As Stephen Pierzchala, Senior Consultant at Gomez (and one of my direct reports) so eloquently said in his blog yesterday, "One of the things that all consultants have to accept is that selling is a part of the territory." In my comment to Stephen's blog post, I reminded him that "selling" doesn't stop when the ink dries on the contract. As a consultant, you are constantly selling your abilities, knowledge, expertise, frameworks, and recommendations.
Good consultants are always persuading their clients: We persuade them to share ideas, answer our seemingly irrelevant questions, humor us as we take them through an exercise or learning program, and execute the recommend that we make. We persuade them to work together to find creative solutions to their problems, and we persuade them to see a new and fresh perspective.
Consultants are not sales people, but there is an element of selling in everything we do.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Monday, March 29, 2010
World-class PSO: Daily Thought
A Lesson in Civility: There's an old adage: "We hurt the one's we love." So, I asked myself, why is it we take risks in our communications with those who are the closest to us?
I don't know about you, but I know that I find myself, at times, putting important, close relationships at risk when I don't take a few minutes to speak thoughtfully and without emotion when working with colleagues. I know that I, for one, find myself approaching certain internal communications in a way that I would never do with my clients.
So...what do you do when you need to properly set expectations with internal stakeholders, you feel you have expressed these expectations more than once, AND maintain relationships and/or build bridges? I say...treat every communication, particularly the really important communications or those that are with "challenging" stakeholders, like those stakeholders are your clients.
I don't know about you, but I know that I find myself, at times, putting important, close relationships at risk when I don't take a few minutes to speak thoughtfully and without emotion when working with colleagues. I know that I, for one, find myself approaching certain internal communications in a way that I would never do with my clients.
So...what do you do when you need to properly set expectations with internal stakeholders, you feel you have expressed these expectations more than once, AND maintain relationships and/or build bridges? I say...treat every communication, particularly the really important communications or those that are with "challenging" stakeholders, like those stakeholders are your clients.
Top 10 Qualities of a World-class Consultant
A world-class PSO is an organization with effective sales, marketing, delivery, and operational processes, tools, and resources that ensure customer needs are met, can achieve 100% reference-ability among its client base, and is able to meet financial goals such as bookings, revenue, and profitability goals.
To truly be world class, a PSO needs to attract and retain world-class consultants. Yes, these consultants need access to world-class tools and best-in-class processes that enable them to do their jobs well, but they also need to have the passion and focus that allows them to learn new skills and technologies and grow within the organization. Truly world-class consultants develop both the subject matter expertise required to deliver world-class services, but they also build the consulting, selling, and customer management skills required to build deep relationships with their clients and deliver profitable, repeatable projects.
I spent some time on a recent flight from Boston to San Francisco thinking about what makes a consultant "world-class." What are the qualities inherent in those individuals who can connect with their clients in a way that ensures that the client's needs are met, their challenges are addressed, and the necessary change is effectively delivered?
The following is a list of the top 10 qualities that I think are critical for a consultant to possess in order to be world-class. Admittedly, not all of these ideas are original, although some are, and I have done my best to site the original author who spoke of the quality. I apologize in advance if I missed anyone. So here is the list of 10.
A world-class consultant:
To truly be world class, a PSO needs to attract and retain world-class consultants. Yes, these consultants need access to world-class tools and best-in-class processes that enable them to do their jobs well, but they also need to have the passion and focus that allows them to learn new skills and technologies and grow within the organization. Truly world-class consultants develop both the subject matter expertise required to deliver world-class services, but they also build the consulting, selling, and customer management skills required to build deep relationships with their clients and deliver profitable, repeatable projects.
I spent some time on a recent flight from Boston to San Francisco thinking about what makes a consultant "world-class." What are the qualities inherent in those individuals who can connect with their clients in a way that ensures that the client's needs are met, their challenges are addressed, and the necessary change is effectively delivered?
The following is a list of the top 10 qualities that I think are critical for a consultant to possess in order to be world-class. Admittedly, not all of these ideas are original, although some are, and I have done my best to site the original author who spoke of the quality. I apologize in advance if I missed anyone. So here is the list of 10.
A world-class consultant:
- Communicates clearly and completely without bias, attitude, or judgement.
- Remains a client advocate and keeps the client's best interests and needs top of mind at all times.
- Seeks first to understand, and then to be understood. (I know I heard this somewhere, although I can't recall when or from whom.)
- Asks questions designed to uncover the "real" pain, not just the "stated" pain. Jean DiGiovanna of ThinkPeople refers to this as "staying curious." (This is a common theme in many sales training and books, particularly those that espouse a "solution-selling" approach. It is also relevant to consultants who work to effect positive change in a client's organization.)
- Is not afraid to tell the customer what they need to hear, rather than what they want to hear. (This is often difficult to do without being perceived as difficult or undiplomatic - its not what you say, but how you say it - and it is a place where sales and other groups may try to sensor the consultant.)
- Is able to boil complex issues and situations down to simple frameworks that can be easily understood.
- Is able to work across different departments and levels in an organization, be perceived as a trusted adviser, and can filter "baggage" and "noise" from the reality of the situation.
- Can find advocates and evangelists within an organization who can help navigate the political structure.
- Is able to ensure the client that she understands what is unique about this situation and that she can bring the breadth of her experience to help solve the problem.
- Whenever possible, works to assist his client in finding their own solutions to the problem. (See Peter Blocks, Flawless Consulting.)
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Vision and Stragegy in 2010
Building a World-Class PSO requires many components of a complex system to work together to meet the needs and objectives of the client base, consultants, department, and organization in which the PSO resides. Hiring the best and brightest consultants, developing relevant and repeatable services offerings, and developing a repeatable delivery model that enables projects to be delivered on time, on budget, and at the highest quality are examples of some of the components that must be implemented to ensure that the PSO is, truly, world-class.
But how do you know what resources to hire, what services to offer, and what the delivery framework should be?
As with any other business, develop vision and mission statements for the practice is a critical first step. Now, I know there are a lot of nay-sayers out there who believe that vision and mission statements are "fluffy" and meaningless. I disagree, however. In fact, the process used by managers and the team to develop these two very important artifacts for the practice is as important, if not more important, than the vision and mission statement themselves.
My company is moving through the Professional Services Maturity Model quite aggressively these days. There are a lot of changes we are managing. For instance, we were recently acquired, we are planning significant growth in our business, and we are even changing many of the services that are delivered.
As we sat down to plan the new year, which starts on April 1, 2010, we quickly realized that we were in the midst of an identify crisis given the changing environment. This crisis was preventing us from make key decisions and reaching our fullest potential as a world-class PSO.
So, we took a step back and started by defining a vision statement for the practice. We decided that the vision statement would define some future state - what we aspire to be. We also decided that it would be written from out clients' perspectives. In other words, there is no mention of internal metrics or growth numbers. What role do we want to play in assisting our customers through their own evolution to greatness? We held up in a conference room for a couple of hours, and we pulled something together that really speaks to why we get up every morning.
We are still working on the final touches of the vision statement, which includes reviewing it with key managers from across the business as well as with the consultants themselves. So I won't share the vision now. However, having this vision enabled us to make significant progress in defining our plan for the new year. We have identified a set of a dozen or so initiatives that align with the vision to assist us in improving how we go to market, work with sales and marketing, and deliver the services we offer.
Having a strong vision is a key component of SPI's Professional Services Maturity Model. Without it, PSO managers will not succeed in getting on the road to building a world-class PSO.
But how do you know what resources to hire, what services to offer, and what the delivery framework should be?
As with any other business, develop vision and mission statements for the practice is a critical first step. Now, I know there are a lot of nay-sayers out there who believe that vision and mission statements are "fluffy" and meaningless. I disagree, however. In fact, the process used by managers and the team to develop these two very important artifacts for the practice is as important, if not more important, than the vision and mission statement themselves.
My company is moving through the Professional Services Maturity Model quite aggressively these days. There are a lot of changes we are managing. For instance, we were recently acquired, we are planning significant growth in our business, and we are even changing many of the services that are delivered.
As we sat down to plan the new year, which starts on April 1, 2010, we quickly realized that we were in the midst of an identify crisis given the changing environment. This crisis was preventing us from make key decisions and reaching our fullest potential as a world-class PSO.
So, we took a step back and started by defining a vision statement for the practice. We decided that the vision statement would define some future state - what we aspire to be. We also decided that it would be written from out clients' perspectives. In other words, there is no mention of internal metrics or growth numbers. What role do we want to play in assisting our customers through their own evolution to greatness? We held up in a conference room for a couple of hours, and we pulled something together that really speaks to why we get up every morning.
We are still working on the final touches of the vision statement, which includes reviewing it with key managers from across the business as well as with the consultants themselves. So I won't share the vision now. However, having this vision enabled us to make significant progress in defining our plan for the new year. We have identified a set of a dozen or so initiatives that align with the vision to assist us in improving how we go to market, work with sales and marketing, and deliver the services we offer.
Having a strong vision is a key component of SPI's Professional Services Maturity Model. Without it, PSO managers will not succeed in getting on the road to building a world-class PSO.
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