Business development

After recently watching every James Bond movie in sequence, it occurred to me that 007 has a lot of lessons for those of us in consulting.

You know what separates your consulting services from the rest of the pack, but how do you communicate this advantage to potential clients? Here are 5 easy steps to creating a brand that differentiates your expertise and attracts clients.

Here are six ways to establish your expertise so you become the go-to expert in your field. When that happens, you’ll be surprised how clients and opportunities start coming to you, instead of you having to chase them down!

We all know that a plan of action should be drafted before starting a mission, but we have also all been tempted to shorten (or completely cut out) the planning phase and jump straight into the doing phase. It is OK if you have previously completed a similar mission, right? Wrong. Drafting a good plan of action is essential for any mission, no matter the circumstances.

I recently saw a television commercial that made quite an impression on me, and I have a hunch that it might go down as one of the most effective advertisements of all time, assuming the company behind it is sincere. I'm talking about Domino's Pizza and the recent ad in which the company concedes the shortcomings of its product and explains what has been done to improve it.

As consultants, do we actually know what is going on in the minds of our clients? We might like to think that we have this supernatural power of reading minds, but, in reality, we’re often blind to what make our clients satisfied or not.

The greatest myth that exists about meetings is that they are inherently bad. As a business society, we've come to accept that meetings are unavoidably painful and unproductive-one of the necessary evils of organizational life. But the fact is, bad meetings are a reflection of bad leaders. Worse yet, they take a more devastating toll on a company's success than we realize.

The consulting industry is highly inequitable. While some consultants work hard for their fees, others will be leading a good life by traveling first class and by charging more than more 2,500 dollars a day. How do you reach that? The key is to break the 3 major limits that all buyers have in mind...

I always say that free advice is never free. Free advice can be free for your client; however, it will cost you, the consultant, those valuable contracts that you could have attained in the meantime. The opportunity cost of giving free advice or a no-fee or a heavily discounted project can lead to disastrous consequences for you and your consulting career.

Typically, the freelancers that I consult with follow this scenario: They first ask their prospective employer a few intelligent questions. They then prThe great marketing material that you had prepared has gained the attention of the prospective client who wants to have a meeting discussing future possibilities. They are very seriously looking at hiring you for a 6-month assignment, on a day rate of £600. What do you do?

Throughout Bschool and at work, we are repeatedly told that collaboration with a team is a key element to successful develop any project. However, observing clients' employees function (or rather dysfunction) over the years, I have come to realize that numerous people become inefficient when asked to work in a team. In fact, researches have shown that when a team is slightly defective, individual performances of the entire tea

Some consultants seem to write great proposals very naturally while some seem to struggle. Proofreading proposals of junior consultants, I have noticed that it's some quite basic elements make all the difference. While the core offering of the proposal may be the same ...