Episode F.034 Delivering Consulting Online

26/6/2020

Introduction
This week we are concluding the emphasis on reopening fast and hard from the forced pandemic shutdown. The shows will cover how to generate revenue either directly or building the supportive infrastructure necessary. Next month (July 2020) we are shifting to building the best organization possible - the Agile Company.

Show Objectives
When somebody else picked out this title, I thought someone was trying to tempt me to climb back into the ring, and it is tempting. So with that in mind this show is "what would I do if starting a consulting firm today and make it predominantly virtual?"

What You Need to Know
Don't Sell Individual Services - Build Bundles
Accept the fact that how much you used to charge for consulting services (selling time) is passed. That doesn't mean you cannot make good money, you just need to be smarter about how you mix products and services with pricing. Use our model of a 3 or 4 Levels in your Value Ladder. My recommendation is to make your Level 1 or Basic Offer all or predominately product, and the Level 3 or Advanced Offer predominately Services. That leaves the center - Level 2 or the Core Offer as an intelligent mix of both.

Bundle Based on Your Value Ladder
Lets pick up the conversation on the topic of Bundling. When it comes to your offer it is critical to spend time working this out. See our show on building an asset based consulting company.

Automate Non Personal Functions
Start with Value Mapping your consulting process and how much of it can you automate? I will not presuppose your consulting methodology so I'll use ours as an example. We have a 3 Phase Process with a series of Steps in each:

FOCUS: Assessments, Surveys, and Interviews to determine the root cause of their reason for hiring a consultant and helping them prioritize solutions to mitigate or eliminate the problem;
IMPROVE: Training, Coaching, and Consulting to close the Gap between today and where they need to be, and;
TRACK: Measuring progress for course corrections to achieve the desired result.

I can automate the majority of the assessment and survey (FOCUS) process using Survey Monkey or even google Forms. I can provide the Report Feedback using a method called Survey Guided Development using Zoom or google Meet. During the IMPROVE Phase I can build Training Courseware using Zoom and handle the Coaching and Consulting with a combination of Zoom and Slack. As for TRACKING, using google Spreadsheets you can build a Scorecard that measures progress and share the document with the appropriate personnel. Using google Meet you can hold meetings on the data and make adjustments to the Project Plan - also of google Spreadsheet.

What can't you do?

You cannot walk the property and get the feel of the place and people. All organizations have a frequency to how it works. It is critical to understand that as well as digging deeper than an interview. It is finding the undiscussables - the things that are so hot that nobody can even admit it exists let alone discuss. You cannot even gain a glimpse of this from your Zoom or Meet interviews.

I could on but it would be redundant. If you automated some of the areas just stated and internally priced these low and internally priced your visits higher based on the Bundle, the customer is paying a flat fee for a solution and you're making reason $$$ for your talent and time.

What You Need to Do