Recently, in a spurt of ‘abundance thinking’, where I was convinced that 2010 is going to be a MUCH better year than 2009 (I can’t afford to think otherwise, can you?!), I decided to do an inventory of people/resources I can turn to when my workload is too heavy to do it all myself.

Like many fellow consultants, I can perform every function needed to support most client projects myself, but have found it very wise to outsource certain portions of my research projects when I have a heavy client load in order to ensure that my time is spent on the things that are: 1) high value activities, worthy of my $100+ hourly rate and 2) things that only I can do based on my unique talents or the client relationship.

In an effort to streamline the process when I need to turn to other resources, I created a spreadsheet that provides me with a quick glance at the resources I’ve qualified and established relationships with over the past 10 years.  Some of the features of the spreadsheet:

• Every row is a different person/resource
• The first few columns include contact information, notes about the resource and their specialty
• The rest of the columns are categories of resources such as Interviewing, Analysis, Recruiting, Panels/Lists, etc.
• I put an X in each column/category that a given resource can help with

Having this quick reference allows me to rapidly scan a given column when I have the need for support in any given area.  When I meet/qualify new resources, I add them to the spreadsheet, which ensures that I think of them when the need arises.  This saves me a LOT of time and helps me make sure I make the right choice for each project, which helps ensure high quality results for my clients.

Let’s all think ‘abundance’ for 2010 and do a similar inventory of our resources…and if you don’t HAVE back-up resources, be sure to find some…WIC is a great source of qualified people who can partner with you to help in almost any element of your work.

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.

I had the pleasure of attending WIC’s general meeting last Thursday, where Kate Purmal shared insights into how we can make 2010 our best year yet…without breaking our necks! I particularly like that last part!

As part of the networking exercise, everyone was asked to answer the following question:

If you could choose between the following, which would you choose:

• You double your revenue in 2010 but work the same amount of time
• You keep your revenue at the current level but work half the time
• Your revenue and the amount of time you work remain the same but your projects are 2x more satisfying

That was a tough one for me. I want to keep my revenue at the current level and work half the time (I have a young daughter)—but I also want the projects to be 2x more satisfying. An overwhelming amount of Thursday’s attendees voted to double their revenue but work the same amount of time.

What would you choose?

Digging a Little Deeper

If you attended the meeting and would like a copy of Kate’s PowerPoint slides from Thursday’s meeting, email her at kpurmal@gmail.com, and she’ll send them to you. She’s also offering meeting attendees special deals on two of her upcoming workshops, geared to building sales and your thought leadership.  

Sales Boot Camp

If the presentation whet your appetite and you’d like to take your sales to the next level, Kate has an upcoming Sales Boot Camp on February 18, 2010. The one-day workshop is $495 for WIC meeting attendees.

In the workshop, Kate digs deeper on several topics from the WIC meeting:

-       Role-play to perfect the art of creating a “trial balloon” proposal in a single meeting
-       Create a phase 1 or Trojan Horse proposal for your business
-       Develop a phased model for your services
-       Build an action plan to fill your sales pipeline
-       And much more

For more information and to register visit http://www.acteva.com/booking.cfm?bevaid=196613

Thought Leadership Workshop

Kate and her personal guru Mark Levy, author of Accidental Genius, are hosting a one-day intensive workshop where you’ll use private writing and exercises to develop a compelling thought leadership platform. You’ll tap into your creative genius to brainstorm high-level ideas and review them with the group to pick the most compelling and captivating concepts. By developing a platform for thought leadership you gain access to a wider range of potential clients and can charge more for your services.

The workshop is $495 for WIC meeting attendees.

For more information and to register visit http://www.acteva.com/booking.cfm?bevaid=196828

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!

It seems that the recession is finally ending. But if you’re like me, my business took a beating and I have some major planning to do to be poised for opportunities in 2010. However, it seems so overwhelming to do it all by myself.

Luckily, WIC has a workshop on December 1^st that can help me – and you – be ready to take advantage of the business upswing. Seven experts are available to explore all aspects of our businesses, in a one-to-one setting, and help develop the best strategic approach.

We’ll walk away with:

• A blueprint for our businesses
• Valuable tips from the experts on sales, marketing, resourcing, process improvement, competition, client/market assessment, and branding
• Action items to kick-start our success in 2010

So carve out some time to concentrate on your success and join us at the WIC December  “Jumpstart Your Business for 2010” Workshop:

December 1, 2009, 8:00am – 12:00pm

Network Meeting Center

5201 Great America Parkway, Suite 122, Santa Clara, CA 95054

(408) 562-6091

www.networkmeetingcenter.com

Learn more and register at www.womeninconsulting.org

Jason Snell of Macworld.com wrote a nice overview on nine ways to use Twitter for business. It’s a great introduction for those who are unsure how Twitter can be used for business.

I agree with everything he says for the most part, with the caveat that you should assess any recommendations in light of your own audience, as well as what makes sense for your business. Consumer companies will have different needs from business-to-business companies who will have different needs from consultants and so on. The key is to view Twitter as a tool and not all tools work for all people.

The one recommendation I disagree with in part is “# 3: Follow people who are relevant…it’s polite to follow people. And by following people you are creating an ecosystem — people will see who you are following and consider those as suggestions for users they should follow as well.”

Yes, you should follow relevant people. And it may be polite to follow someone who follows you, but is it in your best interest to follow everyone who follows you? No is my philosophy. Follow people who make sense for you to follow.  For example, I won’t follow people who: 

• Never Tweet anything of interest to me
• Neglect to provide a bio and/or a link to more information about them
• Are only interested in selling me “stuff”
• Bombard followers with a plethora of Tweets daily – there are people who post 30 or more times in a day; and that’s way more than I want to here from anyone person

These are some of my personal guidelines for following people. They’re based on my reasons for using Twitter. I view Twitter as an information resource. So for me, it’s about sharing and receiving information.

Here are the high-level tips:

• Don’t automate it
• Be conversational
• Follow people who are relevant
• Make sure your people are on Twitter, and refer to them
• Answer your mentions
• Search for your name
• Consider creating sub-accounts for sections of your business or customer base
• Use Twitter to ask your customers questions…and get good answers
• Be a good Twitter citizen

Read the full “Nine Twitter Tips for Business” article

For those consultants who have launched a Facebook page or are considering doing so, this article on allfacebook.com reviews a new measurement tool released by Facebook called “Post Quality.” According to Facebook, it measures “how engaging your content is to Facebook users. A higher Post Quality indicates material that better engages users.”

For those unfamiliar with Facebook Pages, these are different from the personal pages that most people recognize. The capabilities are very similar to personal pages, but Facebook Pages are for organizations, companies of all sizes, consultants, etc.

Read the full “Facebook Introduces Post Quality Score for Pages” on allfacebook.com.

Google has a relatively new tool that allows you to create a profile that may start appearing on page one of Google searches almost immediately. 

In fact, my profile appeared at the bottom of page one right after publishing. Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter still appear at the top, as will your own site (hopefully!); but it’s another opportunity to increase your visibility and add all important links to your company site, LinkedIn and Twitter profiles, and any other relevant site.

Profiles are easy to create and can include:

• Your name and title
• Links to various websites (I included my company’s site, LinkedIn profile, and Twitter profile, as well as WIC’s website and blog.)
• A brief bio, including links
• Photos (I uploaded images of some of my customer solution snap shots. NOTE: the photos have to reside on Picasa, Flickr, or other photo-sharing site and must be publicly viewable. I didn’t have any such account, but it only took a few minutes to create a Flickr account and upload the photos.)

Create your own Google profile now

Checkout my Google profile as an example

Ann Handley, editor in chief of MarketingProfs (a WIC partner) posted an article on Mashable about a Twitter survey conducted by MarketingProfs. It’s worth the read, but then again, I’m biased. It was nice to see I’m not the only one who:

• Doesn’t follow everyone who follows me, and doesn’t expect everyone I follow to return the favor 
• Doesn’t think large twitter followings = greater intelligence, expertise, or respect
• Isn’t bothered if nobody responds to my tweets (but I do enjoy reading every response and engaging in dialogue–it’s just not every post warrants a response)
• Loves the information sharing that happens on Twitter

Read “Inside the Minds of Twitter Users“

I tend to stay away from self-promoting on blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc. It’s just not my thing — probably because I really dislike hard sells. And as a board member of Women in Consulting (WIC), responsible for its marketing & PR no less, writing a piece on “why I love WIC” is considered self-promotion. However, in this instance, I just can’t help myself; and WIC’s latest monthly meeting is the reason.

In this one meeting, I was reminded of the many reasons why WIC is so important to me as a consultant, both personally and professionally.

• Collaborative environment and rich information sharing: collaboration is the chief quality that truly sets WIC apart from other organizations. I’ve not met one person who isn’t willing to share best practices, insights, resources, and more. All you have to do is ask, and you’ll have an amazing number of members responding immediately.
• Amazing connections and friendships, and an unbelievable support system: I never cease to be amazed at the brain power and talent that make up WIC. As a WIC member, you have access to some of the best minds in the Bay Area. WIC’s collaborative-not-competitive environment also fosters close relationships, resulting in some wonderful friendships. The business life of a consultant can often be solitary; but with WIC, it doesn’t feel that way at all. No matter the business challenge, I know I can call any number of my WIC friends/colleagues for advice. They not only listen willingly, they offer spot-on advice. They also happily celebrate my successes.
• Numerous learning opportunities: whether it’s a table discussion at a WIC meeting, a guest speaker, an email exchange on the WIC Community List, an article or blog post by a WIC member, or some other WIC communication exchange, I learn something.
• Business opportunities: I can attribute at least 75% of my business over the past two years to my involvement with WIC, and another 15% to following the best practices advocated in meetings. One of the reasons I get so much out of WIC is because I’m involved. I’ve been a member since 2002 and started volunteering in 2004. Participating in the organization has been an amazing business booster. My WIC colleagues provide me with invaluable advice, and they also are a great source of business — either hiring me on their engagements or referring me to clients. Even at Thursday’s meeting, two different people whom I hadn’t met previously recognized my name because someone had referred them to me for a project.
• Inspiration: I always leave a meeting feeling jazzed and excited; and it’s because of the energy that fills the room. People care. They listen. They share. You hear their latest triumphs and business plans and you leave energized to do more. And this happens even when the economy isn’t doing well. It did this past meeting.
• Great meeting topics: no matter the topic, I typically walk away with at least one usable tip or strategy. For example, April’s meeting on “Attract new Clients and Increase Revenue Now!” I learned some tips for positioning the initial evaluations I do for clients, whether or not I choose to charge for the evaluation — a topic that was much debated at the meeting. Even if a topic is way off base from your philosophy or interests, chances are you can still find something of value. I always do. It’s just a matter of perspective.
• Delicious food: the mushroom ravioli at Quadrus is beyond yummy, as was the other food. So often food at networking events is at best tolerable. Not so here.

These are just a few of the reasons I love WIC, and the ones that presented themselves at last Thursday’s meeting. If you’re a consultant or small business owner, you really should check WIC out, read about exclusive member discounts, attend a meeting, or even sign up as an affiliate on the WIC Community Email List – where you’ll see information sharing on steroids among some of the best consulting minds in the Bay Area (and beyond, for that matter).