It’s probably safe to say that most of us would like to boost our incomes. How do you do that without burning  yourself out? How do you break the income barrier, especially when the economy is poor, unemployment is high, there are many consultants competing for the same business, and clients are trimming budgets?

Perhaps you’ve wondered why some consultants maintain high incomes in good times and challenging ones.

Take this simple quiz developed by Linda Popky, a million-dollar consultant and president of Leverage2Market Associates, to find out if you’re working hard or working smart.

1. Do you feel the only way to increase revenue is to bill more hours? __ Yes __No
2. Do you feel the need to justify to clients the time you are putting into their projects? __ Yes __No
3. Do you feel you are frequently treated like a vendor or hired hand rather than a partner to your client? __ Yes __No
4. Do your clients tell you they love your proposal but need to get final sign-off from higher authorities before proceeding? __ Yes __No
5. Do you find yourself competing for business on the basis of price? __ Yes __No
6. Do you work directly with decision makers who have the ability to write a check or issue a purchase order for your work? __ Yes __No
7. Can you clearly articulate why the client should hire you in terms of their key business objectives? __ Yes __No
8. Are you clear on why the client should hire you vs. find other ways to solve their problem? __ Yes __No
9. Can you specifically state the metrics the client will use to measure the success of the project? __ Yes __No
10. Can your client state the impact of the project on their organization, including customers, suppliers, employees, and other stakeholders? __ Yes __No

For questions 1-5, give yourself 10 points for every No answer, 0 points for Yes answers.

For questions 6-10, give yourself 10 points for every Yes answer, 0 points for No answers.

Total up your score.

Less than 50 points: You may be working hard, but you’re not necessarily working smart. Look for opportunities to take your business to the next level.

50-60 points: You’re on the right track, but wouldn’t you like to increase your revenues in line with the value you’re creating for clients?

70-80 points: You’re doing a great job, but there’s opportunity to build your business by thinking more strategically about the value you provide.

90-100 points: You understand the importance of selling on value and you’re always looking for best practices to help you do even better.

Whatever your score, join Linda for the upcoming WIC workshop, “Earn What You’re Worth: Value-Based Pricing” on Tuesday September 20. She’ll discuss ways you can use value-based pricing to get the fees you deserve for the value you provide to clients. Linda will focus on the methodologies of million-dollar consultant Alan Weiss, author of more than 40 books on consulting, including Value-Based Fees: How to Charge — and Get — What You’re Worth — A Guide for Serious Consultants.

Register by September 6 to get the early-bird rate.

By: Michelle Gouldsberry

Recently I upgraded my Office software to Office 2010 when I got a new laptop. Little did I know that Office 2010 isn’t totally backward compatible with previous versions of Office. It caused major headaches when creating a PowerPoint presentation that my client and I were both going to be editing: formats were lost, charts needed to be reworked, etc. It was a MAJOR headache and caused the client a lot of extra work…not my favorite thing!

Going forward I will definitely be integrating some things into my project launch activities to avoid such tech compatibility problems in the future. I’ll be sure to ask what version of Office my contacts at the client site are using, do some test runs early on to identify any issues, and take the necessary steps on my end to avoid cause client frustration. That should help avoid such a situation in the future.

This got me thinking about other types of compatibility that are important to assess with new clients. Below is a list of things I thought of to cover in launch meetings with my clients to ensure smooth sailing throughout our work together:

• Meetings: In person or on the phone?
• Project updates: How often? What format? How detailed?
• Billing: Payment terms? Who to contact with questions: A/P or my contact? Require PO # on invoices?
• Reports: How detailed? What format? Style requirements (fonts, colors, templates)?

By discussing these things upfront, you can not only avoid irritating glitches in the project, but also show a level of maturity and sophistication as a consultant which shows that you have a wealth of experience and are very customer-oriented and willing to adjust your approach to whatever works best for the client.

What items are missing from this list? What compatibility issues have you encountered with clients and how have you overcome them/avoided them moving forward?

By: Jen Berkley Jackson

Best Practice lessons from the employment arena
Companies usually put a lot more effort into hiring employees than they do into hiring consultants. Larger companies actually have a standard selection process for hiring employees – this includes gates like:

– a completed application and reference checks,
– 2 levels of management signing off on the new hire,
– the same people interview all candidates for a given position,
– standard interview reviews and feedback

These are all examples of common elements of a standard employment process that actually works.

Some of the often ignored lessons from these selection processes should be addressed in marketing your business as a consultant. Think about the ways companies select employees based on that theoretical “cultural fit”:

• Does the consultant fit the pace of the organization?
• Does their experience mirror the work to be completed in today’s project?
• Is the consultant someone who has shown that they can flex on a dime as changes occur in the business?
• Does the consultant’s communication style fit the organization (or at least the manager in question)? – Think about method, frequency, status updates, etc.

What are the subtle issues that make someone want to work with you? The better handle you have on these perceptual issues, the easier your service is to sell to this client.

We’ll be addressing more on this topic in other blogs.

By: Deb McClanahan

We all know that email is a business essential these days…how else could we, as consultants, work 24/7?   ;o)

Email, however, is also a huge challenge to our productivity.  How many times have you gone to check email just to see if you had received one important email, only to ‘wake up’ an hour later wondering where the time had gone?

Some of you, like me, may remember the days before email was ubiquitous…when people sent mail, called one another, or walked around the cubicle to have an in person conversation.  Or for those of you in consulting, those were the days when you actually were allowed by clients to have a MEETING to present proposals vs. being encouraged to ‘just email it and I’ll get back to you’…ahhh, those were the days!

I’ll never forget something that Pierre Khawand of People-on-the-Go shared in a productivity class he does: you don’t reach your peak of productivity until you have been working on a task for at least 45 minutes…UNINTERRUPTED.  That may sound easy, but I challenge you to go a whole 45 minutes today on a task that you need to get done: writing an article, writing a report for a client, revamping your marketing material, filing, etc.  If you’re like me, you’ll hear the siren call of your email around 20 minutes, especially if there is something you are waiting on or are in a crucial stage of a client project.

But here’s the deal: ANYthing can survive for 45 minutes without your attention—even the most demanding client.  And the benefits are huge…it will take you MUCH less time to get things done once you give them the benefit of your focus.

One possible breakdown of this strategy is when what you are working on requires you to send an email:  EEKS!  That will challenge your new approach, but you go to your email, SEND the email and close your email program to go back to finish your 45 minutes.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not perfect at implementing this simple, yet ingenious approach.  But when I focus on doing this, amazing things happen.  I cross things (BIG things) off of my to do list.  I feel more focused.  And NOTHING bad happens…

Your challenge: try to slot out just one 45 minute work session for yourself today.  And then try for two tomorrow.  Let us know how it works for you.

And for those of you who are already masterful time managers and have control over your email vs. email controlling you: let us know the benefits you have experienced from your efforts!

Note: I felt the urge to check email TWICE while writing this blog, but resisted…and got it done in half the time I thought it would take…victory!

By: Jen Berkley Jackson

If you’ve ever been confused about branding your small business, here’s a simple way to think about it:

Branding Is Your Business’s Fashion Statement.

Here’s how branding is like fashion:

When you’re picking out a fashionable outfit for a night out on the town, there are several angles to consider, like:

1. Your fashion style. Do you consider yourself a sporty dresser, vintage, a bohemian, urban, or a little bit rock and roll? A trendsetter or more classic style? Your central fashion theme figures into your wardrobe.

2. Your personal taste and comfort. Dressing in a style that you like and wearing clothes that you resonate with and that make you feel fabulous.

3. The people you’ll be hanging out with. You want to make sure you’re not under-dressed for the company you’re keeping.

4. Your outfit’s effect on that special someone. If you’re dressing to impress, then you’ll think about who you want to impress and what they like.

5. The climate. You want to pick the right outfit for the weather, so you’re not too hot or too cold.

6. The current “ins” and “outs”. You want to look appropriate for the season’s trends — like you’re keeping up with the times instead of stuck in the past.

7. Matching the pieces of your outfit to one another. You want to make sure your outfit goes together — from head to toe — and that your look is consistent.

You have to watch for all 7 of these angles in your brand as well, by making sure that your brand:

1. Has a strong style and central theme. Your brand has a central theme that’s a lot like a fashion style — your BrandStyle. Once you know this central theme and core message of your brand, you’ll be able to easily style all of your materials to that style to make a clearer statement that’s instantly recognizable.

2. Looks like you, is an accurate reflection of who you really are and makes you feel fabulous. As your vision and mission changes, the appropriateness of your brand may also change. And, you want to make sure that your brand is an accurate reflection of your personality as well.

3. Looks appropriate among your competition. You can certainly make sure that your brand looks better than the competition’s, but you don’t ever want to have the frumpiest brand in your field. Your brand is one of the ways that your customers will compare you against your competition, and you want to make sure that it helps you come out on top.

4. Attracts your ideal clients and inspires them to hire you to work with them on perfect projects. The way to do this is to design your materials with your message and your clients’ visual tastes in mind — so they will be able to instantly see how amazing you really are. This makes you unforgettable and irresistible.

5. Is appropriate for the climate. You don’t have to design your brand to go with the weather, but there are other climate considerations: the social climate and economical climate can influence a brand. Make sure your brand’s message and design keep up with changes in these areas.

6. Keeps current with the trends. This doesn’t mean that your brand should be trendy, but it should look modern and updated. This means revisiting your brand once a year with a designer to evaluate how it looks in regards to graphic trends and trends in your industry.

7. Maintains consistency of message and of design throughout all of your materials. This doesn’t mean that every piece has to look exactly the same — that can become repetitive and dull. But it does mean that your materials should all appear to go together and should build on one another to increase their effectiveness.

If you think about your brand as your business’s fashion statement, then it becomes fun again!

By: Erin Ferree

One of the questions I get most often is some variation of, “I just started my business. Don’t I need to create a brand before I can tell anyone about it?”

And you’d expect me to say, “Of course. You must run out immediately and design a brand this instant or else!” After all, I’m a brand designer.

But, I don’t actually believe that. Shocking, isn’t it?

What I do believe is that branding too soon can hurt a business in its beginning stages. Why?

• Good branding isn’t cheap. Why spend money unless you’re sure that it will turn out to be a solid investment?
• Branding isn’t just about design. There’s a lot of backstory about your business that you have to nail down before you get to design your brand. You have to know what your business is all about, what its personality is like, who your customers are and what they want, and what makes you different from others in your field. If you’ve just started your business, there’s a good chance that you have some theories about some of these – but you shouldn’t commit to them until you’ve used them in practice.
• Start-ups are subject to lots of change. As your business gets going, you’re likely to make some changes and modifications to your Grand-Master Plan (you know, that big business idea that you had in the first place!) If you design a brand now, it may not be valid by the time you really settle in to your business.
• You might not know your business well enough to get it right. After all, your business is just a “gleam in your eye” – an idea that looks good on paper. Try it out on some real people, to see how your delivery works and what results your clients really get (they may surprise you!)

That said, if you are clear on your business idea and you’re really ready to step out in a big way with your brand, then don’t let me hold you back. Take the next step that you feel is right for you so that you can go, go, go with your business!

By: Erin Ferree

Recently, I had a big ‘personal event’ in my life (I got married!) and for the week before and the week after the wedding, it was difficult to stay as focused on my work and my clients as I normally am.

I had every intention of working on client projects right up until the day before the wedding and to return to work the following Tuesday since we weren’t taking our honeymoon right away—I wanted to minimize the impact of my marriage on my clients. However the clients I had active projects with knew about my upcoming wedding and insisted on making adjustments to their expectations, meeting schedules, etc. so I could actually take off a few extra days to focus on entertaining out of town family, wedding prep details, etc.

What I hadn’t realized is the ‘stock value’ I had earned with these clients through the quality work I have done for them, and delivering on everything I committed to. I was thrilled to realize that I had earned some leeway and didn’t have to put myself and my family out unnecessarily from my concern of neglecting my customers due to personal issues.

I think that we all forget that we are constantly building up our own personal ‘stock value’ with our customers, especially those that we have repeat projects with. We run and run to meet their needs and anticipate needs they may have…we apologize profusely when there are little bumps in the road, even the ones we have no control over…we try to protect them from all of the obstacles that come up in the course of a project…we tend to move our previously calendared meetings to accommodate their calendars. All of these things constitute great client management and customer service…however, it also creates stress.

It’s important to also stop sometimes to acknowledge that you have built up credibility and trust with your clients. Knowing that you have ‘stock value’ with your customers will ensure that you come from a strong, confident place when you DO have to deliver disappointing news re: missed deadlines or problems that occur in the work you do with your clients. Or when you need to adjust the project schedule to accommodate personal emergencies (sick kids, ailing parents, technology issues, etc.).

In the past, I’ve partnered with other consultants who were constantly worrying about disappointing their customers and sometimes it felt like we were running around with our heads cut off vs. calmly, professionally managing the project to meet our goals. I believe that customers can smell that ‘nervousness’ a mile away. There WILL be problems or unexpected developments that arise in the course of a project and I think that it’s more impressive to address those with confidence and assure your customer that you can help them navigate the recovery process vs. apologize profusely with your tail tucked between your legs. It’s part of building up your credibility and professionalism in the eyes of your customer.

Your customers WANT to see you as a trusted partner vs. a ‘hired hand’ and the way that you handle the obstacles that may come up in your work with them can help reinforce that perception.

I encourage you to shift your thinking about the way you approach your work with your customers and let yourself acknowledge the ‘stock value’ you have gained with some of them…as a result, you may be able to alleviate some stress in your day-to-day client work…and that’s a good thing!

By: Jen Berkley Jackson

As my term as president of Women in Consulting comes to an end this week, I find myself reflecting on all the incredible experiences I’ve had throughout the last two years.

We celebrated our 10th anniversary in 2008 with not only a gala event, but a new look & feel for our website and a new blog. In 2009, we expanded our social media presence to include LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

We expanded the reach of our organization, with strong and vibrant satellite groups in San Francisco, the East Bay and North Bay/Marin, as well as the South Bay and Peninsula.

We created a mentoring program and offered workshops to help consultants grow profitable businesses.

We expanded our Leaders Network to provide a venue for seasoned consultants to meet and exchange thoughts and ideas with their peers.

We expanded our profile in the community–partnering with a wide variety of organizations and associations, including the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association, the Association for Strategic Alliance Professionals (ASAP), FountainBlue, Astia, IMC NorCal, NorCAL BMA, and others.

We provided benefits to our community from groups like People OntheGo, SD Forum, Cubes & Crayons, Vertical Response, MarketingProfs, Egnite, WeMeUs, Zoomerang, and PR Newswire. And we continued our partnership with Million Dollar Consultant Alan Weiss and the Society for the Advancement of Consulting.

We held silent auctions to benefit Girls for a Change and collected donations for the Georgia Travis Center in San Jose.

Not only did we offer a top-notch set of outstanding speakers for monthly programs, but we launched teleseminar and webinar programs as well.

We continued to offer outstanding value to members and affiliates through our renowned mail list and other resources.

In fact, through the worst recession in nearly a century, we grew our community to be nearly 500 strong–with our ranks of full members swelling by nearly 40% this year.

And we did all this as an entirely volunteer run organization, with over 100 consultants taking on pro bono consulting roles for WIC.

Why, in a time when many organizations are struggling or even closing their doors, is WIC thriving? Because in addition to everything I’ve already mentioned, one of the most important things WIC provides is a strong, collaborative community–a place where consultants can come to learn as well as to socialize, to build their businesses as well as to connect with colleagues, to share experiences and develop referrals, to grow as individuals as well as part of a bigger whole.

For all of these reasons I feel extremely lucky to have had the privilege of guiding this organization over the last two years. And I feel extremely confident in turning over the reigns to the extremely capable and passionate Avery Horzewski to take WIC to the next level.

Thank you to all of you who are a part of WIC. WIC is community and I am grateful for the opportunity to work with each and every one of you. Here’s to more wonderful WIC happenings in 2010 and beyond!

By: Linda Popky

I ran across this newsletter article (Proposal or Contract? February 2005) on the Win Without Pitching site a few weeks back. I remembered then that someone had told me to check out WWP a while ago. In the constant overflow of information running across my radar, I had forgotten to do so. I encourage you all to not make that same mistake and to check out not only this article, but the entire Web site. WWP is oriented towards designers and ad agencies, but the principles advised in the founder’s (Blair Ennis) philosophy are highly applicable to quite a few consultancies. You can sign up for his newsletters, follow him on Twitter (@blairenns) or sign up for his RSS feed. Quite a few juicy morsels of consulting genius.

The very word ‘proposal’ raises the blood pressure of many a consultant or sales executive. Even if your firm is smart enough to have created a proposal template (and even smarter if you’ve got an online version that your client can fill out, instead of you!), it’s rare that a template will cover all bases of a project. This is particularly true when there are quantifiable deliverables expected at completion of a project such as a strategic marketing plan, a web site or printed brochures.

In my own growth process as a business owner, I have spent countless hours putting together detailed proposals for clients who probably had no intention of hiring my firm. I even suspect that, in a few cases, my proposal was used to drive down the prices of other firms. I’ve learned to streamline our process quite a bit since I first started. I make sure clients know that our pricing information is confidential information. I’ve gotten better (and braver) about qualifying clients on the phone to make sure they’re not tire kickers or uninformed enough to think that $1000 for a corporate identity package is a reasonable fee, etc. I’ve also modified my proposal form that I use to get initial budget feedback from/to clients. Even with that, I still found myself spending several hours putting together numbers when I actually had no real idea whether the client perceived enough value in our services to commit. And in recent years, I began to have a sneaking suspicion that there was probably a still better way, but I wasn’t sure what it was.

And then I found the WWP article. Eureka! It takes a little bit of guts, but not that much. And it is pure genius. I highly encourage you all to read the actual article (not that long and includes a simple outline for what a proposal should contain), but I’ll summarize it here:

1/ Typical proposal situation: great meeting, enthusiastic client who requests a proposal.

2/ You promptly spend significant time putting it together and email it over.

3/ The client is never heard from again. Your emails and phone calls are ignored.

4/ You are left scratching your head as to what happened and what you did wrong.
There is only one thing you did wrong: you wrote up the proposal.
Here’s where WWP’s genius comes in: don’t write up proposals. Get a verbal commitment from the client before you spend any time doing that. Without the verbal commitment, your proposal is a complete waste of time. And as I mentioned above, could be used for nothing more than to drive competitor prices down.

My own tip that I’ll add in here is that you get extra brownie points for getting the verbal commitment from whoever has the authority to sign checks or authorize someone to do so. A verbal commitment from a Director of Marketing can be a very different thing than one from a CEO.

Oh, and if they tell you they’ve got to have something in writing to show their boss? Don’t give them that opportunity either. Suggest an in-person presentation with both your client and his boss. Ask for the commitment at the end. If you get it, start typing. If not, tell them you’ll be happy to send over your contract (not proposal!) once they’ve made up their mind.

The above requires that you have your act together. You’ve got to know your business well enough to ask the right questions and get the information you need to put together your verbal presentation. But this, as I’m sure you’ll agree, is not at all a bad thing.

“Expert agencies write contracts that get signed, order-taker agencies write proposals that sit on shelves. Let your competition write the proposals.” — Blair Enns, Win Without Pitching

In this particularly difficult economy, we all need to get better at getting to the right customers and closing them faster. Let your competitors spin their wheels on proposals. By the time they’ve submitted one, you’ll have already spoken to several clients and your chances of landing one (or a few of them) are much higher.

By: Rachel Cary

A logo is an important tool for a consultant because it gives your business an identity and a face of its’ own. This gives you four major benefits:

1.   Makes your business look established, stable and successful. People want to do business with businesses that have experience, who will be there for them in the future (and in some consulting areas, this translates to just being around and available to complete the project!), and who are good at what they do. Investing in creating a logo can show your prospects that you fill these qualifications.

2. Makes your business look bigger and more official. This is the difference between positioning yourself as a freelancer and a consultant. Without a logo, you’re just a person, working by themselves, in a spare bedroom in your house. With a logo, you suddenly become a business –- and you’ll carry the increased credibility that brings with it. This credibility will help to assure your potential clients that you can handle their project.

3.   Gives you an image to place on your marketing materials. Having an image on your marketing materials instead of just text will make your materials look more visually interesting. More visual interest makes it more likely that your materials will be picked up, read and retained by potential clients. This isn’t to say you should stop at the logo when adding graphics to your materials, but it’s an excellent start.

4.   Contributes to your marketing’s consistency. Starting all of your marketing pieces with your logo will help you to create a consistent set of marketing pieces. Making sure your marketing pieces are consistent will help your clients to recognize each of your pieces as yours. And, as they receive or see more of your marketing, they will see your marketing message repeated again and again. This repetition will help them to remember you when they have a need for your consulting services.

By: Erin Ferree