More notes from Managing the Professional Service Firm…
Your assets as a consultant basically boil down to your knowledge, technical skill, counseling skill, and the depth of your client relationships.
Six lessons about your assets as a consultant:
- Your existing knowledge and skills will depreciate in value
- The health of your career has less to do with the volume of business you do than with the type of work you do and the type of clients you do it for
- When you take control of your own business development, you take control of your own career development
- The same is true of asset development
- Balance using your existing skills with developing new skills
- Marketing to existing clients is the best way to build your assets
Build experience through industry depth first, then breadth of clients
Skill in counseling consists of activities such as facilitating groups, building consensus, resolving political conflicts, etc.
You not only want to solve problems, you want to educate the client.