HR Consulting: Taking The Plunge
HR Consulting: Taking The Plunge
So why not HR consulting? It’s glamorous. It affords you the opportunity to demonstrate your vast skills. It provides you the chance to do stimulating work in different industries. You’ll finally be listened to, you’ll be wanted, and you’ll be able to use your expertise in new and exciting ways.
HR consulting is a great career for the right individual—but the wrong profession for many. If you like predictability, the amenities of corporate life, a steady flow of people to your office, and a regular paycheck with benefits—then keep your day job. But if you’re comfortable with ambiguity, you thrive on change and uncertainty, and juggling multiple projects is what gets you out of bed every morning, then consulting may be for you.
HR consulting is a business and as such, it must be run as one. You need an idea that will sell; you need finances to grow and sustain it; you need insurance to protect it; and you need confidence, creativity, perseverance and a dose of chutzpa to lead it. Consulting is not for the shy or the faint of heart—after all, as I was advised by a wise, experienced consultant: “You wake up every morning unemployed.”
Starting and building a consulting business is hard work. It is not what you do in between looking for a job; it is not something you do on the side. HR consulting is a real business whose focus should always be to improve the condition of your client. And it can be an exciting and lucrative way to make a living.
So how do you become a successful consultant? Beyond printing your business cards, developing a brochure and a web site, and setting up an office in that spare room, here are ten musts for ensuring success.
1. Develop proven expertise: Prospective clients want to work with the best. They seek advice and consultation. Before venturing in, make sure you’re at the top of your game. Unproven entities or someone touting worn out solutions will be deafened by the silence from their phone.
2. Be different: If you look like everyone else; sound like everyone else; and offer the same bag of tricks, why would anyone choose you? Create a unique brand. Vanilla is nice but everyone loves Cherry Garcia.
3. You’re in the marketing business: You can be the best consultant since Drucker, but if no one has heard of you, you’ll starve. You’ve got to market yourself constantly and this is where many HR consultants fail. Get comfortable putting yourself out there on a daily basis or think about another profession.
4. Write and speak often: Writing and speaking are the best ways to demonstrate expertise, develop repute, establish your brand, and get in front of perspective clients.
5. Bring value to the equation: If you’re not bringing anything to the table that the client does not already have, then why do they need you? Clients want your expertise, knowledge and counsel.
6. Understand the differences between wants and needs: Clients want a lot of things, but a good consultant sorts through it all and provides them what they need. For example, they may want an employee satisfaction survey, but they really need to reduce turnover. They may want a new performance appraisal form, but they actually need to properly evaluate, develop, and coach their people. Good consultants listen to their clients, expose them to different ideas, guide them through the process, and provide them with solutions that add value to their organization.
7. Develop solid, long-term relationships: Developing a relationship with a client is more than getting a quick sale. It is getting to really know the person, understanding what makes her tick, and identifying his pressures and challenges. Good consultants develop trusts and confidences. They forge bonds—partnerships.
8. Know who can write a check: The trap in which most consultants get caught is selling to someone who can’t write the check. They quickly respond to any inquiry, meet the “prospect”, write a proposal, and wait. Eventually they find out that they weren’t even talking to a decision maker but merely a go-between. Remember, if you’re not talking to someone who can write a check, you’re merely practicing.
9. Offer results, not activities: Clients buy results, not reports or forms. You are hired to improve the client’s condition. Consultants often describe their involvement by the activities they’ll perform rather than the results they’ll achieve. Focus on results and outcomes, not tasks and activities.
10. Invest in yourself. Your knowledge, expertise, and experiences are what you have to offer. Develop them and find a trusted coach who can offer you perspective, insight, and a dose of reality and an occasional kick in the backside to get you going. You’ll often need it.
HR Consulting is a rewarding career choice. But like the frigid Maine waters, taking the plunge is not for the timid. Develop your plan, engage a trusted advisor, and dive in head first. Once you get swimming, you’ll love it.
HR Consulting Taking The Plunge - To learn more about this author, visit Rick Dacri's Website.
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So you want to be a Human Resource consultant. And why not? You’ve paid your dues in corporate life. You’ve risen to the top of your profession. It’s time for a new challenge.
So why not HR consulting? It’s glamorous. It affords you the opportunity to demonstrate your vast skills. It provides you the chance to do stimulating work in different industries. You’ll finally be listened to, you’ll be wanted, and you’ll be able to use your expertise in new and exciting ways.
HR consulting is a great career for the right individual—but the wrong profession for many. If you like predictability, the amenities of corporate life, a steady flow of people to your office, and a regular paycheck with benefits—then keep your day job. But if you’re comfortable with ambiguity, you thrive on change and uncertainty, and juggling multiple projects is what gets you out of bed every morning, then consulting may be for you.
HR consulting is a business and as such, it must be run as one. You need an idea that will sell; you need finances to grow and sustain it; you need insurance to protect it; and you need confidence, creativity, perseverance and a dose of chutzpa to lead it. Consulting is not for the shy or the faint of heart—after all, as I was advised by a wise, experienced consultant: “You wake up every morning unemployed.”
Starting and building a consulting business is hard work. It is not what you do in between looking for a job; it is not something you do on the side. HR consulting is a real business whose focus should always be to improve the condition of your client. And it can be an exciting and lucrative way to make a living.
So how do you become a successful consultant? Beyond printing your business cards, developing a brochure and a web site, and setting up an office in that spare room, here are ten musts for ensuring success.
1. Develop proven expertise: Prospective clients want to work with the best. They seek advice and consultation. Before venturing in, make sure you’re at the top of your game. Unproven entities or someone touting worn out solutions will be deafened by the silence from their phone.
2. Be different: If you look like everyone else; sound like everyone else; and offer the same bag of tricks, why would anyone choose you? Create a unique brand. Vanilla is nice but everyone loves Cherry Garcia.
3. You’re in the marketing business: You can be the best consultant since Drucker, but if no one has heard of you, you’ll starve. You’ve got to market yourself constantly and this is where many HR consultants fail. Get comfortable putting yourself out there on a daily basis or think about another profession.
4. Write and speak often: Writing and speaking are the best ways to demonstrate expertise, develop repute, establish your brand, and get in front of perspective clients.
5. Bring value to the equation: If you’re not bringing anything to the table that the client does not already have, then why do they need you? Clients want your expertise, knowledge and counsel.
6. Understand the differences between wants and needs: Clients want a lot of things, but a good consultant sorts through it all and provides them what they need. For example, they may want an employee satisfaction survey, but they really need to reduce turnover. They may want a new performance appraisal form, but they actually need to properly evaluate, develop, and coach their people. Good consultants listen to their clients, expose them to different ideas, guide them through the process, and provide them with solutions that add value to their organization.
7. Develop solid, long-term relationships: Developing a relationship with a client is more than getting a quick sale. It is getting to really know the person, understanding what makes her tick, and identifying his pressures and challenges. Good consultants develop trusts and confidences. They forge bonds—partnerships.
8. Know who can write a check: The trap in which most consultants get caught is selling to someone who can’t write the check. They quickly respond to any inquiry, meet the “prospect”, write a proposal, and wait. Eventually they find out that they weren’t even talking to a decision maker but merely a go-between. Remember, if you’re not talking to someone who can write a check, you’re merely practicing.
9. Offer results, not activities: Clients buy results, not reports or forms. You are hired to improve the client’s condition. Consultants often describe their involvement by the activities they’ll perform rather than the results they’ll achieve. Focus on results and outcomes, not tasks and activities.
10. Invest in yourself. Your knowledge, expertise, and experiences are what you have to offer. Develop them and find a trusted coach who can offer you perspective, insight, and a dose of reality and an occasional kick in the backside to get you going. You’ll often need it.
HR Consulting is a rewarding career choice. But like the frigid Maine waters, taking the plunge is not for the timid. Develop your plan, engage a trusted advisor, and dive in head first. Once you get swimming, you’ll love it.
HR Consulting Taking The Plunge - To learn more about this author, visit Rick Dacri's Website.
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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John PowerJohn Power, founder of Biltmore Franchise Consulting, has extensive experience developing and marketing franchises and business opportunities. He has been in and around franchising for over twenty years. From 1980 through 1990 he conceptualized, organized, and developed the American Video Association. He grew AVA to 2,000 national members, before selling the company it 1990. It was later merged into another home video marketing company. From 2000 to 2005 he worked as a contract marketing and human resources consultant to several local and national companies. In 2005 Mr. Power began working as a franchise development consultant on a full-time basis. Since that time he has helped more than three dozen companies initiate and develop their franchising program. He notes that there are many companies interested in developing a franchise program, and who need his specialized assistance. Mr. Power is a “hands-on” franchise consultant. He said, “I am the ‘nuts and bolts’ person who tends to the details for my clients.” Mr. Power holds a B.S. degree with a major in Marketing. See: www.biltmorefranchise.com You may contact Mr. Power at: jpower@biltmorefranchise.co - Visit John Power's Website |
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team culture consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. Dianne's contribution to the 2010 Pfeiffer Consulting Journal (an imprint of John Wiley and Sons Publishers) entitled TIGERS Hearted Teams is available in November 2009. Her new book TIGERS Among Us: 5 Winning Business Team Cultures And Why, Three Creeks Publishing will release in March 2010. To receive publishing discounts, subscribe to the free TigerTracks Newsletter here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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Rick Dacri Video - Succession Planning: Refilling the Pipeline, Keynote Address, February 12, 2008 by Rick Dacri of Dacri Dacri & Associates, LLC of Kennebunkport, Maine.
Succession Planning: Refilling the Pipeline, Keynote Address, February 12, 2008 by Rick Dacri of Dacri & Associates, LLC of Kennebunkport, Maine.
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