Consulting Tips and Tools

Can you remember a conversation that gave you greater clarity and focus about something you wanted to do or achieve?  Perhaps you were talking with a friend or a colleague or a mentor, and their listening gave you the time and space to find a new approach to your question.  From there, it’s a very short step to action.

At its heart, consulting is a conversation about what matters.  As you learn more about the person you are consulting and the outcomes they want to produce or foster, you are better able to assist them in figuring out the way forward.  What’s perhaps more important, they gain clarity about what specifically they are after, and how these results will affect their current work, organization, and customers.

A great conversation is grounded in a relationship of mutual respect and candid communication.  It’s a two-way channel with one intent:  To explore, expand, and align thinking around a topic of mutual interest and concern.

In today’s world of on-line communication, how can we encourage this type of conversation?

What are your thoughts on this?  How do you use on-line media to foster mutually respectful relationship and focused consulting?

Stay tuned if you would like to know more about how to apply consulting principles to conversations with customers.  This month, we will be launching an ebook on this topic: Customers for Keeps:  Consulting Tools to Woo, Wow!, and Win Customers.

Susan and Randy

© Aligned for Results

In consulting, as in Chinese calligraphy, “change” can represent both crisis and opportunity.  Imagine this:  After you have worked with your consulting customer to establish a well-constructed outcome and target results for your work, your client’s needs change.   Are you required to change your approach or services to match new needs?

The specter of “scope creep”  haunts many consultants when they find that initially proposed services may no longer be relevant.   Scope creep refers to the addition of new consulting services that were not specified in your original contract.

Of course, when the proposed change is a high priority for your client, and significant extra time will be required, it will be prudent to discuss and agree with your consulting customer on specific changes in your deliverables or cost.

From another perspective, change gives you the opportunity to add value by customizing service to meet the client’s new situation or by including that extra option or parameter into what you are creating for them.

Because each of us exists in business, home, or community settings that continually evolve, you can be certain that your client’s needs will shift.  Agree at the outset of your engagement on how you will communicate and handle changing requirements.  This will prevent scope creep, and give you a framework for periodic check-ins to insure that your services are still on target to deliver high value.

Randy and Susan

© Aligned for Results, LLC

The research phase of consulting, commonly called assessment, is usually designed to reveal organizational trends, patterns of behavior or opinion, and points where action could be taken to make a productive difference in desired results.  With a little advance planning, research can also promote buy-in among the people who will later be called upon to ‘be the change.’  Engaging key stakeholders in participatory research can reduce resistance and promote collaboration in planning and practicing new ways of doing business.

Here are three research methods that can help you build participant buy-in:
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One important aspect of discovering and describing the outcome your consulting customer wants is to identify any concerns or conflicting desires associated with that result.

Your client may not be consciously aware of concerns or conflicts.  However, the customer’s body language or the way they speak about what they want may tip you off.  Unless concerns or conflicts are identified and their impact minimized, you may find that the client holds back during the consultancy, making achievement of their stated result much more difficult.

Bringing Concerns to Light

You are not expected to be a psychoanalyst when uncovering these concerns. Rather, you can ask your consulting customer: “How will achieving the result you want impact (or affect) you, the team you lead, others in the organization, customers, your family, or the community?”  Follow up with questions that enable the customer to be specific.

The customer may respond with additional benefits.  This will help both of you understand the importance of achieving the customer’s desired outcome, and can increase motivation to succeed.

If you still sense hesitance or incongruity, be patient.  To surface any concerns or other desires which may conflict with the stated result, you may need to ask the question in different ways over the course of one or more conversations.  Your question can be as simple as:  “Now that I understand the benefits you can achieve from this result, I would like to know if you see any downside to getting or having it.”

Using Concerns to Sharpen the Outcome

Make sure that, if and when you identify any concerns or conflicts, you obtain enough information to be effective in resolving them.  Ask about and discuss ways in which issues can be handled as part of achieving the overall outcome desired.  You’ll then have the chance to research details during your larger assessment.  Addressing client concerns as part of project assessment  gives you the opportunity to discover more about related factors and potential resources for resolution.  It also gives you the opportunity to present and discuss specific mechanisms for resolving concerns when you finalize specific results, targets, and strategy in a subsequent conversation.

Randy and Susan

© Aligned for Results, LLC

Consulting, like all contemporary business, has been transformed by the Internet.  Powerful and cost-effective ways to learn about, connect with, and serve customers are at our fingertips, if we are willing to learn about and use the new technologies.

As Randy and I experiment with today’s Internet information delivery, we are confronting the question of which channel to use-  Article Marketing? Blogs?  Teleseminars?  Social Networking?  Every channel has its proponents, and many of them proclaim that their way offers the foundation for Internet marketing success.

“Turn your blog into a book while you build an audience of eager buyers.”

“Re-purpose articles into blog posts, teleseminars, and downloadable information products.”

“Build credibility and make money with teleseminars.”

Listening to these engaging and emphatic voices can create so much static that it’s tough to hear your own voice.  Here’s a solution, one that I am using to separate the noise from the music.  Ask yourself the question:  “What  channel is my customer on?”

When I tune into the Customer Channel, I’m better able to figure out what message I want to send, and which delivery method(s) can carry it effectively to those I want to reach.

The Customer Channel reminds me that the real foundation of successful consulting is delivering results of value to those we serve.  Knowing who they are and what they want gives the guidance needed to choose information channels that connect and deliver.

For more on getting to know your customers, you may want to check out our upcoming Consulting Tools Information Pack “Tools of Engagement.”  If you have signed up for one of our articles previously, you will automatically be notified when this Information Pack is available.  If not, you can provide your name and email to us by clicking here, and we will let you know.

To your success!

Susan

© Aligned for Results, LLC

As FY 2008 draws to a close, many of the agencies we serve are planning for their new year. Some sponsor Renewal Retreats to explore future challenges and opportunities, and to re-ignite staff enthusiasm for the road ahead.

How can independent consultants renew their enthusiasm and business plans? A quick and surprisingly effective method is to arrange personal meetings with “out of your box” organizations that excite your interest.

How to Use Business Trips as a Renewal Retreat

This month we guided a two-day workshop on coaching skills for supervisors in Washington, DC. Because of its vibrant mix of cultures, politics, art, and history (not to mention amazing restaurants), Washington ranks high on our “love to work here” list. One of its top attractions is the remarkable roster of agencies, associations, institutes, and individuals that call this city home.

Before arriving in Washington, Randy assembled a list of organizations whose work inspired us. After completing our assignment, we called to see who was home on days that we could visit. “Not likely you could connect with anyone on such short notice!” you might be thinking. Yet our ’short list’ of organizations yielded as many meetings as we could enjoy in the time available. And each meeting opened the door to a new world of possibility for the training, team building, and collaborative planning work we facilitate.

For me, the value of such visits goes beyond learning about anticipated contract openings. The opportunity to meet people who are deeply engaged in work that they value is contagious. It gives meaning to the vision and mission statements I read on the Internet, and provides deep insight into how our work might assist progress. A match between the organization’s direction and our own creates an electric surge with the power to light up possible affiliation or project plans.

Drop By: A Surprise Tactic That Works

As we thanked one of our hosts at a national association for making time to talk with us on short notice and on a busy day, he remarked with a bemused expression. “It was a pleasure. Very few people stop by to see us.”

The Internet has given us an instant, arm’s length method for researching new business possibilities. Because of this, personal meetings to explore new connections have become less frequent. This means that for you, as well as those you meet, the visits have more potential power.

Susan

© Aligned for Results, LLC

When serving your client or consulting customer, one of the most important things you can do is enable them to discover:

1. what they specifically want, in measurable terms, regarding their subject of interest, and
2. their own internal or organizational resources which may assist in fulfilling that want.

As you do this, you lay the foundation for project success and client satisfaction. Serving in this way also builds relationship and trust. If there is a role for you in helping to achieve a client outcome, the trust you have built will encourage interest in or thoughtful consideration of what you may have to say.

One helpful question to connect your customer with their own guidance and resources is described in the following article:

Consulting-and-Sales-Success

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To your consulting success,

Randy

© Aligned for Results, LLC

Part of your effectiveness in consulting comes from technical expertise applied to client needs. Another equally important part comes from your credibility and authenticity as a consultant. These qualities affect the trust you inspire, and therefore the influence you can have in your client’s decisions.

How do you develop authenticity? One answer lies in the process of aligning technical skills and abilities with what you believe is important about your work and what you want to contribute to others through your role as consultant.

Here is an exercise that can assist you in defining and aligning what matters to you about your role as a consultant. (Please Note: This exercise is patterned after a more general alignment exercise created by Robert Dilts, who developed it based on his work with neurological levels in the field of Neuro-Linguistic Programming.)

Find a quiet place where you will be undisturbed for a short time. Make sure that (more…)

Washington goes to work three hours earlier than does California. Although I live in California, I work for Federal customers whose budgets are set in Washington.

And so this morning, as on many mornings, I review Federal agency headlines. I look for agencies that I know and for events that may impact their needs and resources. There are many hints and omens in the news. Today, an influential political figure is retiring. Tomorrow budgets will be trimmed as new Performance Management positions are established. Congress is, as always, concerned…

What do the news reports mean to the agencies I work for and those they serve? What could the news mean for our business? The answer is not written in headlines. It is found, instead, in the vision of the reader.

If you are a consultant, your vision may be about what is possible in organizations. When you are able to enliven this possibility through effective consulting partnerships, your practice is the beginning of a new story.

On some mornings, writing this story requires the discipline to set aside headlines and take the next step to connect with and serve customers you may not yet know.

For further information on how to develop your own consulting practice and style, you may want to join our mailing list. To do so, please click here.

Susan

© Aligned for Results, LLC

Consultants are often thought of as experts, or those with considerable experience in a field, who are asked by a client to assist them or their organization in that area.

In our experience, it is helpful to both the consultant and client to define consulting in a larger frame.

For example, Elaine Block has said that “Consulting is the process by which an individual or a firm assists a client to achieve a stated outcome.”  Notice the important distinction of consultancy aimed at aiding in the achievement of a pre-defined result.

Peter Block has written that “A consultant is a person in a position to have influence over an individual, group, or organization but who has no direct power to make changes or implement programs.”  Here we have the important distinction that consultants typically must accomplish their work through the art and practice of influence as opposed to direct authority.

Beverly Scott has offered this:  “A consultant uses expertise, influence, and personal skills to facilitate a client-requested change without formal authority to implement recommended actions.  Success as a consultant is based on the ability to leverage expertise with honed consulting skills.”

In this case we see that an end result is accomplished via expertise, personal skills (including those of influence) leveraged through the particular skill set of consulting.

Our consulting work has led us to settle on the following:  “A consultant engages, advises, and partners with leaders, customers, or colleagues to identify and achieve what they want.”

Consulting as a practical matter does require the ability to engage, establish and maintain relationships (through which influence acts) to define and achieve a customer’s goal in partnership.

Engagement occurs partly and powerfully through the assistance provided by the consultant in discovering the specifics of the customer’s desired result.

Partnership generally refers to coordinated or collaborative action on the part of customer and consultant to fulfill agreed responsibilities on the path to achievement of the result.

The result statement normally carries additional specifications of the partnership’s terms –  for example, a due date, a specific target to be achieved, and possibly other success criteria.   Specifications on the manner of achievement of the result by the partners may also be included along with the result in a written agreement to proceed.

Randy and Susan

© Aligned for Results, LLC