SOLUTION

A S S E S S M E N T

Learning | Development | Consulting

What does it taketo be a successfulconsultant? Consultants are incredibly busy being consultants. When did you last step back to assess, refresh and enhance your skills? What additional skills might help you to cement your status as trusted advisor – anticipating the needs of your clients and ensuring that you are their go-to person for ongoing support? We can help.

SUCCESSFUL CONSULTANTS...

Are tuned in to identify new opportunities - and seize them when the time is right

Take the time to understand and qualify their client’s needs

Create and deliver tailored solutions to those needs

Nurture and develop the client relationship they have created

Your client is on a journey. Perhaps they are responding to change, uncertainty or a restructure.Maybe they are striving to meet challenging targets and satisfy more demanding customers. They maybe trying to ‘do more with less’. You want to be the person they turn to for support along the way.

Below we have suggested some key steps to keep you on the right track:

• E�ective client relationship management will trigger new opportunities for business

• A potential client’s interest in your thought leadership is a strong indicator of a business need

• Being on the lookout for suitable tenders and RFPs

• Scanning the landscape for new opportunities

• Widening and using your network increases the pool of potential clients

Each consultant should contribute to the identification and creating of new opportunities. Such opportunities can be found in a variety of places.

• Draw on macro and micro sources of information

• Don’t under estimate the value of what’s in the public domain… and on the grapevine!

• Use your network – who can connect you to whom?

Carefully build rapport and create an a�nity. Consider how you use posture, body language and eye contact. Keep your energy levels high – cognitive, physical, vocal and linguistic.

Explore this further: Ask us to help your people make a postive impact

The solution you present to your client will be aligned with their vision of success and fit for purpose. It will not only be customised and tailored but comprehensive, e�ective and commercially focused.

To successfully make the transition from ‘potential provider’ to ‘chosen supplier’ – avoiding any post purchase dissonance – you’ll need to:

Build mutually beneficial, strategic relationships that are broad, deep, close and long-lasting. Having made client focus a reality and achieved excellence in service delivery, you are now a ‘trusted advisor’.

Matthew Solon, Managing Director of JSB, has more than thirty years’ experience in consultancy and in learning

and development – working with his clients on a wide variety of assignments that include strategic consulting,

change management, skills development and personal transformation.

Talk to him about bespoke consultancy skills workshops. Call today on +44 (0)20 8371 7000.

Carry out a gap analysis between initial vision and success and ‘where we are now’. Embrace feedback. Celebrate successes and assess the impact you have made. There are always lessons to be learnt and often further actions you can take.

• Apply well-honed project management skills

• Report progress and deal promptly with problems

• Manage expectations

• Make sure you respond to client pressure in terms of changed timescales or deliverables

This is when your consultative selling techniques come into play. If you operate on the principle of discovery preceding solution, you will inevitably be where you want to be – Planet Client. Have (and show) empathy. Make use of clever questioning techniques. Listen. Really listen. Respond to questions and challenges from the client and handle concerns and objections to the best of your ability. Perhaps use a ‘The Client Wants’ mindmap to capture information. Shape the conversation using a ‘Consolidate, Confirm, Move on’ approach. Close the meeting in the most powerful and e�ective way.

Think carefully about how you position yourself on this pyramid. You may not be a trusted advisor (yet) – but could you be?

Research and preparation is key for this initial ‘go-see’ stage. Do not by-pass the fact-finding stage – and make sure you use all available resources.

This is all about creating a positive first impression – conveying personal authority, gravitas and charisma.

Provide insight and develop a solution using a combination of creative thinking techniques – brainstorms, ‘Six Hat Thinking’, The Logic Tree, The MECE check (Mutually Exclusive Comprehensively Exhaustive).

Deliver your solution, working in partnership with your client,to achieve the best possible result.

Understand your client so well that you are able to anticipate and meet their future needs.

Review the solution you have delivered, ensuring a ‘clean close’ to the project.

Clarify, analyse and understand the client need.

1 CREATEOPPORTUNITIES

Provide insight &develop solutions5

3 connectwith your client

4 explore

6 DELIVER

7 REVIEW

2 ENGAGEwith your potential clients

8 growthe client relationship

Trusted Advisor

service provider

technical expert

product pusher

cold caller

The Trusted Advisor The Cold Caller

Benefits delivered and value created ‘Sales pitch’ conducted

Medium and longer term focus

Looks at the whole journey, avoiding premature solutionism and pressurising the client

Just interested in this first interaction

Builds rapport and makes connections Focuses purely on making a sale

Is pre-occupied with the ‘arrival’

call +44 (0)20 8371 7000 email enquiries@jsbonline.comvisit www.jsbonline.com