| | By Mick James
Do you have any single
friends? I’m not asking
for myself, I’m just
curious. I think we all
know a few of these
people. Attractive,
intelligent, solvent, and
yet perennially without a
mate and often
complaining loudly about
the situation.
The temptation for the
married couple with such
friends is to attempt a
bit of matchmaking. And
that’s where the problem
starts. Would A like B?
What kind of a bloke
would Z like? And why
won’t these people tell
us their real names?
The crux of the matter
is that we don’t know
what these friends of
ours are looking for, and
still less do we know
what they have to offer
prospective partners. And
the reason that we don’t
know is that they don’t
know themselves.
These thoughts were
running through my mind
as I attended the first
face-to-face meeting for
members of the
Partners' Circle. This
was a networking event
hosted by Top-Consultant
in association with
business coach John | |
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| | Niland of Success121.
Partners’ Circle is an
invitation-only network
for senior figures from
the world of consulting –
which already boasts 300+
members only two months
after launching. It’s
already held a number of
successful “virtual
seminars”, but this was
its first face-to-face
event.
As I’ve often remarked
before, there’s a
shocking lack of
networking opportunities
for consultants. It’s
partly a structural
weakness in the industry,
but – like tigers –
consultants are also not
social beasts, often
preferring to hunt alone
even when technically in
“partnerships”. So it was
quite fun to watch them
sniffing around each
other and exploring each
other’s territory.
Networking and
complimentary drinks
over, the group settled
down to the prospecting
case study and the real
fun. It’s always been my
contention that
consultants are very bad
at articulating what they
do. Non-consultants are
constantly asking me
“what exactly is it that | |
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| | consultants do” and while
it’s easy to dismiss this
as a naïve response from
people who’ve never met
one, it can often still
be at the front of
someone’s mind after a
long period in the
company of a consultant,
and in some cases even at
the end of a project.
Consultants, as John
Niland pointed out at the
start of the session, are
generally poor at
articulating propositions
(partly because they are
insanely jealous of their
own IP, and don’t want to
give anything away). To
prove the point, it’s
quite common for me to be
asked to remove the most
basic advice from
articles we write
following interviews with
consultants in case this
“gives the game away”.
The other problem is
that consultants are
terrified of defining
themselves too narrowly
in case it limits their
opportunities, preferring
to talk in the vaguest
terms about “achieving
outstanding excellence”.
Niland attacked this
first, selecting a victim
and asking him to define
what his practice does,
not in the usual | |
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| | generalities, but in
terms of “we do this for
people like this”. The
next step was
interesting: by focusing
on the individuals you
consult to, you can then
begin to look at the sort
of world they move in,
the sort of people they
deal with on a day-to-day
basis. The goal being to
influence these contact
points into recommending
your services.
“Networking is a great
start, but it’s not
sustainable,” says
Niland. “You need to
communicate in a
structured manner so you
don’t have to spend the
rest of your life
networking.”
What was interesting
about this exercise, and
the workshop format, was
as much the detailed
questions it raised as
the answers we came up
with: “Generalists can’t
do this kind of
analysis,” says Niland.
“That’s the price of
being a generalist.”
The full process has
eight steps and at this
networking event we only
got half way through the
full exercise. But the
final stage we got to in
the workshop was figuring | |
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| | out what to do with the
people we identified as
providing potential
routes into a new client.
The answer: give
something away.
Consultancies are mines
of data, most of it
highly sector specific,
most of it not in the
public domain. As a
journalist I’m keenly
aware of how much
information simply
circulates round the
system like London water,
while people unknowingly
sit on goldmines of data.
It’s a simple mantra:
deliver some value, and
people will see you as a
valuable chap – and tell
others about you.
I’m only scratching
the surface here, and
Niland will be continuing
to develop his insights
in a series of
“laboratories” with
Partners’ Circle members
over the coming months. I
do recommend that you get
along if you can, as this
sort of thing really only
works when done in
conjunction with other
living bodies.
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