step into consulting - amazon s3 · step into consulting, ... problem that they would pay $1000 to...

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Step Into Consulting, A 4-week virtual course from Human Workplace www.humanworkplace.com Not for transmission or duplication Copyright Human Workplace 2016

Step into Consulting A Four-Week Virtual Course

From Human Workplace

Week One: Understanding Business Pain

www.humanworkplace.com

http://www.humanworkplace.com/


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Step into Consulting Week One

This is Lesson One in Step Into Consulting!

Welcome to the four-week virtual course Step into

Consulting!

This course is designed for people who want to plan for

the launch of their own consulting businesses. In this

four-week virtual course you’ll begin thinking through

the consulting business you are planning to launch and

operate.

Let’s talk about you! What prompted you to register for this course? Write your thoughts here.

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What sort of consulting do you do? Write your answer here.

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As you begin the process of planning to launch your consulting business, you will focus on this

question:

What problem will I solve for my clients?

Your power as a consultant, your ability to get consulting assignments and your differentiation

from other consultants who may perform the same or similar services to yours rests in large

part on your understanding of the Business Pain you solve for your consulting clients.


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What is Business Pain?

Business Pain is a central concept in many Human Workplace programs.

There is enormous power in being able to answer the question “What problem do you solve?”

especially in a crowded consulting marketplace.

Your consulting messaging, outreach, and sales process will become much more powerful as

you take your focus away from your credentials and your tasks, and focus instead on the

biggest problems you solve for your clients.

You will gain a stronger awareness of the value of your services when you focus on the Business

Pain you solve and make the resolution of your clients’ Business Pain the cornerstone of your

consulting message.

There are many consultants who do what you do – but they are not

you!

Your clients and prospective clients may have many consultants or consulting firms to choose

from (or they may believe that they do!). You will differentiate yourself and/or your firm in

many ways.

One powerful way to differentiate yourself from other consultants or firms is to focus on

Business Pain.

Most consultants don’t do that. They market themselves in one of these common, traditional

ways:

They brand and market themselves based on the tasks they perform for clients.

They market themselves based on their experience and accomplishments.

They market themselves based on their brand name, a logo or a tagline.

They market themselves based on customer reviews, like this: “We worked with six

Fortune 50 corporations last year and they all told us we were great to work with!”

The problem is that clients don’t really care about any of these elements – they can’t care

about them or even focus on them – until they know whether you understand what they’re

dealing with.

People want to be heard. They want to be understood. Your ability to zoom in on and

understand what your prospective clients and your current clients are facing in their daily

struggles is a major factor in the size and number of consulting deals you will close.


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We all like to be heard. We want to know that a person who offers to help us (and wants us to

pay them) really understands what we are experiencing.

No one likes to be ‘sold.’ Write about a time when someone was trying to sell you on buying

something from them, and you were irritated by their pushy sales technique!

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What is Business Pain?

Business Pain is a problem or set of related

problems. Every business has pain. Every

individual has pain, too!

Most people, even people with fairly limited

resources, have one problem that is bigger and/or

more immediate than their other problems.

This is their “Thousand-Dollar Problem.” It’s the

problem that they would pay $1000 to solve, if they could find someone who could solve their

Thousand-Dollar Problem for them.

Some people would pay $1000 to lose 25 lbs. Some people would pay $1000 to get their

teenaged kid to show more respect and do well in school, or to make their neighbors stop

playing their stereo so loudly at night.

When we have a really frustrating problem, we would be glad to pay money to make the

problem go away!

People don’t always have a great handle on their biggest problems, and neither do your clients.

They may tell you “I’m collecting bids for a web design project – would you like to bid?” We can

change the conversation from “Your assignment is to bid on my project” to “Maybe I can help

you - I can’t really say. Do you have Business Pain?”


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Most of us have been trained that when we get a request for a proposal, we should bid on the

project. We should submit a proposal!

You may want to bid on the project because it feels like a chance to be part of the vendor

selection process, but is that really a win?

If you bid on the project, you’re going to invest valuable time. Not only that, but you’re going to

share valuable ideas, and the organization that requested the proposal could take your ideas

for free and try to implement them on their own.

Sadly, that happens every day.

You don’t have time to waste or good ideas to waste on people who don’t want to pay for

them. If people don’t value your services, then they don’t deserve you!

There’s Another Way to Sell Your Consulting Services

As we said earlier, every organization has Business Pain. Not everyone can solve every type of

Business Pain, of course.

You most likely specialize in a few different kinds of Business Pain solving. That’s good. You

don’t want to carry the brand “I can solve any problem!” because there is no power in that.

That brand is not credible, because no one believes that any person can be good at everything.

In the table below, you’ll see three names listed on the left. These three consultants – Ariana,

Josef and Umeed – have all been consulting for a few years.

The middle column shows the branding that Ariana, Josef and Umeed used for their consulting

businesses before they learned about Business Pain.

The column on the right shows their new branding, focusing on the Business Pain each of our

three consultant solves.

Branding Yourself Using Business Pain

Consultant Old Branding Message New Branding Message

Ariana, a marketing consultant

Experienced, full-service marketer with marketing communications, PR and website copy experience

If your message isn’t hitting your target audience or inspiring them to contact you, let’s talk.

Josef, an accountant CPA with ten years of experience in small and

I keep my clients from losing track of where their hard-earned revenue is


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medium-sized business going. I manage their finances so they can manage their business.

Umeed, an HR consultant

HR consultant focused on recruiting and project management

I prevent staffing shortages that slow a company’s growth, by keeping my clients’ team rosters full in a tight market for talent.

What did you notice about the differences in branding between Ariana’s, Josef’s and Umeed’s

old branding messages and their new messages?

Write your observations here.

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Most of us have been taught to emphasize the good things that will happen for our clients if

only they will hire us! We haven’t been taught to talk about the BAD things that our work can

prevent for our clients.

Here are Ariana’s, Josef’s and Umeed’s observations about why and how they changed their

consulting branding to incorporate their clients’ Business Pain.

Ariana’s Story

There are so many marketing consultants around! When I focus on my competition in my small

city, I get discouraged.

I know I’m good at what I do, but it seems like every day I meet another independent

consultant, and it’s not easy building a business from the ground up.

I was focused on the tasks that I perform, until I learned about Business Pain.

I used to use my LinkedIn profile and my business cards, as well as my face-to-face

conversations at networking events, to tell people about the activities I perform in my work:

branding, marketing and PR, for instance.

The problem is that every marketing consultant does those things! Listing my activities was a

bad way to start conversations.


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I shifted my focus to Business Pain. I started to think “What is the biggest marketing problem

my clients face – and not just my clients, but every product and service firm?”

Most of them have the same problem. Just like me, they are working in a crowded competitive

space. Consumers and corporate buyers are hit with too many messages.

Many of those messages don’t reach their intended audience. They get lost. I know the

messages I create for clients hit their mark, because I’ve seen the results they get.

I have testimonials from my clients right on my LinkedIn profile.

Now I use my branding, my LinkedIn profile and my face-to-face networking conversations to

tell people what kind of Business Pain I solve.

I solve the kind of Business Pain that vendors experience when they aren’t reaching the right

people or they aren’t inspiring people to take a step and learn more about their products.

Now I see myself as a pain reliever. That’s a great way to feel! I help my clients feel better, too.

Josef’s Story

I only do one thing in my work, and that is help my clients make the best use of their money. I

help them make more money and keep more of it in the company rather than wasting it. It’s

very simple when you boil it down. There are a lot of CPAs out there. When someone calls me

to ask about using my services, I ask them “As a business owner, what is your biggest financial

worry?” Then we can cut right to the chase.

Umeed’s Story

I was a corporate recruiter before I started my own business. As everyone knows, it is

ridiculously easy to become an independent recruiter or to go and work for a recruiting firm.

A lot of firms pay straight commission and a small “draw” to new recruiters, so there are a lot of

inexperienced recruiters out there. That’s okay.

I know that I’m not the right recruiting partner for everybody, but I am the right partner for

people who have the problem I solve.

What is that problem? I keep my clients’ team rosters full. A lot of recruiters don’t have that

close relationship with their clients, and they don’t know the organizations well. It’s not that

easy to recruit here in Silicon Valley these days, because a lot of companies are hiring.


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I don’t worry about that because when I get involved with a new client, I make sure it’s a great

place to work. If it’s not a great place to work already, I tell my clients why it will be hard for

recruiters to get good people in the doors. I’m very honest with my clients. They like my

honesty – and why not? It’s free consulting!

I see every day the value I create for my clients. I don’t worry about competition. As far as I’m

concerned, there is enough work for everybody – or at least everybody who’s good at what

they do.

Information Overload and your Brand

Everyone is overwhelmed with information these days. The

phenomenon is called information overload, and nearly everyone

suffers from it. There are way more messages in our environment

than we can take in!

People are bombarded with messages about the ways that other

people can help them – or so those other people believe! When

we read our email, we see spam messages.

We drive past billboards that tell us that paying money to other people will change our lives for

the better. Everywhere we go online, we see ads. How can you cut through the ‘clutter?’

Everyone has problems. Most individual people have a Thousand-Dollar Problem, as we

mentioned earlier.

Businesses have even bigger problems. Your job as a consultant marketing your own services is

to focus on the biggest problem you can solve for your clients – the problem that your clients

are likely to be struggling with when you arrive to help them – and brand yourself with that

problem in mind!

What are the biggest problems your prospective clients typically face in running their

businesses? Write your thoughts here.

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Here is a diagram that shows many common types of Business Pain. Which types of Business

Pain have you solved in your work before?

What Types of Business Pain Do You Solve?


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What ideas about Business Pain occurred to you while you were exploring the diagram on the

previous page? Write them here!

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To wrap up Lesson One by getting you thinking about the types of Business Pain you solve for

your clients, answer these questions:

How do you answer the question “What do you do for a living?” Write your answer here.

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When you talk with prospective clients or think about possible conversations with them, how

do they describe their problem? (Examples: “I need some help with my website,” “I need

someone to get my employee benefits programs up to date” or “I’m soliciting proposals for

someone to manage my upcoming event.”)

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Who is your ideal client? What sort of organization will hire you to consult for them (size,

industry, etc.)? Write about that here.

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What will be the average size (in dollars or your favorite currency) of your consulting

engagements?


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Write about your favorite consulting project so far – whether you got paid for it or not, or

whether you performed the project while working as a consultant or working in a corporation

or institution. We are all consultants – write about the consulting you’ve done already!

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Now that you are gaining an understanding of Business Pain, how would you answer the

question “What kind of Business Pain will you solve for your clients?”

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Brilliant! You have completed Lesson One!

At Human Workplace we are reinventing work for people. Thank you for being part of the movement!

What topics will we cover in this Four-Week Virtual Course?

Here is the week-by-week topics roadmap.

Week One Understanding Business Pain

Week Two Planning Your Consulting Services

Week Three Your Pricing

Week Four Your Launch Plan


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The Five Deadliest Personal Branding Mistakes

It's hard to talk about yourself. When

someone asks "What do you do?" you

could blurt out your job title, like this:

PERSON: What do you do?

YOU: I'm a Network Security Analyst

Level III.

PERSON: Hmmm. Awesome. (Eyes glaze over; looks frantically around room for a

reason to bail on the conversation.)

Unless you're a lion tamer, a jello wrestler or an astronaut, your job title is likely to be

the least exciting thing about you.

You could describe your job, instead:

SOMEONE What do you do?

YOU: I work for a company called Angry Chocolates.

I work in IT. I keep the network safe from hackers and

other threats, like credit-card-stealing bad guys.

SOMEONE: Cool! Like Mission Impossible?


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YOU: Exactly like that.

You can tell a story about your job when you're talking face-to-face or over the phone.

But how do you do it in a resume or LinkedIn profile?

Here are the five personal branding mistakes we see most often, the ones that suck the

juice and power out of your awesome story and make you sound like every other

robot weenie in the weenie bin.

You're no weenie! You're a cool, funny and awesome person with a great story to tell.

Get rid of these five branding problems, and let your human story out!

Deadly Personal Branding Mistake Number One: CORPORATE ZOMBIES

UNITE

The first mistake is to write your LinkedIn profile and resume in the language called

Corporatespeak Zombie Language.

You've seen it before, I'm sure: "Results-oriented professional with a bottom-line

orientation." That doesn't sound like a real person. It sounds like a cardboard cut-out

person with a fake smile and a bad suit.

You don't have to write that garbage in your resume and LinkedIn profile, and I hope

that after you've read this column you never do it again. You can talk about yourself

in writing the same way you would in person.


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"I got into HR because I like to help people succeed at work. I specialize in Comp and

Benefits, where I build pay and benefits plans for everyone from shop workers to the

executive team."

Deadly Personal Branding Mistake Number Two:

TROPHY WORSHIP

You're going to list your certifications and credentials in

your profile or on your resume, of course. You've earned

them. Don't make them the centerpiece of your brand,

like this:

"With a Harvard MBA and advanced certification in Jedi Mind Control, I bring a

diverse set of blah blah blah..."

Your degrees and certifications are important, but they don't define you. When you

make your alma mater the biggest part of your brand, you're saying "I need Harvard's

brand to represent me, because my own brand isn't sturdy enough." That's awful.

Harvard is a great school, and believe me, they don't want you to make your Harvard

degree the focus of your personal brand any more than I do. They want to turn out

graduates who go on to do much more wonderful things than simply to get a diploma.

When you say "Look who's already approved of me -- this school, this brand-name

employer and this professional association!" you're saying "I am nothing by myself.

Other people have to make me okay by bestowing titles and credentials on me."


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Personal branding is about YOU, not the trophies on your wall.

Deadly Personal Branding Mistake Number Three: TASKS

AND DUTIES

Since it's hard to know exactly what to say about ourselves, we

tend to talk a lot about tasks and duties. We want to know

about more important things: why did you perform those tasks?

How did you make your mark on each organization you've worked for?

You can replace "I was responsible for the quarterly Sales by Region report," a boring

statement that will put any normal reader to sleep, with the human observation "When

I noticed our VPs weren't reading the three quarterly sales reports I created, I designed

a new Sales Dashboard that put the most useful metrics on a one-page weekly

summary, saving at least $100K in staff time in the process."

As readers, we want to see you in action and to know that you understood what you

came to each job to do. Give us what we want!

Deadly Personal Branding Mistake Number Four: SELF-PRAISE

Your personal branding goal is to let us see past your titles and degrees to understand

the person behind the resume. That's why one of the worst things you can do is to

trumpet your own fabulousness with phrases like "Seasoned, savvy and strategic

Marketing Director..."Don't praise yourself in your branding, in writing or in speech.

Let your story speak for you. People who praise themselves are afraid that if they

don't tell you they're wonderful, you won't figure it out on your own.


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Self-praise is the mark of a business newbie or a person who has so little self-esteem

he has to brag about himself to perfect strangers.

Replace a deadly self-praising phrase like "Skilled at leading strategic initiatives" (a

fail on the self-praising and zombie-speak counts) with a mini-story about a time

when you actually led an important project:

"I led the Finance team through Angry Chocolates' acquisition of Suckulent Suckers, a

$8M specialty lollipop manufacturer, in 2010."

Anyone who's in the business of hiring or recommending folks for 'strategic

initiative'--type Finance roles will get the whole story, right there.

Deadly Personal Branding Mistake Number Five: ABSTRACTION HELL

The last Deadly Personal Branding Mistake on our list is the branding choice that uses

hundreds or thousands of words in a LinkedIn profile or a resume to say nothing.

You've seen branding like this before:

"I solve complex problems at a high level working with multiple stakeholders."

We have no idea what you've done or what you're capable of when we read a boring,

abstract sentence like that.


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We want the guts of the story. Don't sit back and characterize your work - tell us the

details and let us decide whether the problems you solve are complex or not. Give us

the story. Make it real!

"My favorite project so far at Accenture has been the re-design of a wastewater

treatment plant's safety and security processes. We started with 1960s training

materials and rewrote everything from the ground up, listening to and checking in

with the team members at every step. The new-employee safety training time dropped

from six months to four weeks and the number of safety incidents went from 40-

50/month to zero."

Boom, baby!

We want the goods. We don't want your analysis of your talents at a sky-high level of

abstraction. We don't want a list of boring tasks or self-congratulatory adjectives.

We want to meet a living, breathing human on the page and decide whether we're

meant to take the conversation a step further. Isn't that what everyone wants - to get

rid of the fog and the clutter and meet one another on a human plane?


step into consulting - amazon s3 · step into consulting, ... problem that they would pay $1000 to...

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