Delivered at MB IPB CEO and Entrepreneurial Development Forum

Image courtesy of www.robhartnett.com

Who Am I?

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~ A anonymous consultpreneur

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Today’s Agenda

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Understand Consulting Requirements

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• Hard and soft Skills in expert level

• In-depth and broad Knowledge

• Positive and constructive Attitude

• Network, network, network: client,

contact, resources, partner

• In the end, consultant shall provide expert

advice in particular or a wide range of fields

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TARGETING the Type, Segment and

Industry

• Ideally, identify which type of consulting field

where the diamond is • If not, at those early days, determine specific

area(s) of consulting that

at the most

• Passion first, expertise (shall) follow suit

• Might decide to start with general consulting

• Later stageto attain clients with specific needs

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• Next: Which segment are we going to play?

• Micro, Small, Medium, Big – we decide

• Set the industry we put our priority at. Try to in-line with our background and expertise

4 Februari 2014 9 Image courtesy of Patrick van der Pijl

Is Consulting Firm a Necessity?

• Stay as a professional, self-employed, or move it forward. Cast our vote!

• Comfort zone is everywhere

• To grow bigger day in and day out, take the risk as long as we could manage it

• Start a consulting firm

right away. Period.

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Image courtesy of Accumulate

Try to Do this Exercise First

• Ask ourselves once again, do we really want to become an entrepreneur?

• If yes, then decide: be a single fighter or go along with co-founder(s)

• Do market research by:

– Scouting out similar consultants in our area

– Finding out expertise and services offered

– Figuring out their prices and marketing schemes

• When completed, then:

– What differ us from rivals: quality of deliverable, more reasonable fee, faster execution and completion (?)

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…Let’s reaffirm ourselves by programming these

words until they are sublimed

“You say I dream too big. I say

you think too small.”

Upon Completion then…

• Decide source of funds: bootstrapped or?

• Name our business. Memorable but not

tacky

• Establish our company profile (objectives,

goals, mission, vision, values)

• Choose legal structure for our venture

• Craft a business plan. Not only for us but for

investor as well

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Upon Completion then…(cont’d)

• Consider costs and funds for first year as a start

• Obtain proper licenses

• Start to set-up office

• Prepare for office supply, equipment, resources

• Define company policies, processes and

procedures. Formalize them upon completion

• Consider to form and think further of separating

management from governance

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Start Too Early Only If…

• Blue Ocean as Bulls-Eye

• To win the mind share

• Have adequate funds and

persistence to struggle and survive

• Able and willing to grab other projects

to sustain the business

4 Februari 2014 17 Image courtesy of Peter Nijenhuis

Rolling out Consulting Practice

Market Our Service

• Attend event, mingle and network with others

• Actively contribute for respective organization

and association

• Write at particular publications

• Deliver lecture, training and workshop

• Speak ourselves out at seminar and conference

• Obtain advanced degree, accreditation and

certification

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Market Our Service (cont’d)d)

• Capitalize on internet (blog, social network, any other digital channels)

• Ask for referrals

• Give token for leads

• Offer low price services or more extremely free to build up reputation

Bottom line

Make ourselves and expertise heard and read

(validated, acknowledged, recognized)

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Image courtesy of Nanagyei

Improve, Enhance and Boost Our Expertise

• Reading

• Practicing

• Training

• Education

• Self-studying

• ….and many more

Cutting the case:

Internet and MOOC rock!

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Leverage Our Networks

• Parents

• Spouse

• Relatives

• Friends

• Colleagues

• Children

• Even our former boss, girlfriend, boyfriend…

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Better Start with Small

• Always dream BIG with our feet

GROUNDED

• Start off with smaller paying clients

• Always eager to go for larger ones ASAP

• Don’t grow too fast unless we have “solid

back office”

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Be Pragmatic at Early Stage

• Going to where the money flows

• Affordable office: garage, virtual office, co-working space as options

• Host meeting at our client’s office or public service

• Keep a healthy working capital

• Think of rolling out Stock Option Plan (Why not?)

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The Time We Sign a Client the Day

We Start…Losing Them

• “Difficult” client is not an option

• Watch high churn rate out. No renewal

= (epic) fail?

• Be flexible. Do anything possible to

keep them

• Ad-hoc call or visit might needed to

ensure things going on the right way

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We are Worth Every Penny, So Show

Them the (Hidden) Money!

• Don’t we ever take crap from

clients; Nothing personal really

• Show them NUMBERS or any

other key metrics esp. financial

figures e.g ROI, NPAT, etc

• Bring in more money by

attaining more revenue or

reducing cost than “our price”

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Well oh Well, Dress up Please…

• The better we dress, the higher of consulting rate we can ask for

• This is to show potential clients we are successful

• Boost our confidence

• Client will expect us to bring same success to their company

• Try it and see the result

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Image courtesy of Alexander Rentsch

Image courtesy of Paul Downey 4 Februari 2014

Set Expectations from Day ONE

• Document important things, particularly

request for changes

• Get the approval as necessary

• Deliverable meets expectation = satisfied

• Raise the bar by always try to exceeds them

• Unrealistic expectations? Silence is not

golden here. Let the clients know why

• Refer other venture if needed

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Keep Them Happy from Time to Time

• Weekly updates telling what have you been doing and addressing any questions raised

• Monthly reports. Graph and other forms of visuals is worth a try

• Do follow-up by discussing it in an in-person meeting

• Surveys – periodically and when project completed by drawing specific questions, both open and closed

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Keep Them Happy from Time to Time (cont’d)

• Send industry updates and news regularly

• Go further, do anything to makes them feel special

• They could be KING or PARTNER

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Our Clients are always Right, EXCEPT…

• Keep “the door” opened by letting clients tell what they want

• They shouldn’t tell us what we should be doing

• Telling the client what is the best. We have the expertise they don’t have, right?

• It’s a winding road thou. Prepare data to back up what we want to do and show how it fits at its best for them

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The More We Charge, The Less They

Complain

• Big clients have deep pocket so big spending is no big deal

• They know that if they want to continue to grow, they have to spend money

• Messing up with smaller clients, most probably they don’t have enough money for “switching costs”

• In most cases, the less we charge, well, it’s too good to be true

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Clients to Pay Less For More

• No bunch of case studies nor years of experience? Take it easy

• Figure out what separates our consulting company from the giants

• If we show we are better than the bigger ones, we will lock them in

• Clients always love to pay and work with senior consultants rather than bigger firms’ junior’s

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• Our strategy defines how we

uniquely and persistently

deliver value to our clients

• It's all about them, not us. It

always will.

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Image courtesy of BTO University

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4 Februari 2014 38 Image courtesy of Paul Downey