Consulting Mastery: The Ability Myth: Being Good is not Enough

Consulting Mastery The Ability Myth:

Being good is not enough

Book 11 in the

Consultants’ Guide Series:

Setting up and running your consultancy

business profitably and painlessly

Cindy Tonkin

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Smashwords Edition

Text copyright © 2014 Cindy Tonkin

All Rights Reserved

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May your greatest dreams be realised

Preface

There is an invisible ceiling that prevents many very talented professionals from reaching the dizzy heights to which they aspire. The frustrating thing for these well-recognised and credentialed experts is that they are often smarter, more knowledgeable and better informed than some of the more renowned consultants.

This book is about that invisible ceiling. It is about bridging the difference between being a professional consultant and mastering the skills of consultancy. The fundamental message of Consulting Mastery is that your success as a consultant is not related – directly at least – to the technical ability for which your clients ostensibly hire you.

The ability myth has emerged through years of schooling and professional training where our advancement was, generally speaking, related as closely as possible to ability. Consultancy, though, is about dealing with people and that requires a whole new skill set.

This book does not belittle the importance of your technical skills – you cannot succeed as a consultant unless you have skills to offer – it simply stipulates that ability is not enough.

If you want to master the art of consultancy and break through the invisible ceiling created by the ability myth, chances are you will have to focus on something other than your abilities. Your availability for example. Then your affability. And then your approach to understanding your clients’ real needs – and your own.

Luckily, Cindy Tonkin makes grasping these tools very easy. Building on her successful first book, The Australian Consultants Guide, she now shares with you the secret keys to gaining mastery. If you’ve been thinking that you’re ready to take the next step in your career, this book is for you.

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1 Who are these consultants anyway?

Chapter 2 First base: Availability — making sure the client knows you’re there

Chapter 3 Second base: Affability — getting on with the client

Chapter 4 Second base Affability: Mastering how the client thinks

Chapter 5 Third Base: Ability — What Master Consultants truly know

Chapter 6 What Master Consultants actually do

Chapter 7 Reacting to the ability myth

Sample of How much to charge for Consulting

How much to charge: an introduction

How much you charge depends on why you’re doing it

Why do you care?

How much to charge

Method 1: a Number Plucked from the Air

Method 2: Charge Market Rate

Method 3: What you can afford to charge: the Magic Charge-Out Formula

Take the next steps!

About the author – Cindy Tonkin

Acknowledgments

Introduction

What this book is about

This book is about what I have come to understand about consulting and the consulting industry since I became a consultant in 1986. Not long, really, but long enough to discern some patterns.

You see, there’s a great mystery in the world of consulting, be it consultancy in law, accounting, management or garden design.

Why is it that there are so many charlatans or near-charlatans out there? How is that the mediocre can so easily rise to the top, and so many excellent consultants can so easily stay near the bottom? This mystery needs to be solved, so that we can understand what creates that success, and learn from it so we can have a piece too.

One of my touchstones is that if it’s possible at all, it’s possible for me—it’s just a question of how[i]. Now, I come from a background not of social privilege, but of perseverance and talent. And I thought that being good at what I did, everything I did, would help me to be successful at what I did. And to a certain extent that is true.

However, in the years of observing and participating in the lives of consultants in many disciplines, I have uncovered a serious flaw in my reasoning.

If you would like to know why it is that less-than-excellent consultants can be the most talked about, most requested and busiest consultants—and can even command the most money—then this is the book for you.

If you would like to be one of those most talked about, requested or busy people, then read on. You can be as good as you are at what you do, and still find that little gem which will accelerate you past where you are to the upper echelons of your profession.

Defining Mastery

Consulting Mastery looks at Master Consultants and how they do what they do — what makes them able to be as masterful as they are. Mastery, after all, is not about just being good at what you do: it’s about being beyond good. When you think about the meaning of mastery and compare it the meaning of competence, I think you’ll get a feel for what I mean (see Leonard 1987).

In the days of masters and apprentices, apprentices created ‘master pieces’ to prove their mastery. A master doesn’t just replicate or perform competently what they have been taught: a master creates something new.

Defining Master Consultants

So, Master Consultants are more than competent: they’re inspired. And I know many people reach those moments of brilliance. There are three key things that distinguish a Master Consultants. They:

• choose their clients

• deal more effectively with clients

• have clients who market for them.

If you’re interested in becoming a Master Consultant, or if you are one already and want to know how your colleagues work, this is the book for you. Let me give you some examples of what I mean.

Master Consultants choose their clients

Paul is a Master Consultant and accountant. He works only with clients he thinks will work for his portfolio of accounts, which are all in a single-industry specialty. He chooses clients who work for his business direction, who will teach him something, and with whom he enjoys working. Occasionally he passes up some well-paid work because it’s not on-track with his business objectives.

Read this book and work out why you would want to have such a business direction, how you can create it for yourself, who else is using it, and when you can become a Master Consultant yourself.

Master Consultants deal more effectively with clients

Once you have the right clients, though, it’s important to be able to deal with them effectively.

Robert is a good consultant. He deals with a specialised area of law which allows him to choose his clients more simply because they all require his specialty when they come to him. He chooses not to work with some clients because he thinks his personality doesn’t mesh with theirs. But what makes Robert merely a good consultant, and not a master, is that he doesn’t know how to systematically and consistently work with these hand-picked clients to be as effective as he can be. His style is a little haphazard. Some days he is brilliant in finding out what they want, in getting them to explain their needs effectively. Other days, nothing goes right. He hasn’t worked out what his clients really need, or their thinking styles — he can’t walk a mile in their shoes (or their brains), and this lets him down. Inconsistently. This book shows you the case for handling clients more effectively.

Master Consultants’ clients do their marketing for them

For consultants, the beauty of choosing the right clients, and then dealing effectively and consistently with them, is that the clients do the marketing for them.

Suzan met Bruce at a networking event, and Bruce invited her to speak to him about a few small projects they were doing in his marketing department. They clicked. Bruce’s company was on track for Suzan’s strategic direction, and they got on perfectly. When Bruce asked her to do more work within his department, working up a new corporate image for them, she was tickled pink. And then when he moved to his next company — same industry, more clout — Suzan was pleased to continue working with his old company as well as the new one. When Bruce’s boss suggested she could work within the sister company to create a new media campaign, she knew she was onto something. Suzan’s clients began marketing her to each other, and now she has a full-time assistant and some subcontractors who are happy to pick up extra work on occasion. Suzan’s clients continue to recommend her for work to other people within the industry.

Master Consultants choose the people they work with, deal with these people consistently and systematically, and are rewarded by loyal, consultant-promoting clients. Their marketing budget is low, their repeat clientele high and their job satisfaction enormous.

If you want to be a Master Consultant, read on.

Who this book is for

This book is for you if you already consult in some capacity.

Consultants: from beekeepers to plumbers and service providers in-between

Consultants give advice and sell services. This means you can consult in anything from beekeeping to plumbing, or any of the professions in between. Perhaps you haven't seen yourself as a consultant before, but if you sell information or services, that's exactly what you are, and this book is for you. This is not just about management consulting, nor just about consulting in a corporate environment, although that’s where my background is, so you will find many examples from there, but you will also find information from other professions.

A consultant is anyone who needs to take a brief from a client and deliver something. My first book for consultants, The Australian Consultant’s Guide, led to ’emails from vastly different types of consultants — plumbers, engineers, lawyers, medical specialists and, of course, management consultants and trainers. The skill sets, and the stories people tell about satisfying their clients, have much in common — dealing with people is what we all do.

Technically competent, self-driven service providers

This book is for you if you can already work effectively with clients. You have a natural ability to build rapport with them, get on with them and find out what they really need. You have pretty good people skills. You’ve been surviving in your client-centred occupation for a few years, and you’ve been doing well enough.

At the back of your mind though there’s an idea that you could be more predictable, more scientific and more reliable in how you do business and how you interact with your clients. You could get them to buy, take your ideas on board and see how they could improve with your help more smoothly.

This book is for you.

I presuppose that you are good at the technical side of what you do. You know what your specialty is, your expertise and who your market is. You spend a percentage of your current time and money keeping yourself professionally skilled. Your career is self-driven — you’re not waiting for someone else to draw your career map; you’re already navigating with it, or at least you know that a map would be a great idea, and you’re the only one who’ll be able to draw it.

You understand too, because you’ve experienced it, that different people work differently. When it comes to people, there’s no such thing as ‘one size fits all’. Horses for courses, if you will.

In Consulting Mastery you will find answers to the issues confronting all consultants when they work with clients. As consultants we can only get so far on natural ability. If you’re looking for the missing piece in your jigsaw puzzle of the big picture about your ability to consult, whether as an engineer, a graphic designer, an organisational consultant or a medical practitioner, Consulting Mastery is the book for you.

So you want to be a Master Consultant…

And so you can understand that Consulting Mastery is for consultants who are not happy to be just good, competent or average. It’s not for people who want to eke out an existence and do just an adequate job for their clients.

After reading this book, you’ll be more committed to your professional and personal development. You’ll be prepared to reflect on all the clients you have had and how and why you worked with them, not to mention every future client you have. You are curious to know the mechanics of consulting, how it is that Masters do what they do. How you too can join their ranks.

What you do is driven by you and maintained by you. You aren’t sitting back waiting for things to happen, or for someone to give you a leg up; you’re working out how to make it happen. No matter how busy you are.

What makes this book different

I have probably 30 books about consulting on my shelves. Each time I buy another I think it’s going to say what I’ve been noticing and feeling about consulting and doing business as a consultant. And it’s yet to happen. This book is different because it:

• looks at the successful consultants of this world, the Masters, and looks at how they got there, and where they put their effort

• highlights the patterns and habits of highly successful Master Consultants —not just my own consultancy (I’m still working it out like the rest!)’

• draws on the tools of NLP to model successful habits and transfer that success and excellence to other people

• comes from within the consulting industry, and is not cynical (always) about the ways in which consultants do business

• does not confine itself just to management consultancy, but looks at other professions, from design to agriculture to water conservation to image to accountancy — you name it, you’re consulting in it, and this book is about it!

Why consulting as an industry is important

There’s one other important reason why we have to start mastering consultancy. Many people still think of the world of work as this process: you apply for a job, go through interviews and get a job. You stay for a while (three months to fifty years, whatever suits), and then go through the process again. This is the world of work that we understand. We could competently guide our children through it. There’s only one catch: 55% of kids in primary school now will never have a full-time job!

According to current projections, 55% of kids in Australian primary schools now will never have a full-time job as adults (Morgan and Banks 1999). Australian Bureau of Statistics figures for 1960–80 show the Australian workforce was typically 75% full-time, 10% permanent part-time, with the balance of 15% made up of temporary or contract workers. By 1998, 55% of the workforce was in permanent employment with the balance on temporary or contract work. The figure for permanent employment is expected to reduce to 40%–45% by the year 2010.

Their jobs, indeed their entire careers, will be a series of contracts. In short, they’ll be consultants. The job application cycle is shorter, the process much more entrepreneurial, and it depends very much on the ability myth (see Section Two).

You owe it to your kids to understand the New World of working as a consultant.

And for some of us it’s not a generation away. We’re already experiencing it. Organisations are retrenching people and then hiring them back as consultants or contractors. This is not always just a sign of corporate incompetence; it’s part of a growing trend to keep organisations fluid and adaptable.

Nearly 10% of the Australian work force is self-employed contractors or consultants, working on a part-time or contract basis (Robinson 2000). These people, plus many on pseudo-full-time pay-as-you-go (PAYG) arrangements within smaller one- and two-person companies, need this book.

This trend is not just Australian, it’s worldwide. US statistics say that with the self-employed, the independent contractors, and the temps, more than 16% of the American workforce, are ‘free agents’ (read ‘consultants’) (Pink 1997) — that’s roughly 25 million people in the United States alone. A lot of consultants.

How Consulting Mastery is structured

So here’s how Consulting Mastery is structured. The first part observes who consultants are, and what makes a consultant a Master Consultant. It looks at why there are so many consultants, where they consult, the different types of consultant and what makes a good one.

It then discusses what Master Consultants know and really want to keep secret. At the core is the Ability myth — in short, the myth that ability is the most important thing for consultants to cultivate. Learn how to beat the myth based on what the masters do. Begin to understand how you can use the myth to make your consulting more successful, stable, meaningful or just better paid.

Throughout the book you’ll find practical how-to-do advice on lifting your consulting from wherever it may be now to the level of Mastery. These tools will help you to:

• know what the client really wants when you take a brief from them

• keep track of who clients are, and what’s important to them

• choose your ideal clients

• work with your clients thinking

• diagnose your own availability, affability and ability factors.

What this book doesn’t look at

Consulting Mastery presupposes that you already have all the logistics of your consulting business under control.

My first book, The Australian Consultants Guide. Setting up and running your own consulting business profitably and painlessly (Tonkin 1999), looks at how to get business (without cold calling), setting direction for a consultancy, setting up offices and a business, finding clients, getting advice…and staying sane. It provides all the practical advice the emerging consultant needs to set up a business. If this is where you’re up to in your career, go buy that book and read it first, and then visit my web site, http://www.consultantsconsultant.com.au where you can download sample excerpts from the book, along with updates, useful templates and a magic charge out formula spreadsheet to work out what to charge.

This book, Consulting Mastery, doesn’t deal with any of that material. As we’ve seen, Consulting Mastery looks at Master Consultants and how they do what they do. Enjoy.

Chapter 1

Who are these consultants anyway?

This part of Consulting Mastery explores the consulting industry and the consultants working in it. Lawyers, architects, management consultants, trainers, designers, image consultants, accountants — these different industries have one characteristic in common: they deal with clients in order to get their jobs done. So you might not even think of yourself as a consultant, but if you're an HR or finance manager, a small business owner who differentiates your business on service, or even a web page designer, this chapter may help you to work more effectively with your clients.

So this chapter defines