Do you sometimes struggle to stay focused and moving forward?

Are you uncertain at times about what your next best move is as you work to reach and connect with your target customers?

Do you sometimes feel overwhelmed with all there is to do as a small business owner?

We may be able to help you through WIC Mentoring.

Our spring session starts soon. It will run for six weeks from April 5 through May 10.

We’re looking for a group of 6-8 people who are ready to build their business skills, and to make improvements in their business, who would like mentoring support to help them get that process well underway.

Desiree Lehrbaum and I, both WIC Members and experienced consultants, created, tested and refined the WIC Mentoring Program through three rounds in the past two years.

Desiree and I will lead the mentoring again this spring, as we did in all of the prior sessions. Desiree leads the marketing and business development aspects of the program. I lead the vision-setting, action planning and process streamlining parts of the program.

As part of this program you’ll receive and experience:

- Six weeks of webinar-based mentoring sessions, one every Tuesday morning from 10-11 am, April 5-May 10.
- Homework each week and feedback on it to help you apply the mentoring content to make improvements in your own business
- Two 30-minute one-on-one mentoring calls, one with each mentor
- The support of a group of peers who are going through the mentoring experience with you, who can be a continuing source of support after the program ends

WIC Members’ price for the six-week program is $150, while WIC Community Members can participate for $270.

We would love to have you join us, if you believe this mentoring program is right for you.

Here’s a little more information:

- We learned from our earlier rounds that our program works best for people who have been in business for at least a year or more. At this point, mentees have tried some things that work with their businesses, and have tried some that haven’t. They’re ready to make improvements in their marketing and business management processes and skills.

- Being able to fully commit the time and energy to the mentoring sessions and homework is an important part of success for individuals and the group in this program.

- Our mentoring sessions will be held by webinar. In addition, if it works for the Spring 2011 group and if we can find an appropriate location for it, we’ll hold the kickoff and closing sessions in person, which the Spring and Fall 2010 groups found valuable.

- We’ll gather mentee feedback at the end of the session. It has been a vital part of our continual improvement of the program, and the program’s ongoing success.

Here are the next steps, if you’re interested:

1. Contact me at jan@jgrichardsresults.com to let me know you’re interested.
2. I’ll send you a questionnaire to complete with information about your mentoring objectives and availability for the program.
3. You’ll e-mail the completed questionnaire back to me.
4. We’ll finalize the Spring 2011 group of 6-8 mentees based on the order in which the completed questionnaires are returned, as well as the appropriateness of this program for individual needs and mentoring objectives.
5. If you’re one of the Spring 2011 mentees, I’ll send you a link for the page where you can officially sign up, and pay to hold your spot in the program.
6. If more people are interested in the program than we have mentoring spots available, we’ll create a waiting list for the Fall 2011 program, which we hope to have.

If you have questions, as always, let me know.

We hope to include you in Spring 2011 WIC Mentoring or a future mentoring session.

By: Jan Richards

The Fall 2010 WIC Mentoring Group is quickly taking shape, with just a couple of spots still available.

Again this Fall, WIC Members Desiree Lehrbaum and I will lead the Mentoring Group. We developed and piloted the program in 2009, and also led the Spring, 2010 group.

If you think a peer-to-peer mentoring experience may be right for you, take a close look at this opportunity.

We will meet by webinar (and have an in-person kickoff session, if we can) on Wednesdays, 10-11 am, starting Oct. 20. Our last session will be right before Thanksgiving.

WIC Members pay $125 for the fall session, and WIC Affiliate Members can participate in the program for $200.

The WIC Mentoring Group isn’t right for everyone.

Here are some of the ways to know if you’re a good candidate for mentoring in this particular program:

1. Do you work well in a peer-peer group?

The focus of the WIC Mentoring Program is a peer-to-peer mentoring approach.

Mentors who are experienced in their areas of expertise design and manage the group process, then teach, guide and give feedback to a group of peers, all of whom are learning and making improvements to their businesses at the same time.

When you think back on your experiences in peer-to-peer learning situations, how well did you do in those? Were you able to make your own progress in such a setting, as well as to support a successful group experience?

That will give you an idea of whether you would find the group learning and improvement experience valuable, again.

2. Can you set aggressive, yet realistic improvement goals for yourself?

Six weeks, the length of the mentoring program, isn’t a long time.

But it’s often exactly the right amount of time for you to:
- Look at your business, including what you do well, and areas where you can improve
- Prioritize and plan a few improvements
- Begin to make those improvements

3. Are you open to feedback?

A good part of the success of this program is in the sequence of exercises we guide you through.

Business is applied learning…not theory. And to really learn, you must do.

That means we have you do homework to apply what we’re teaching you. It helps you to lock the learning in, and to begin to make real, not theoretical improvements in your business.

4. Are you willing to take action to make the improvements you say you want?

Change takes more than just good intentions. It takes action, as well…outside of the homework, and beyond the six weeks of the mentoring experience.

You own the changes you make in your business.

In the WIC Mentoring Group, mentors and peers help to pace and support you through the initial stages of change.

Beyond that, it’s up to you. It’s your choice about what changes you want to make, and will see through to completion.

Six weeks isn’t a long time.

But it’s the perfect amount of time to get a great start on business improvements that can make a big difference in your success.

If you have questions about the WIC Mentoring Group, let me know. You can reach me at jan@jgrichardsresults.com.

If this style of mentoring program is right for you, we hope to see you in this, or a future mentoring group.

By: Jan Richards

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.

By: Jan Richards

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

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

By: Jan Richards

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.

By: Jan Richards

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.

By: Jan Richards