We created a new Women in Consulting member benefit late in 2009, the WIC Mentoring Program. Our successful six-week pilot run ended in mid-October.

The pilot included seven mentees who agreed to help us test the new program. These were WIC members who were interested in the program, but also ready to invest some time (and do some homework!) in order to apply the information we shared with them to help improve various aspects of their businesses.

Desiree Lehrbaum (Lumen Consulting) and I (J. G. Richards Consulting) worked together as a team to mentor the pilot group. We’ll also lead the spring session, which runs from March 24-April 28.

Desiree’s mentoring focus is on marketing and business development of mentees’ businesses. I lead the vision-setting, action planning and “optimizing your business operations” parts of the program.

Once again, the spring session will use a webinar format once a week for an hour, supplemented by a 30 minute 1:1 mentoring call between each mentee and each mentor in the final weeks of the program. We hope to hold our kickoff session as a group, in person.

So how did the pilot go?

I’ll let the Fall, 2009 mentees speak for themselves. Here’s some of their feedback, provided on the anonymous feedback survey we sent them soon after the pilot was over:

“The content was awesome! I can’t imagine it being better.” (This came from a participant during our follow-up call a month after the session ended).

“Not only did I learn specific skills, but I felt more focused on my business and more motivated to actually get past hurdles and get things done.

“A very practical way of approaching the steps of marketing for my business, and identifying and confronting issues holding me back.”

“The program was extremely well thought out, structured into a business development focus with actionable tips and tools to take my thinking to the next level.”

There are more participant quotes I could share, but I think that gives you enough information to know if this is a program that sounds right for you, too.

If you’re interested in the Spring, 2010 WIC Mentoring Program, send me an e-mail at jan@jgichardsresults.com to let me know. We’re finalizing the Spring 2010 Mentoring group soon.

You just never know what’s going to happen when you walk onto the field, metaphorically speaking.

You might end of the game having won or lost. And if you’re the victor, you may even produce a performance that’s one for the record books.

Jonathan Sanchez, a San Francisco Giants pitcher, pitched a no-hitter Friday night – the first for the San Francisco Giants since 1976 and the first at home since 1975.

Any superb performance, no matter what field of play in which it occurs, is a thing of beauty to be part of, and to observe.

These are some of the “how to get your own no-hitter” guidelines that occurred to me as we watched and listened to this rare feat on Friday, and listened to the extensive post-game analysis:

1. Prepare in every way you can, ahead of the game.

Do everything you can to be mentally, physically and emotionally ready for the work, the challenge at hand.

2. Learn from the masters.

Jonathan Sanchez had, apparently, listened a lot to Randy Johnson, a legendary pitcher in the final years of his career.

The odds are, he learned many things in those talks – mental, physical, and emotional preparation for the challenges he might face as a pitcher.

3. Be open to the moment.

Once you’ve prepared, in all ways, then you have to be open to whatever may happen. You can’t control what will happen…you just have to be ready to freely, fully respond.

4. Be in the moment.

Respond to what is happening now, right now. You’re not in the next inning, or the last one. You’re not in the next game. You have no business worrying, at this moment, about the full season, your career, or dreaming about the next vacation.

“Be here now.”

5. If someone has a no-hitter going and it’s a guy, LEAVE HIM ALONE.

And if the “no-hitter” is underway in a different field, and it’s a woman who has excellence unfolding, take your cues from her about what would help.

On Friday night, no one would talk to, look directly at, or go ANYWHERE NEAR Jonathan Sanchez when it was the Giants’ turn at bat, and they were in the dugout.

The dynamic was fascinating to me, never having seen a no-hitter before. My husband and son knew right away what was going on. The commentators, one a former major league pitcher himself, talked at length about not wanting to be the one to “jinx” the streak, or break Sanchez’ concentration.

6. It takes a team.

For Jonathan Sanchez, it took many players and advisors to create the nearly perfect game, and no-hitter.

It took a catcher, Eli Whiteside, with whom Sanchez had great communication, and in whom he had great trust to make the right calls about which pitch to throw. It also took Whiteside’s calming presence to keep Sanchez focused at crucial times.

It took a patient and persistent pitching coach, Dave Righetti, to coach Sanchez for days or weeks to adjust his pitching mechanics, bringing out his full potential, at that time, in that moment, under the pressure of history in the making.

It took an outfielder, Aaron Rowand, who could catch a ball that might have turned into a double, a triple – but certainly would have taken the no-hitter down if he had missed the ball at the wall.

It took a manager, Bruce Bochy, who believed in the pitcher to do the job.

7. It takes serendipity, too.

It took a few serendipitous changes of plan for the unlikely combination of Sanchez and Whiteside to be working together on this night. Veteran and legendary pitcher, Randy Johnson, who was scheduled to pitch that night but could not. And catcher, Bengie Molina, was scheduled to catch but his wife went into labor, so he, too, was gone from the line-up.

8. It takes a personal support system.

The final detail that “made the moment”?

Sanchez’ father flew in to see his son for the first time as a major league starting pitcher. We’ll never know what impact that had on Sanchez’ no-hitter, but it was a beautiful experience for them to share, and to observe.

9. It takes getting out of your own way.

All the raw talent and diligent preparation can be there. But you also have to get out of your own way to let success happen.

If you start questioning your luck, ability, or belief that it can happen while the action is underway and the opportunity for success is at hand, that might be all it takes for the potential to become a would-be, should-be, could-have-been-if-only story.

There’s more, certainly, that goes into creating excellence.

If not, no-hitters and their counterparts in each of our own fields of work would be more common.

For now, these are just a few places to start if you’re going for your own “no-hitter.”

What ideas would you add about how to produce a “no-hitter” in your field?

WIC Members, are you interested in:

- Mentoring other WIC members as they grow in their practices?

- Being mentored by WIC members from whom you can learn and improve?

We’re creating a new member benefit, the WIC Mentoring Program, and we’re starting a pilot program. This new program falls within my area of responsibility as a 2009 WIC Board member.

The pilot will be a six-week mentoring program where groups convene once a week by phone. Each group will be focused on one area of business, such as marketing, sales, operations, or other areas of interest.

Each group will be led by a mentor who is a specialist in that field.

Here’s our plan for the pilot program:

- We’ll create three or four mentoring groups of approximately 6 people. They will meet as a group, by phone, once a week for an hour. Each group will meet for six weeks.
- Each group will be led by one Mentor and will focus on a specific area of being a consultant and managing a consulting business.
- If we have more Mentees interested in a subject area than we have mentoring spaces available, we’ll create a waiting list. The people on the waiting list will go on the list (in the order in which their names were received) for the second round of the Mentoring Program, which we anticipate will happen this fall.

Here’s more information, if this pilot program sounds interesting to you:

Mentors:

1. We need WIC members who are successful, experienced managers of group processes, and who are comfortable leading a group mentoring process by phone.
2. We need Mentors in some of these areas, where the Mentee interest is enough to convene one of our first pilot groups:
- Starting a consulting business
- Marketing
- Sales
- Social media
- Financial management
- Operations
- Life balance
- Other (please explain the area where you think mentoring is needed)

3. We’ll match Mentors and approximately six Mentees to form pilot groups.

4. I’m creating a few basic guidelines and tools for our Mentors, working with several WIC members who are personal coaches.

5. We’ll refine the Mentoring Program based on pilot program feedback, before we expand it further this fall.

Mentees:

1. We need WIC members who are interested in being part of a group mentoring process that meets by phone once a week for six weeks.

2. We don’t know in which of these areas interest will be high enough for us to create a pilot program, but these are the ones for which we anticipate WIC members may be most interested in receiving mentoring:
- Starting a consulting business
- Marketing
- Sales
- Social media
- Financial management
- Operations
- Life balance
- Other (please explain the area where you think mentoring is needed)

3. We’ll match Mentors and approximately six Mentees to form pilot groups.

4. I’m creating a few basic guidelines and tools for our Mentors, working with several WIC members who are personal coaches.

5. We’ll refine the Mentoring Program based on pilot program feedback, before we expand it further this fall.

Here’s the next step, if you’re interested in helping with this pilot program:

If you’re interested in being a Mentor, e-mail me and let me know:
- What experience you have leading group processes, and if you have any experience leading mentoring or other group processes by phone.
- What group you’d be interested in leading.
- If you can be a Mentor in more than one area, give me your first and second choices.
- What week/s in July and August, if any, you will be unavailable to be part of the program.

If you’re interested in being a Mentee, e-mail me and let me know:
- What group you’d interested in joining.
- What week/s in July and August, if any, you will be unavailable to be part of the program.

If you’re interested in the program and have questions, please let me know.

Thanks, everyone,

Jan
—–
Jan Richards
J. G. Richards Consulting
Turning Business Goals into Great Results

jan@jgrichardsresults.com
www.jgrichardsresults.com

Are you in the market for a great business read or a few?

Here are the ones included in the bounteous basket of books one lucky bidder got at the April WIC Silent Auction. Check them out!

• The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth by Fred Reichheld
• The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki
• Million Dollar Consulting and The Global Consultant, both by Alan Weiss
• Marketing Your Career: Positioning, Packaging and Promoting Yourself For Success by WIC’s Linda Popky
• Outliers and Blink, both by Malcolm Gladwell
• The Art of Possibility: Transforming Personal and Professional Life, by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander
• Market This!: An Effective 90-Day Marketing Tool by WIC’s Sherry Prescott-Willis
• The One Minute Organizer Plain & Simple by Donna Smallin

There was a DVD in the basket that you may want to catch, too: How to Make Your Business More Successful by Michael Levin.

High quality listening is always important.

It’s even more important when people are stressed, as so many people are in the current economy. People are distracted, and getting more so. Listening skills are tested, sometimes to the breaking point.

In a recent brief exchange on Twitter, one writer lamented the loss of good listening skills. Here was his quick comment:

(Large coffee purveyor to remain unnamed here), “why oh why do you always insist on putting whipped cream on my drinks, even though I explicitly say no whipped cream?”

I laughed to myself, and had to respond, based on my own experience.

“Like so many things, gets down to whether they’re doing real or artificial listening.” Then I added in the 140-character limitations of Twitter-speak, “There’s nothing like deeply artificial listening to set off entire chain of events that leads nowhere grand. For co. or cust.”

He wrote back, “I’ve never heard of ‘artificial listening,’ but I like the phrase, and it’s exactly what they were doing.”

I closed with the thought that I’d love to improve the circumstance if I could. He wrapped with, “me too. Until then, I guess I’ll get whipped cream on all my coffees. ”

You, too, know those daily experiences as a customer, “Why can’t they just listen – really listen to me?”

And so, some – well, maybe all of us – could use a listening skills tune-up.

If that’s true for you (don’t rely on your own judgment on this one. Ask a friend or family member or two who will be honest with you), here are a few resources you can use:

Active Listening
Empathic Approach, Listening First Aid

What resources can you add to help people improve their listening skills?

There’s a lot riding on it.

As consultants, we’re leaders and influencers.

And we help our clients, as leaders, to be at their best.

What, then, is the best leadership style?

It depends.

Leadership, to be great, must be right for the time, the goals of the team or organization, the resources that can be rounded up for the cause, and for the followers. And, of course, the leadership style that’s effective must work for the leader, him or herself.

Sometimes a forceful, directive leadership style works best.

Sometimes a calming presence is the strongest way to lead a team or organization, especially one that’s under great duress.

At other times, a coaching style, or a collaborative style is most right for the times an organization is moving through to reach something better than the times they’re in.

Think back on your own leadership experiences:

- When have you been most effective as a leader?
- What leadership style did you use at that time, in that place, with that group?
- What made your style effective, in that case?
- Is the leadership style you used the style you planned to use, or did something in that experience force you to change your style in order for you to be successful leading that team?
- What did you learn from that experience?
- How did you use what you learned to improve your leadership, or your advice to a client in future circumstances?

In times like these, we’re tested as consultants in almost every way. Here are just three:

- What clients want or need may be even harder to define than it normally is – or it may be constantly changing.

- Despite budgets that are tighter, requirements may not be much lighter than in more lavishly-funded times.

- While we work hard to help clients stay focused and achieving important goals, our own focus may be regularly challenged in large and small ways.

One blog I’ve noticed recently, Lateral Action, provides creative inspiration and ideas with a very practical – and productive – edge. Check it out. Two recent posts may be especially helpful, The Ultimate Productivity Toolbox for Creative People and The Top 10 Social Networks for Creative People.

In Parts I and II of “Should I Become a Consultant,” the focus was on already-established professionals who were contemplating making the jump from corporate to consulting. If you’re a new college grad, the question takes on a whole new dimension.

I recently asked the WIC Community List members the following question, “I’m a new college graduate, and I’m thinking of going into consulting. What would you advise?” About 20 WIC consultants replied. Here’s a summary of their advice themes.

• Figure out the work about which you’re truly passionate and competent. You need to know this to drive your consulting practice.
• Get experience, mentoring, and contacts in that field.
• It’s hard to consult if you’ve never worked in the area you’re interested in pursuing. Most people in consulting have developed expertise by working for someone else in the field for a while.
• Few consulting firms hire new B.S. grads.
• Large firms generally hire MBAs. Bear in mind that those roles typically require almost fulltime travel. Most people find that pattern sustainable for no more than five years.
• Smaller regional firms may have opportunities for people with new bachelor’s degrees, but those positions are typically filled through college recruiting cycles in the fall and winter.
• Hold off on diving into consulting for a few years. As a consultant, you lose the opportunity to learn and collaborate with peers within your company or department. And this is a valuable part of the learning process, especially in your first years in a field.
• Mentoring is tremendously important. Take advantage of every opportunity to be mentored, especially in the early years of a career when there’s so much to learn.
• Consulting can be a rich and rewarding career. If you enjoy helping others, working with others, challenges, change, learning, teaching, communicating, being creative, and being an entrepreneur, this may be the right choice for you.

In Part I of “Should I Become a Consultant,” I wrote about understanding what a consultant’s life really involves, exploring the waters a bit, answering the question about whether the entrepreneurial life is right for you, and researching the field that interests you, whether its marketing, management, sales, or some other field.

Next, research specific areas and ways you can help clients.

What Problems Can You Solve Well?
Think about the types of problems you want to solve, the organizations and people with whom you want to work, and the issues you have successfully solved for an organization in the past. What challenges come to mind first? What successes come to mind quickly?

Cite some specific examples to illustrate your problem-solving history. Describe them during your informational interviews with consultants currently working in your field of choice. See if how you like to work and what you like to do is a fit with that area.

Who Needs Help with this Type of Problem?
As a first fast pass at research into your market, search Monster.com or other major job hunting sites with a few appropriate key words. See who’s hiring for those types of skills. This gives you a sense of the best markets for your services, either as an employee or as a consultant. If available, a business research tool, such as Hoover’s, can provide additional insight.

Would You Really Rather Be an Employee?
During your research, as is sometimes the case, you may find the perfect job. Pursuing one direction — consulting — can lead to full-time opportunities you might otherwise have missed or roles that you didn’t know existed. For example, you might start a career in marketing and then research the possibility of consulting, which then leads to an opportunity you really want, a full-time job in a larger company, working in corporate social responsibility.

However you resolve your curiosity or drive toward consulting, do your research first. A lot of questions will be answered in that process, which will help you decide whether or not to move further down the consulting career path.

With the current economic uncertainty, more and more people will likely be contemplating a consulting career. Odds are, if you’re reading this blog, either you know someone who’s entertaining the idea or you, yourself, are considering making the move.

So, what’s the first step in deciding to become a consultant? Start asking questions. Understand what’s involved. Explore your options. Some may think it’s easy to start, manage, and grow a consulting practice, while others may be frightened by the prospect. The only way you’ll know if it’s right for you is to do your research.

WIC members have a lot of experience in this area, so I thought I’d summarize what a few of them had to say. Hopefully, these ideas will help you answer the question.

Understand a Consultant’s Work Life
The consulting life is a good work life, in many ways. You have the opportunity to help people solve problems and achieve business results much greater than they initially thought possible. Conversely, you may not get the chance to see things play out, once you’ve made your recommendations and handed off the project. Or you may not be able to help execute the plan without being asked first.

Many of the benefits are clear—flexible hours, removed from corporate politics, and creative freedom to name a few. But what’s often not so readily apparent is that being a consultant takes A LOT of work behind the scenes.

A consultant, unless employed by a larger firm, is a small business owner, an entrepreneur, who must devote a lot of time to business development in order to thrive. The most successful consultants make it look effortless, but they’re always marketing in some way. Experienced consultants say you should expect to spend 20 percent of your time each week developing new business with new clients, a critical step to ensure continued success as the economy ebbs and flows.

Running and growing the business are satisfying, if you’re an entrepreneur at heart. But some people don’t like that part of consulting. Many people don’t realize just how much time a consultant spends running the business. In addition, we’re often re-inventing our businesses based on changes in our interests and the marketplace. That means “re-starting,” in some fashion, throughout the life of the business.

Test the Waters First
It’s important to test your entrepreneurial interest before going too far down the consultant path. Study a few issues of Inc., Fortune Small Business, or Fast Company. All of these publications address small business management quite well, as do a number of websites. Look at Fortune’s small business case studies in “Ask the Experts.” If the problems they’re solving aren’t interesting, it’s a sign you may be missing the entrepreneurial DNA that’s an important part of consulting success.

If you pass the “Am I really an entrepreneur?” test, the next step is to do your homework about the field that interests you. Select a few consultants who work in that field and approach them for informational interviews.

To find these people, search the WIC consultant database or social networking sites, such as LinkedIn. Identify several consultants with skills like yours. Contact them and request a little time in person or on the phone to learn more. Ask about their specific experience and career path, and seek advice about what you need to learn and do to prepare for a consulting career in their field.

To search for consultants in WIC’s database, use the advanced search feature (coming soon) on the Women in Consulting website.

Do Some Background Prep
Think about the types of problems you want to solve, the organizations and people with whom you want to work, and the issues you have successfully solved for an organization in the past. What challenges come to mind first? Marketing? Management? Business process? Sales? Project management? Fund raising? Infrastructure or systems?

As a consultant, you concentrate your business and marketing efforts in one specific area, not all possible avenues. It’s important—and good business—to specialize, because it makes it easy for the right clients (your target audience) to find you.

If you’re to be a successful consultant over the long-term, you have to be clear about who you are, and what you do to make your clients (organizations or individuals) more successful.