Consulting Network » Life http://www.consultingnetwork.co.in Fri, 13 Jan 2012 04:39:53 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Surviving the Consulting Life Series – Volume 2 http://www.consultingnetwork.co.in/surviving-the-consulting-life-series-%e2%80%93-volume-2/733/?utm_source=subscriber&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss http://www.consultingnetwork.co.in/surviving-the-consulting-life-series-%e2%80%93-volume-2/733/#comments Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:52:12 +0000 Mohit http://consultingnetwork.co.in/?p=733 Also read Surviving the Consulting Life Series – Volume 1

An integral part of being a consultant is having excellent interviewing skills, most of the times consultants depend on information provided by the client to come up with innovative solutions.
Getting the right information from the client is an art; Consultants who are good at it always stand out in a crowd. Though each conversation is unique, there are certain things that help. I’ve tried to list down a few good-to-do things while dealing with client personnel.

1. Setting the Meeting: When you are setting a meeting makes sure you specify the agenda and duration of the meeting. It is imperative that both parties are prepared for the meeting. First impression goes a long way in a consulting engagement. If you can set the right tempo with the client personnel, you instantaneously win half the battle.
2. Start with an Icebreaker: Compliment the weather, talk about the traffic etc. The process owners can often feel intimated during the interviews, it is important to make the process owner understand that you’re part of the solution and not the problem. If you can do this effectively, half the problem is solved.
3. Never say No to Coffee/Tea: This trick is especially relevant for Indian engagements and works well for meetings where you are allotted very little time. As the Indian tradition goes, no one can ask you to leave until you finish your coffee.
4. Carry a business card: As a consultant, you don’t want to be caught without you’re visiting card. The visiting card is you’re identity. It is always advisable to offer your business card at the start of the meeting. Usually you get a card in return, it gives you the contact details of person you’re interviewing, this comes in handy for setting up future meetings/clarifying things etc.
5. Questioning Process: Starting with an open ended question is usually a good idea if you’re interviewing a process owner for the first time, for example, start with a basic question like Can you explain the financial management process at your company?.
6. Funnel Interviewing: You may also follow the concept of funnel interviewing, two open ended questions followed by a close ended question and repeat.
7. Avoid asking double questions:  Avoid asking two questions at one go, for example how is my tie? How is the weather outside? In most cases, the other person would answer just one of the two questions.
8. Gauge Negativity: Always be alert to gauge negative signs, during an interview one often gets the signs where one knows the interviewee is agitated/uncomfortable. These are usually times to ease the conversation.
9. Silence: Sometimes, silence can be a consultant’s best friend, silence comes in handy, when you want the other person to give you more detail. Just look at the other person and remain silent. This gives the other individual a sign that you expect more; key here is to maintain the eye contact. Thing with silence is that it is not the duty of the person who has asked the question to break the silence.
10. Take Notes: It is always a good idea to rely on you’re notepad rather than you’re memory, the catch is, always ask before you stick out your pad and start scribbling away.

Keep watching this space for more insights on the consulting lifestyle

These were some of the key thing’s i’ve learned during my consulting life.Email you’re tips for aspiring consultants to mohit.kant@consultingnetwork.co.in and we would be happy to publish them in future Surviving the Consulting Life Series


Views expressed by Authors/Users/Subscribers etc on this website are completely their personal views and in no way reflect the views of their employers or any connected parties. Please view our detailed Terms & Conditions.

Aspiring Consultants can seek free & valuable advise by Clicking Here

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]]> http://www.consultingnetwork.co.in/surviving-the-consulting-life-series-%e2%80%93-volume-2/733/feed/ 0 Surviving the Consulting Life Series – Volume 1 http://www.consultingnetwork.co.in/surviving-the-consulting-life-series-%e2%80%93-volume-1/715/?utm_source=subscriber&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss http://www.consultingnetwork.co.in/surviving-the-consulting-life-series-%e2%80%93-volume-1/715/#comments Thu, 23 Apr 2009 07:03:08 +0000 Mohit http://consultingnetwork.co.in/?p=715 Consulting offers a rewarding yet challenging lifestyle, this article aimed at providing new and aspiring consultants with some useful tips to thrive in the highly competitive consulting environment

Tip 1: Network – Many times during engagements you land up in a situation where you have to become an expert in a key business area of an engagement in a matter of hours.

Quality and time are both of essence in consulting engagements. Many times it is much easier to work your way around problems by asking for help. This is where networking comes in handy. It is much easier to ask someone who has previously worked in similar areas to point you in the right direction.

For example, if you were working on an engagement which involved reviewing the inventory management process for a retail client. Before you can even begin the engagement you have to develop an understanding on the subject matter. The task is simplified if you can quickly call up your pal in the firm and gain an understanding on key areas and perhaps even get his research docmuments and cheatcheats.

Some of the best places to get to meet people are company cabs and events organized by HR/CSR teams in the consulting firms. Personally, i have made many friends during my Cab travels and CSR/HR events. Needless to say, these relationships have often come in handy during various time bound and quality driven engagements.

Tip 2: Research Skills – To be effective as a consultant, you need to have excellent research skills. Internet offers a vast pool of knowledge, a consultant with excellent research skills is always able to offer a deeper insight during team discussions.

Research skills also come in handy during client meetings and internal discussions. It is always a good idea to set up Google alerts for you’re area of expertise and be up to date with key developments in the industry.

Tip 3 Presentation and Excel Skills – As a consultant you’re days would fly by working on power point presentations and excel sheets. You need to master both PowerPoint and excel to be effective.

Tip 4 Review you’re work – Many times we fail to recheck and review our work before sending it client/manager/partner. It is important that as  a consultant you recheck your work( (as much as feasible) . It is always a good idea to get it reviewed by your colleagues for grammatical/formatting errors.

Tip 5 Speak up – Many new consultants think it’s a good idea to keep shut and learn during early years. Although from experience, I have learned that it always works to voice your opinion. Though I would advise that is always better to tone it down. For example instead of saying “I think this approach is wrong and right approach should be xyz” reword as “This approach seems to be interesting, however, I think approach xyz also has some merit”.

Tip 6 Track and Backup – Always backup your information and keep a track of all correspondence with the client. You don’t want to be caught in a situation where you cant back you’re recommendations with supporting documents such as you’re research and minutes of meeting documents with client.

Keep watching this space for more insights on the consulting lifestyle

These were some of the key thing’s i’ve learned during my consulting life.Email you’re tips for aspiring consultants to mohit.kant@consultingnetwork.co.in and we would be happy to publish them in future Surviving the Consulting Life Series


Views expressed by Authors/Users/Subscribers etc on this website are completely their personal views and in no way reflect the views of their employers or any connected parties. Please view our detailed Terms & Conditions.

Aspiring Consultants can seek free & valuable advise by Clicking Here

Related Posts

]]> http://www.consultingnetwork.co.in/surviving-the-consulting-life-series-%e2%80%93-volume-1/715/feed/ 2 The Consulting Life http://www.consultingnetwork.co.in/the-consulting-life/709/?utm_source=subscriber&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss http://www.consultingnetwork.co.in/the-consulting-life/709/#comments Thu, 23 Apr 2009 06:04:56 +0000 Rohit Jain http://consultingnetwork.co.in/?p=709 There are just as many myths about consulting as there are innumerous intriguing facts. One gets interesting view points when you talk to people connected to consulting in different ways: young aspirants, clients, consulting firms, seasoned consultants. This article attempts to look at consulting from eyes of various stakeholders and in the process understand this black hole a bit better.

Young Aspirant:

  • Consulting is about a glamorous role and a glamorous lifestyle
  • Consulting is about understanding management concepts and rocket science
    frameworks
  • Consulting is about working late nights and brain storming sessions
  • Consulting is about talking a lot of jargon and using terminologies that makes
    people sit up and notice
  • Consulting is about having knowledge far greater than clients
  • Consulting is about travel and meeting high profile business people.
  • Consulting is about high salary packages and an early retirement

Experienced Consultant:

  • As much as it’s about being a business generalist, you need deep specialism in some business aspect
  • Consulting is not about finance, technology, human resource etc. Its about business solutions, a particular function may be the trigger point of a problem. The solution often lies across functions and hence very strong business acumen is a perquisite.
  • Jargons and frameworks are only for internal use. Clients don’t understand them nor do they want to go through a tutorial from the consultant to understand them.
  • Top of the mind or even research based advice is not enough…you need to be
    willing to dirty your hands and show them just how it’s done. Implementation is just as important as strategizing.
  • Traveling is not always glamorous. It has its advantages and high but trust me it can get tiring physically and emotionally
  • No consulting is not just late nights…consultants have a life too

Client:

  • Being so close to the drama they sometimes need an outsider to look at things from a distance
  • Consultants have often gone through similar situations in different client situations and hence bring in value add of having seen and experienced similar situations before
  • Consultants are in business of doing constant research, creating point of views around some of these issues, testing them and further implementing them.
  • Some matters just require an independent view
  • They need deep content specialists who have spent their careers dealing with certain content areas in resolving some matters

Consulting Firms:

  • People with extremely high teaming abilities
  • Strong business acumen and business sense
  • Content specialism is some area or strong content academic background in case of a fresher
  • Match with basic skill sets required in consulting: Project Management, Business Development, People Management, Client Management and Content Management
  • People with high level of energy and adaptability to different situations
  • Comfort with ambiguity

Largely at entry and junior level firms look for folks who are bright and have skill set to team and learn quickly. At middle and senior level, entry level requirements become base requirement and they look more for value add around one or more of base consulting pillars: Client, Project, People and Business Management.

Fact that solving business problems requires various view points of business consulting firms often hire people with various skill sets and backgrounds. Successful firms are known to hire broader skill sets then just their functional domain area. Unfortunately many of the consultants forget that the biggest contribution they bring to the firm is their background and base knowledge. Instead many of them start to unlearn their backgrounds and wind themselves into frameworks created by firm. Not realizing that’s something the firm always had.


Views expressed by Authors/Users/Subscribers etc on this website are completely their personal views and in no way reflect the views of their employers or any connected parties. Please view our detailed Terms & Conditions.

Aspiring Consultants can seek free & valuable advise by Clicking Here

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