How to Diagnose What's Causing Struggle in Your Consulting Business
The Genysys Group’s Founder and The Consultant School’s Chief Learner, Ray Rood, is back in the episode to share his thoughts on how to identify and diagnose what’s causing struggle in your consulting business.
The two most common struggles for consultants: Getting and maintaining clients and self-confidence – believing that you can meet client needs and expectations.
It’s essential to find someone – a trusted colleague, a mentor, or a friend – who can help you process your own questions and feelings as you look at how you’re approaching your consulting business.
Most consultants are on their own and feel very alone so it’s important to have someone who can help you understand what you’re experiencing and what may be underneath any issues or struggles you are having so you can begin to address the causes rather than just the symptoms.
When you have someone else to talk to about your business, you’re more likely or more compelled to actually do something about it.
When we’re dealing with ourselves, we can fool ourselves. We can deny reality. We don’t want to face change, so we don’t ask ourselves the hard questions. It is easier to avoid the deeper questions such as: Should I really be doing this? Am I cut out for this? Is it fair to me? Is it fair to the other people in my life?
If we don’t take time to consider those types of questions, we keep struggling and it shows up in our work and in our relationships.
If you do not have someone to talk to, there are things you can do on your own. Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way offers a few techniques that can be helpful here:
- Writing out questions you have before you go to sleep at night. Your subconscious will incubate on them and get you closer to an answer as you sleep.
- Writing a free flow of Morning Pages as soon as you wake up every day. Answers to your questions could very well show up here.
- Taking yourself on Artist Dates, where you simply spend time with yourself, not working but doing something you enjoy, and reflecting.
Consultancy is an art. Using techniques like these helps you to get perspective and to get at what some of your struggles might be.
As always, it’s important to be clear on what your work is, what it means to be a consultant, what you have to offer, and how you’re going to offer it. If you’re clear on these things and believe in them, that’s what is going to solve the self-confidence struggle.
Then, to solve the getting and maintaining clients struggle, you have to make a concerted effort to develop your contacts and those relationships. (See The Consultant School Episode 27 for more on this topic.)
It’s important to stay open, stay curious, stay positive and to view your consulting and, yes, even your struggles as an opportunity for your own learning and growth.
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