Consulting For Dummies

you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink

Offer to continue your partnership through the implementation phase of the project. Do you still have that selling cap we asked you to put on at the beginning of the chapter?

After all, unless you have completely missed the boat, implementing your recommendations is the only step that helps your client.

ranking your recommendations in order of practicability

All the most wonderful recommendations in the world — bound in attractive report binders and accompanied by lush PowerPoint presentations — aren’t worth a hill of beans unless they are heeded and implemented.

Although you can brainstorm by yourself or only with other members of your firm — if there are other members of your firm

The problem with working against your clients is that nobody wins and everybody loses. You lose because you waste your time on a project that no one appreciates or even wants, and your clients lose because the original problem remains unresolved.

If you’re meeting at the client’s offices, this is a great time for a personal introduction to the others involved in making the decision to hire you. (This also begins building your rapport with the troops — which can sometimes be more critical than rapport with the boss!)

The secret to knowing what data to gather is simple: You must have an analytical model — a hypothesis — to explain the problem or demonstrate your preferred approach