Tag: The Consultant School

Laurie Reinhart, Director of Consultant Development and Senior Consultant at The Genysys Group, joins again in this episode of The Consultant School to share her insights and experience moving from in-house consultant to external consultant.

Fear and apprehension are part of the process.

Even if you’ve got your plan, done your research, are clear on what you’re doing and with whom, stepping off the familiar treadmill of a job – and a regular paycheck – can make for a bumpy transition.

It’s important to give yourself a financial and psychological runway. There will be gaps of time when you’re not working which can be unnerving and it takes some time to find your groove when you’re getting accustomed to this new role.

In this episode, Ray Rood, founder and Senior Consultant at The Genysys Group, shares his thoughts on the difference between coaching and consulting.

Consultants work with organizations. Coaches work with people.

This doesn’t mean you can’t play both roles in the context of a consulting project or engagement. As a consultant you are working on organizational needs. As a coach, you are working on individual needs. In both contexts, you are also focused on the relationship between the two.

The need for coaching can emerge as part of an assessment or intervention process during a consulting engagement. In these contexts, it’s important that the coaching client create a goal that serves both the organization and them as an individual.

It’s also important that the coaching client have a third party that they are accountable to – usually a supervisor – but in the case of executive coaching with a CEO, this can also be the board chair or even a trusted mentor outside of the organization.

With consulting, the organization is the client – not any one individual. With coaching, the individual is the client.

If you have both roles in an organization – consultant and coach –you have to be aware of which hat you’re wearing at any given time because they are interrelated but you’re serving different clients but, ultimately, it helps both.

In this episode of The Consultant School, Laurie Reinhart, Director of Consultant Development and Senior Consultant at The Genysys Group, joins Andrea to discuss how to choose your consulting niche.

Why is it important to choose a consulting niche?

Choosing a consulting niche enables you to say no to work that really isn’t what you need to be doing.

When you know exactly what it is that you do, who you do it for, and what are the services you provide, that allows you to focus. When you don’t have that focus, your efforts are too diffuse and you can waste a lot of energy.

Choosing your niche also enables you to mentally free yourself up for doing the kinds of projects you want to do which is where the passion part comes in.

Balancing passion and feasibility is the name of the game.

We live in the real world where we sometimes have to take the work that is available so focusing solely on passion may not be realistic. On the other hand, focusing solely on feasibility, or money, and always doing things that are outside of your passion is exhausting and unsustainable.

If you have a project that requires you to do things outside your passion, one option is to subcontract or partner with someone so you can stay focused on the things that are really in your wheelhouse.

How can you ensure that your passion and in feasibility do overlap when you’re choosing your niche?

Taking the time to do some self-reflection on what expertise do you bring to the table is a first step. Generate a list of these areas of expertise, areas you’ve been trained in, areas of strength, and then ask yourself, “What’s the part where work doesn’t feel like work?”

It is also helpful to do this in consultation with two or three trusted people who have worked with you over the years and know what it is that you do really well to get their outside perspective on your work.

Key Business Development Relationships include suspects, prospects, contacts, and clients.

Suspects = people you are interested in working with but have not yet established a relationship. They may know about you, though not much, and they have a need for your services.

Prospects = people you are interested in working with who are potentially interested in working with you.

Contacts = your network – people you know who may be willing and able to connect you with people who need what you have to offer. This is your marketing referral engine.

Clients = people who have engaged you by way of a contract to deliver your services. If the engagement goes well, this can lead to a longer term retainer relationship.

The best way to turn a suspect into a prospect is via a key contact, or a referral.

There are three opening questions that help turn an initial conversation with a suspect into a deeper relationship that may then lead to them becoming a prospect and, later, a client.

1. What is going right in your business?
2. What are the current challenges?
3. What needs to change?

It’s important to ask all three questions to get as full a picture as possible of what is happening in the business.

Asking what’s going right or what has been successful is a question that many consultants don’t ask in that initial conversation, but it helps you to see what’s important to the person you’re talking to and starts things off positively. It also allows people to open up and tell their stories so you when you begin talking about the challenges and what needs to change, there’s appropriate context. It opens up the conversation so it is an actual conversation versus a typical sales call.

Consulting is a professional service, so looking at what CPAs or attorneys are charging is a place to start.

They are contract services with billable hours and day rates so, while not exactly comparable, if you can find information on what other professionals are charging it can serve as a benchmark for what your target market is paying for external services.

Determine your rate.

You should figure out your hourly rate so you can be clear on how you view your own value, and provide clear estimates on proposals, determine your day rate, and, ultimately, a rate for a monthly retainer.

Your hourly rate should include the following variables:

1. What you would earn at a full-time job right now
2. Your overhead expenses
3. Profit margin

This does not mean you should charge an hourly rate. In fact, this should be the most expensive way to work with you. But you should know what your individual hourly rate is so you can price your services appropriately.

Give clients choices.

Once you have your baseline rate, you are armed with information about how high and low you are willing to go when pricing your services and offering any discounts.

One thing that is helpful is to offer clients choices when presenting a proposal. Let them know what could be accomplished at a few different price points so you are in integrity with your value and your offer and they have the option of choosing what they are most comfortable with.

This allows you to establish the relationship from a place of trust.

There are any number of ways to price your consulting services. However you choose to approach your pricing, the most important thing to know is your baseline rate so you are always clear on what you need. This is a key element of treating your consulting practice as a business.

To get to the life that you envision, it’s important to reflect on what you have to offer and to identify your area of expertise based on your experience and what you’ve learned over the course of your professional life.

Talk to your colleagues or other people who have had the opportunity to get to know you and how you work, how you do what you do, and also understand the extent of your knowledge. Seek input from people who know you well – colleagues, co-workers, even clients – because you may not see things that they see. Their observations about your strengths and weaknesses can be really valuable.

Tell people what you’re doing.

Share with your network what it is you’re doing and who you want to do it for. Make it as easy for people to help you by being as specific as possible so they know how they can help. Identify what each person can potentially do for you and then ask them very specifically for that. Most people are happy to do that.

Connect with others doing similar work.

Look at other consultants as partners who can help you move forward in your own business. They have a lot of perspective to share on client engagements, how to build relationships with clients, and how to know when the relationship is not working. Again, most people are happy to share this information if we ask and you have to be plugged into a community in order to have the opportunity to do that.

Understand that there will be a learning curve.

While you may have the technical expertise in your subject matter, learning how to be an effective consultant is, in itself, a pretty steep learning curve. It requires you to play a different role with clients than you may have played in the past. What worked or what was appropriate for your role within an organization are not exactly the same things that are going to work or be appropriate as a consultant.

In 2018, SBA reported:

• 30.7 million small businesses in the U.S. (SBA defines small business as those with less than 500 employees)
• 99.9% of businesses in the U.S. are considered small businesses
• 98.2% of those have less than 100 employees
• 80.9% of those have less than 20 employees

Millennials and Generation Z are 118% more likely to own a business than baby boomers (Salesforce 2019).

Even with the difficulties small businesses are facing due to the pandemic, consultants will continue to be able to make money working with small businesses.

You can make a tangible difference with small businesses.

 The need to understand, initiate, and manage change has escalated. This affects small businesses because they’re having to change all the time for survival reasons to become profitable. 

They are looking for outside help because there often isn’t anybody inside who understands change and can offer an objective perspective. 

Starting with an initial engagement and developing trust with your client positions you well to deepen the relationship and offer additional services over a longer term. With just a few of these types of retainer relationships a year, you can make a very good living.

To make money, you need to be clear about what you have to offer, who you want to offer it to, and make sure you understand and speak to their specific needs.

Working with small businesses allows you to develop significant relationships with your key clients.

These relationships will not only be personally and professionally rewarding, but they will undoubtedly lead to more work, allowing you to build a sustainable, successful consulting business.

Follow up to Episode 12: The Five Questions of Disruption

• How do we deal with the unknown?
• What do we do and how do we think about where we are at?

3 Levels of Intuition

• Intuition through doing-when you make the right choice.
• Intuition through feeling– when you have a hunch to do something; decide based on a feeling. 

Levels that people with intuition as a preference or strength use almost exclusively.  

Most people aren’t aware of the third level: 

• Intuition through thinking: Asking yourself two questions.

When you are in an unknown situation ask two questions:

• What do I know about where I am at?

WAIT and see what emerges

• What do I need to do with this information?

The majority of the time is to get more information. 

A looming ship is a metaphor for this type of intuition.  You see the bow of a ship out of the fog.

• Who is your trusted person to share what you are learning? 

BOOK MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

• Deep Change by Robert Quinn

OTHER RESOURCES:

• Learn more about Strategic Futuring.
• Amy wrote about these questions here: 

In this episode of The Consultant School, Ray and Amy welcome author and speaker Paul Angone.  

In this episode of The Consultant School, Ray and Amy welcome Marijo Bos, President of Bos Advisors. 

Marijo shares how her clients have been feeling about their work during the COVID-19 period. She notes how some have been experiencing increased levels of trust, transparency, exhilaration due to the importance and urgency of their work, and even sadness as it comes to end because they may not be working at this same level or with the same people.

Marijo also shares her recommendations for what leaders and teams can do to process how they performed during this time as they move into their new reality.

For a deeper dive on this topic, download Marijo and Ray’s article below.