| | By Malcolm Sleath
Q: A friend, who
runs his own consulting
operation, will often
pitch for work for quite
small amounts – maybe
three or four days’ work
at a time. He regularly
converts this into
follow-on work many
times greater. I can see
the potential for doing
this myself, but when I
discussed it with my
boss he was dismissive,
saying that these
tactics were fine for my
friend's firm, but small
assignments were not
cost-effective to
obtain.
A: It still
surprises me that people
are prepared to spend
significant time and
money pitching for work
they stand very little
chance of getting, but
disregard small
assignments as an
effective way to gain
entry. There is
something to be said for
getting the client used
to the idea of paying
you, even if the amounts
are rather small to
begin with.
You need to choose
carefully where to put
your effort. Don't start
if you can't imagine the
relationship going
anywhere. Do you believe | |
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| | begin to understand the
real issues and
opportunities. In the
past few weeks, two very
experienced consultants
have said to me that
they are often well into
an assignment before
they discover why they
are really there.
It helps to have a
hunch about where your
client needs to go. Of
course, it is important
that the client sees the
initial exercise as
delivering value in its
own right and not just
as a ploy to obtain
something else, but you
still need a vision of
the larger opportunity.
If you test your hunch
as often as possible,
and modify it as you
learn, you learn fast,
and the client gets the
message that you are
really interested in
them.
Some initial
assignments are more
likely to lead to
further work than
others. For example,
customer satisfaction
surveys are often
commissioned as
stand-alone exercises to
assist in determining
management priorities,
but they frequently lead
to the identification of
training needs or
requirements for system | |
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| | improvements and
structural changes.
Being seen to do
outstanding work with a
client on one issue will
not automatically
stimulate the client's
desire to work with us
on something else. It
can happen, just as when
we call a decorator in
to refurbish the living
room we suddenly realise
it makes the hallway
look dowdy and decide to
go the whole hog. But it
is not a foregone
conclusion; there are
constraints of budget
and disruption to name
but two. So how can the
transition to the new
work occur?
You have to do more
than draw attention to
the need in a report.
Many consultants are
surprised by how much
work they have to put in
to get the client to
understand what could be
achieved. Why is this
work required? Because,
when we are getting our
client to address a new
situation, they will be
starting from a much
earlier stage of the
buying process than they
were in when we first
met them.
Let me explain. When
we first engage with a
new client, they are
usually well into their | |
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| | buying process. The
client has already done
a good deal of thinking;
it's just that we have
not been there to
witness it. When we
started to talk to them,
it is as if they were
wearing a hat that said
"potential buyer" and we
had a hat that said
"potential seller". The
situation had a natural
structure.
When we are actually
working with a client,
they have taken off the
hat that says "potential
buyer", so we have to
gently engineer a
situation where they
experience discomfort
about some aspect of
their situation, and
help them to crystallise
it in the form of one or
more explicit problems.
You need to be
prepared to allocate
non-chargeable time to
the development of this
new need in a similar
way that you would
allocate non-chargeable
time to the acquisition
of a new client. You
don't have to allocate
nearly so much, because
you have an existing
relationship, but you
still have to work at it
if you are to realise
the full potential of
the opportunity.
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