Article
written by EricBank
Many small businesses deal with services rather than products.
Well-trained individuals might be interested in offering their services as
management consultants. Often, experts who have worked in a particular industry
for an extended period decide to branch off into management consulting. Each
industry has a learning curve that requires years to master. However, once
mastered, this knowledge is exceedingly valuable and can serve as the basis of
a successful consulting career.
For those with the necessary expertise, this can be as fulfilling and
remunerative business. You should consult with legal and accounting resources
to work out the feasibility and business plans required to start up the
company. We have identified 10 important tactics to help ensure the success of
your new consulting career:
- Newsfeeds: Arrange to have the latest news about your client and three of its competitors fed directly to you. You can use a service like Google Alerts. Nothing beats staying on topic of client and industry news to make a good impression.
- Financial Data: Memorize key financial statistics, such as overall revenue, market cap, gross profit and margins. You'll look like a genius at meetings if you know these numbers cold.
- Senior Management: Learn the faces and profiles of the client's top executives. You don't want to innocently run into one in the cafeteria and not know it. Familiarity with the executive staff will help you manage client relationships.
- Competitors: Get to know the top five to ten competitors, including their market shares, key offerings, strengths and weaknesses. You can gather this data from analyst reports, client intelligence, and financial websites such as Yahoo! Finance. Keep your knowledge up to date by frequently searching Google and Techcrunch.
- Contacts: Use a contact management system that works equally well on your computer and smartphone. Keep phone numbers and email addresses of each contact and his or her secretary. Great resource when you need to reach someone quickly.
- Institutional Knowledge: Assimilate the knowledge libraries of your consulting firm and clients. This is basically information about previous projects and the firm's latest strategic thinking. This is the fastest way to come up to speed on a new project.
- Entertainment: Get to know some good restaurants favored by your clients. These are good for team events and a popular choice will score points.
- Project Library: Assume leadership of a project library that contains annual reports, tax filings, previous documents and presentations, and primers on the client's industry. Keep the library up-to-date with new reports and presentations as they become available.
- Travel Smart: Always carry extra supplies, such as Ethernet cables, USB drives, mice, power cords, etc. You may seldom need these, but when you do, you'll be the hero.
- Proofread: Never hand in a document to a client without thoroughly proofreading it, even if is not your personal work. Sloppy work is a killer - remove all typos, syntax and grammar errors and misaligned charts. Make sure the analysis makes sense. Failing to do this can be fatal to your career.
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