Starting a consulting business with no experience

Starting a Consulting Business With No Experience Welcome to another episode from the series where we discuss the business of starting and growing a consulting business. This is episode number 5, called, "Starting a consulting business with no experience." We have two other podcast channels. One is the Strategy Skills iTunes channel which focuses on problem-solving within an actual strategy engagement. The other is focused on case interviews and management consulting (Case Interviews & Management Consulting iTunes channel). Now, many of you may say, “Well, I’m not interested in interviewing at McKinsey.” I understand. But we teach basic problem-solving skills there, such as how to make decision trees, how to build frameworks, how to set up objective functions, etc. For many people, we would recommend starting there and focusing on the episodes around problem-solving and the culture of management consulting firms. This is because you would need those skills to learn some of the more complex aspects that we teach. https://youtu.be/XQ85Qgo6tLA Starting a consulting business with no experience. Meaning, if you have never worked at a consulting firm Today's episode is going to be a little bit different. I am going to focus on the question which I get often.…

Consulting Sales: How Should You Develop Your Strategy?

Consulting Sales: How Should You Develop Your Strategy? Welcome to the next episode of our management consulting iTunes channel How to Build and Grow a Consulting Firm, where we discuss the business of running and growing a consulting fir. In today's episode, I want to talk about a question everyone faces frequently. Every time things do not go well when it comes to growing a consulting firm you are forced to confront the question, “What should your consulting sales strategy be?” For example, let's imagine you are leaving a consulting firm to set up your own firm or working in an industry and want to consult back to your former employer and their competitors. You are going to have to ask yourself, what should your consulting sales strategy be. I am going to answer this question and we will discuss it with an anecdote from my past. https://youtu.be/xtHV80gjnME When you start a consulting firm, it is easy to get caught into a long process to study the market, think about your skills, understand the business models you have, and then develop your strategy. All of that is a waste of time. Many years ago, when I was a senior partner in corporate…

How to Sell Consulting Services: Secrets to Selling High Priced Consulting Services

How to Sell Consulting Services: Secrets to Selling High Priced Consulting Services Hi everyone and welcome to another podcast about How to Build and Grow a Consulting Firm or Practice. In today's episode, I would like to talk about new clients and address how to sell consulting services. I want to mention that this entire series is based on our experiences while helping numerous boutique consulting firms and offices of large firms as well as on our personal experiences. For FC Insiders, our loyalty members, we are launching an Insider version of this program, which is slightly difficult and a little bit different. While we will cover the same concepts, in the Insider version if the program we will discuss a case study of a fairly large firm with revenue of about two million dollars and how we help the firm to significantly increase that revenue, change their client mix, and so on. We will show you how to use each of the tools and techniques and how we took the client through each step. You can also go to our YouTube channel and watch the YouTube version with graphics (also inserted below). https://youtu.be/4nxU5V3xjCY How to sell consulting services: tip…

How Willpower Works: Decision Fatigue and 10 Ways Reduce It

How Willpower Works: Decision Fatigue and 9 Ways to Reduce It Have you noticed as the day progresses you become mentally tired and it is harder to make good decisions? By the end of the day, you do not understand what happened with your willpower. You are running on empty, often making poor choices and feeling cranky. This happens because of decision fatigue, also sometimes called choice fatigue, decision exhaustion or willpower fatigue. So today we going to speak about discuss 10 ideas to help you reduce making small and mundane decisions throughout the day, and in turn, reduce decision fatigue. Dr. Roy F. Baumeister: Willpower, Ego Depletion and Decision Fatigue This is a syndrome coined by social psychologist Dr. Roy F. Baumeister, which is based on the Freudian hypothesis of what he called "ego depletion." Through his experiments (decision fatigue research), Dr. Baumeister came to a conclusion: our willpower is finite. The more challenging and stressful the day, the more decisions we have to make, the faster we get to a point where it is very hard to make any additional good decisions. And this is when we start making unproductive and unhealthy choices. Decision fatigue is closely related to…

The role of a leader in a recession 2020

The Role of a Leader in a Recession 2020 In the previous article "How Can You Prepare for a Recession," we addressed the importance of taking the upcoming recession 2020 very seriously. As a leader, whatever you can do to protect your family, current clients, your organization, and your job, you must do it. In this article, we look at what is the role of a leader in a recession. A Good Leader Protects Their Family, Job, Clients, and Organization A leader does not kick back in a crisis. And certainly, a leader does not give up or hope that things will work out somehow. A leader intends to use a crisis to change the trajectory of their family, career, department, and organization. They use it as a time to show "what they're made of." Changing Jobs During a Recession Changing jobs in this market is very hard. If you are here on an H1B visa (permits a foreign national to work in the United States for a temporary period) or something like this, if we were in your place we would not be trying to change jobs now. You going to have a lot of problems. Instead, do what you…

Best business podcasts in 2020

Best Business Podcasts in 2020 Today we are going to talk about the best business podcasts. I was listening to podcasts well before it was popular. As many of you know, our company, FIRMSconsulting, was one of the first companies to go into podcasting and we published well over 500 free podcasts to date. And, thanks to our wonderful listeners, our 2 main channels are ranked top 1-10 for careers in many countries. And, obviously, I had to include them in the list here, as I believe they are some of the most valuable business podcast channels out there. Why should you listen to podcasts? So why should you listen to podcasts? Podcasting makes learning easy and convenient. I remember even at times when I had no free time to dedicate to learning, I would listen to podcasts on the way to work, on the way from work, and sometimes at lunch. I would listen to it while doing errands, doing things around the house or working out. And it allowed me to learn when I did not have any free time to learn. Most of us are incredibly busy. Right? We have family obligations, work obligations, community obligations. And sometimes…

The Confidence Myth: How to Succeed Despite Low Self Esteem

The Confidence Myth: How to Succeed Despite Low Self Esteem We can describe confidence as a belief in oneself. Belief in one's ability to figure things out and succeed, and acting in a way that conveys this belief. It is great to have a high level of confidence. It generally makes life easier. A great news is that confidence is not an innate, fixed characteristic. You can build it. But while you are still developing your confidence, remember that confidence should not stop you in achieving everything you set out to achieve. You don’t need confidence to succeed in life. What do you need instead? Play the cards you were given NOW and get things done. How Lack of Confidence Did Not Impact Career “What the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve.” -- Napoleon Hill Let me share a personal story that illustrates the confidence myth. At the beginning of my career I was working in the research back office of a major consulting firm. At that time, I had recently transferred from my previous job where I was serving as a manager at a small defense company. (I actually started as a front desk receptionist at that…

Business Consulting Firm Growth Guide

Consulting Business Positioning: The Cost and Value of a Sterling Reputation

Consulting Business Positioning: The Cost and Value of a Sterling Reputation Hi everyone. In today's episode, I would like to talk about the cost and value of a sterling reputation for a consulting business or any other type of organization. This would apply to any industry, but it is a little more subtle than that. It is not an absolute statement. I will talk you through what I mean as I progress with this episode. I am going to cover this in this episode, and I will dig in further in a follow-up episode. So, whenever I talk to the leaders, founders, or owners of a consulting business, they tell me the same thing. Their consulting business has a poor reputation, which is the ultimate arbiter of the margins and fees they are getting in the market. Now, I will say something that is very important but is also very counterintuitive. The reputation of your consulting business is probably not the problem. I am going to unpack this a little bit in this episode, and I will unpack it further in a follow-up episode. When an owner or a leader of a consulting business says their reputation is a problem,…