Best Consulting Practices

Are You Hiding Behind Online Marketing?

2012-02-23T10:35:00-06:00

Got a web site? Using Twitter? Facebook? LinkedIn? Blogging?

Having an "online presence" gets a lot of attention these days. You've probably read dozens of (online) articles about why it is essential to building your consulting business. Maybe you entered the online marketing world reluctantly at first, maybe you jumped in right away.

But there's a good chance you are either channeling a lot of energy into online approaches to marketing your consulting services these days ... or, you're feeling guilty precisely because you are not channeling all your energy into online marketing.

And maybe all that effort is about results, maybe not!

They Can See You, But ...

We had a dog who knew when she had done something wrong, and when she was about to get scolded. Her solution was to keep her head turned away from us. She sort of figured that if she couldn't see us, we couldn't see her, and we certainly could not be yelling at her.

If you have a web site, you may take a lot of interest in "hits," in how many visitors you get, and in how those numbers grow. You take great pleasure in knowing that all those visitors, represented by site statistics, "see" you in some way.

But you only see them as numbers, rather than as individual prospects, and the same applies to followers in other social media. If your number of visitors or followers grows from 10 a day to 100 a day to 500 a day, is that proof that you are being effective?

Hardly. The ultimate proof is a contract from a specific individual. Helpful evidence would be contacts, whether through social media, or by e-mail or phone, from interested parties.

Online tools are like that special mirror in the interrogation room: they can see what you are saying, but you can't see what they are doing, unless they step out of the hidden room and make themselves known..

And it is just possible that you like it that way. Like our dog, you feel like you are being good because you have managed to avoid interacting with the individuals who could give you (by their actions) the most meaningful feedback.

All the Hiding Without the Guilt

Frequently updating your web site content, or putting out Tweets more frequently, can make you feel fairly virtuous. You're marketing, aren't you? You're staying visible, right!

And you're dealing with a largely anonymous audience, aren't you?

The truth is, online tools may or may not make marketing easier for your type of business, but they are likely to make it feel easier for you, personally. E-mailing a prospect with a name and a clear inquiry about their specific needs or interest is scary. Calling someone whose name has been given to you as a referral takes guts.

Tweeting or posting something online barely registers on the "scary meter," compared to more personal contacts.

One big difference is that feedback is immediate. You find out very quickly, in a personal meeting or phone call, whether or not the prospect is interested in you, in what you offer. That's a lot different than flinging your message out into the online void and waiting to "achieve critical mass," waiting for your hordes of visitors to turn into clients.

Don't mistake my point for a second! I use this blog, as well as Twitter, LinkedIn, and so on, and I think they can be valuable tools.

But they are also opportunities to "be busy with marketing" with very little accountability. If you are just counting "hits" and "connections" and "followers" without tracking the actual new business you are getting, you're just fooling yourself.

Heaven's Marketing Department

2012-02-21T11:20:00-06:00

One thing I know: the phrase "Virtue is its own reward" was not coined by a successful salesperson!

There are many religious organizations that have drawn followers by the millions, over the ages. What they "sell" is a more virtuous lifestyle: kindness, compassion, honesty, and so on.

That's an excellent "product," but it just does not seem to be enough for most of us. Perhaps that's why Heaven's marketing department has come up with its own version of the late night infomercial cry, "But wait! There's more!"

Promoting the virtuous life often references benefits based on, shall we say, more temporal matters. There's that little item, a wonderful afterlife, for instance. This ultimate way to "redeem your reward points" for being good is an extension of something we already understand, namely, being alive. Heaven, as most people visualize it, is filled with pleasures that are extensions of our worldly life.

The Challenge of the Virtuous Sale

Many training consultants are trying to help their clients develop virtues, if you will. Training in physical safety on the job is inherently good, if it makes it less likely that an employee will suffer an injury or death on the job. Training in fiscal safety, say at banks, is also good, pointing the way to responsible management of shareholders' money.

Prospective clients really do want to be virtuous, in these and other ways, but virtue is rarely enough. They need a few "temporal benefits" to help remind them of their virtuous aims.

Safe practices in the workplace greatly reduce compensation claims, lost time and productivity, and even legal costs. Well-behaved financial management ... well, we have seen the real-world results of behaving badly, or at least sloppily, as one bank after another has disappeared in recent years.

Virtue + Benefit

Some consultants feel that emphasizing practical and financial benefits of good behavior is a shoddy compromise, that doing the right thing should be enough in itself.

Others accept the idea that a sincere interest in virtuous business practices and the right procedures is very important, but more likely to be sustained over the long haul if it is supported by some additional "carrots" in the form of clearly identifiable benefits to the business. They help their clients be smart, do good, and ultimately, do well by providing additional motivation to support virtue, and they are not ashamed to take that approach.

In the end, which type of consultant sparks more virtuous behavior among their clients?

Does Your Prospect Have a Name?

2012-02-16T11:26:11-06:00

Nothing makes us feel more virtuous than announcing (to ourselves) our intentions to market and sell our services. This week, or this month, or this whatever, we are going to "e-mail prospects" and "call potential clients" and "prepare that mailing piece for prospects" and more.

So let me ask you: what are the names of those prospects and potential clients? Are you thinking of "Mary Smith" and "George Brown"? Are you talking about "the training director at XYZ" and the "owner of Small Business, LLC"?

If not, will you have anything to show for your marketing efforts, at the end of the week or month, beyond failed good intentions?

Why We Don't Make It Personal

There's a reason that so many consultants are happy planning their contacts with "prospects" but hide under the bed when contemplating "calling Mary" and "e-mailing George."

The simple fact is that vague definitions of "marketing activity" make us less accountable to ourselves for actually pulling the trigger on those activities. Preparation is important, of course, but I'm willing to bet that you know from your own experience how easy it is to prepare and prepare and prepare as a way to avoid actually doing anything.

Much of that comes down to fear of rejection, to anticipated embarrassment. When you think of doing a mailing to "prospects" it is easy to visualize some of them (albeit as shadowy, silhouette figures) responding to you. When you visualize Mary or George, it becomes easy to see them saying "No" to your overtures, and that hurts, even before it happens.

To tell the truth, that's one reason why so many consultants are pinning all their hopes on online marketing -- web sites and Twitter and Facebook. It's a matter of relief. Those things make you feel like you're getting your message in front of a lot of prospects, but it is easy to get a lot of "hits" without getting any business. It is easy to attract a lot of "tire kickers" that are not qualified to be included in your target market.

Individualize Your Targets

It takes guts, frankly, to make your marketing a more personal activity. You have to be willing to attempt to build a relationship with an individual, not with a vague pool of visitors or crowd of followers.

When you start looking for individual prospects, of course, you return to your target market, you start qualifying your prospects ... and you stop wasting a lot of effort on people who are never, ever going to pay for your services.

If you plan to take action, in the next week or two, to build your consulting business, you can put out some Tweets that might -- might! -- be seen by a good number of followers. You can send materials to lists of companies ("ABC Corp, Attention: Training Dept.").

Or you can identify three specific names of qualified prospects and choose a way of getting in front of them.

The latter approach will take a lot more work, and -- very, very important -- will be emotionally challenging. It is much more stressful, and you have to face that.

Sell Your Clients More Than Money

2012-02-14T11:12:00-06:00

Some time ago, I was hired to develop training materials for a large company that was itself contracted to provide training for a healthcare product firm, located in another city. Since we were not all in the same place, a series of conference calls brought me, my direct client, and their client together to manage the project.

When the project manager was delayed for one of these calls, he put an assistant in charge. But in the end, I was the one who knew what was happening, what was needed, and I was the one who really guided the meeting.

After that meeting, and again after another one where the same thing happened, my client explicitly acknowledged that my ability to keep the project going when he wasn't available was a big benefit to them. It wasn't just avoiding a delay. It was that the project manager could have confidence that I would represent his views accurately and professionally to their client in all my interactions with anyone involved in the project.

In other words, the benefit was not just "productivity" or some kind of "output" that had financial ramifications.

There was an emotional benefit to the client. The project manager was relieved of a burden. He knew he did not need to micromanage my part of the project, and the project became less stressful as a result. And, by the way, that was worth something to them.

Take Pride in All the Benefits You Deliver

Since not every client recognizes these benefits automatically, you need to be willing to point out the non-financial benefits they'll gain by working with you. When your experience or style enables you to offer benefits beyond dollars and cents, many other consultants cannot match you.

You have, in other words, higher value (= higher fees) to the client and a competitive advantage over other consultants.

Some non-financial benefits derive directly from the services you deliver. For example, your training may give employees an understanding of processes and systems that reduces or eliminates complaints, avoidance, and backsliding against preferred practices. They may not be measurably more productive, but their managers find themselves experiencing much less confrontation, developing better working relationships with their staff, and suffering less stress around those practices.

Other non-financial benefits are related to how you deliver your services. I've been amazed, time and again, at the sighs of relief from some clients when they discovered that I consistently meet deadlines, that I take their feedback seriously instead of putting myself on some pedestal as an expert, that I am flexible about working with different entities within the client company. I'm just easier to work with than some consultants, and when your client becomes aware of that, they really want to keep working with you ... which, again, enhances your value.

It is easy to get so wired into making the "return on investment" argument that you get locked into the financial benefits as if they are the only benefit your services offer. Or you may regard things like hassle-free project management, reduced stress, responsiveness to questions and adherence to deadlines as "gravy," free additional features that are just "thrown in" when someone hires you.

They are much more than that. They are benefits of value in themselves, benefits that many of your rival consultants cannot deliver. Take pride in these benefits, vigorously promote them to your prospects, and factor them into your fee schedule.

You Need a Secret Shopper

2012-02-09T09:20:01-06:00

When people get tired of getting e-mails from you, or or are annoyed by your blog feed, or when they get frustrated with your web site, they do not say goodbye.

They just disappear, with no farewell note to say how you could have kept them with you.

Side Effects

These days, we have a lot of tools to stay more visible with prospects in our target market, and with our ideal clients. Among the best are automated feeds and e-mail subscriptions, where interested parties automatically hear about new posts, new group discussions (e.g., LinkedIn), or comments and other interactions with followers.

Our web sites get ever more complicated, with more and more links, sometimes with interesting "special effects" to draw attention, forms for feedback or to subscribe for e-mail updates or site feeds, and perhaps different sections or pages for different audiences.

All of that complexity means there are plenty of ways for things to go wrong.

On your web site, of course, broken links are a major concern. But sometimes it is easy to 'break" something with a little update -- you (or your web designer) add a little text about a coming event, or a new offering, do a little formatting, and suddenly some browsers get a screwy layout that just frustrates the visitor.

Or you find that automatic e-mail updates or blog feeds are overwhelming subscribers. They are getting too many e-mails, or e-mails that are too long. They are getting messages that are so cryptic -- written in "automated message generator" language, if you will -- that they just unsubscribe.

And by the time someone complains about any of these things, you may have lost a lot of followers and visitors and subscribers who didn't say a word.

Who's Your Secret Shopper?

You need a secret shopper (or two), someone who will subscribe to your e-mail list, sign up for your blog feeds, and prowl around your web site, especially after any updates of any kind.

After all, if your actual content, the things you say in these places, doesn't make sense to your audience, you'll hear from a reader or follower. Someone will point out your factual errors or their disagreement with your opinion.

But if they have trouble using that content, cleanly and efficiently, they'll just go away. They are not engaged in fixing your basic technical problems, they just want information.

So look for someone who does not know a lot about your field of expertise to follow your stuff, someone who will focus on the experience rather than the message. It could be an administrative assistant of some kind, it could be your nephew, but you should agree on how they will follow your content, and how often they will cruise your web site.

And they should definitely be compensated for their investment of time, because having a secret shopper on your side -- someone who takes the time to tell you what they don't like about your communications, instead of just walking away -- is of real value to your business when you are trying to make that great first, and second, and third impression on your future clients.

Intentions and Goals, Resolutions and Plans

2012-02-07T10:19:59-06:00

"Choose bold targets for your business!"

"Embrace ambitious goals, challenge yourself!"

"Think big!"

You get this advice a lot, and it is good, as far as it goes. Mostly, it is an antidote to just drifting along without any real direction. And this advice usually comes with standard hints about measurable and realistic goals, and so on.

he problem is, too many of us are setting goals for, say, the next business year, but we are not really making specific plans to achieve them. And without the plans, you should expect next year's review of your list of goals to be a disappointing affair.

Getting There

One problem is that often goals, being "big and ambitious," are long term targets, and few consultants manage to build a schedule of activities and an arsenal of tools that operate in the short term to achieve progress.

Excited by these bold visions, we set up targets across the field, but then we do not bother with any bows or arrows. We just admire the targets all year, hoping that by the sheer power of inspiration, they will change the way we market and sell our services.

Good luck with that!

Rethinking "Measurable"

We rightly chide someone whose goal for the next year is to "grow my business." And we pat them on the head when they change that to "land ten new clients this year."

But that's where too many people stop. That only provides one measuring point: a year from now, you count up the number of new clients you have.

When it comes to "measurable" goals, break things down to the level of measurable activities. Schedule buying the bow, count how many arrows you shoot at the target, and so on. Just waiting to count how many times you have hit the target -- your ultimate goal -- will not get you anywhere.

If your goal is to cross the river, you can either sit and stare at the far bank, or you can put one stone in the water, and then stand on that to put the next stone in place, all on a schedule that spreads this activity out over time.

Measurable activities that move you toward your goal are things that take time. "Landing a new client" is outside of time, in a way, but looking up a prospect, sending out a white paper, and similar activities all take time off the clock.

Starting with "land ten new clients," the successful consultant realizes that means landing about one a month, and that each one will require approaching ten prospects. Each prospect needs to be identified and contacted.

So the smart consultant writes out a schedule for the next twelve months, down to the activity level. The wise ones know, at the end of the month, whether they have added enough contacts to their lists, whether they have sent out enough materials and made enough calls, and whether they have landed a new client this month, not at the end of the year.

Inspirational goals can help you focus on what's important in your business. But unless you channel that inspiration into detailed activities plans, ambitious goals may ultimately be just another source of disappointment.