Tips That Will Make You A Great Consultant (2/3)
What does it take to succeed in the competitive consulting industry? Are you already in a consulting job or considering a consulting job? I observed the great consultants around me and got the following tips. Hope the tips will help you grow to a great consultant. The tips listed below has no particular order. Why? Because you need all of them to be a Great Consultant!
My last post “Tips That Will Make You Great Consultant (1/3)” has shared Tip 1 to Tip 3.
Tip 4 Know the Business First
You might facing all kinds of requirements from clients. For example, your client asked you to do design a financial analysis using particular ranges of data. However, first, you need to understand why it is needed in the business. Who are the target audience for this analysis? Do they really need? Is there another way to achieve it? Is it system over-engineering? Are profits declining? Does the analysis really make sense and help to improve the business operations or saving time? Knowing the business enables you to develop better insights and solutions and provide more valuable advice to clients. Yes, clients are first, and we need to fulfill the clients’ requirements. But are all the requirements valid and beneficial to their business? Client A may tell you to have financial analysis but client B may not want it because it is already available in another format. Client C may think Client A’s idea is totally stupid and scold at you why you agree with him. Client D may want to fire you because the financial analysis is not suppose to be shown to client A. So, before jumping into your task, spend a little bit more time to understand the business, e.g., what drives the decision, how the business operates best.
Tip 5 Ask, Clarify, Communicate
How to quickly learn the industry knowledge? How do you know your understanding is correct? How to work with a team? Ask, clarify and communicate. You cannot work alone as consultant. You need to keep interacting with clients, your fellow consultants, etc. Keep asking, keep clarifying and keep communicating will ensure your understanding of what you are doing and what clients are requiring are correct. You worry about you ask too many times. Oh no, it is always better than complete something wrong. What is more, in the event that you have no questions to ask, you can always restate what you’ve understood or summarize what you have been told to obtain confirmation from clients. And in addition, asking questions is such a powerful tool even lots of sales people are using it!
Tip 6 Have Passion
Having passion does not mean you can travel a lot as a consultant, does not mean you have opportunities to work in different industries, etc. It means you are still comfortable with chaos in the project. It means you still keep calm when you need to solve the most complicated cases that clients don’t even want to touch. When I was complaining that the clients don’t even know their processes. My manager told me, if clients are smart and capable to handle their own process, what are we here for? Yes, correct. Our job is to tackle these problems and difficulties. If you want an easy life, following your boss’s routine and eventually becoming expert in that area, consulting might not be a good choice. However, it doesn’t mean consultant’ life is stressful, exhausting, tough, hard… There are happy consultants who are good at work and have lots of fun in life. Maybe I will share with you their secrets in future post. 😛
How do you find the tips? Aren’t they very practical? Welcome any comments!
