruiting issues: Do a better job of keeping good people, especially women. Women make up 46 percent of the US workforce, and that number is growing.
If you have IT clients with a talent shortage--or one looming on the horizon--take a look at how your clients help their professionals manage their careers. And don't just stop once you learn about the "extensive retention" program most organizations claim to have.
Those programs may look good on paper, but this problem is likely rooted in corporate culture and subtle behaviors that an HR mentoring program can't change. Organizations that address this issue will find themselves with one less strategic problem on their hands. But hard work lies ahead to get it done.
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| Coming
Attractions |
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 "If you're selling a service, you better know yourself as well as you know that service or you'll struggle to sell."
Next month, we'll talk with Andy Wood, a Professor of Marketing at West Virginia University. Wood recently wrapped up a multi-year study on the role of trust in selling. We'll talk to him about how to build trust, and its importance in having productive sales conversations.
Look for the next issue of Management Consulting News on January 6, 2009.
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