Consulting in OBM: Thoughts on Successful Practices
by Bill Redmon, Bechtel Group, Inc. San Francisco		and	Susan Hoberecht, Sage Strategies Seattle

Overview

We have both worked in Fortune 500 corporations as consultants and as managers who have purchased and used consulting services. This article shares experiences and lessons learned that might be helpful to OBM Network members who want to build and grow their consulting work in the private sector. We will share thoughts on two main concepts: (a) product/service differentiation in the marketplace, and (b) tips on building a relationship with potential clients.

Differentiating in a Noisy Market

Successful consulting firms (or individuals) know the marketplace needs and can quickly show how their offerings match those needs. These firms typically go to market with a signature product or service that can be distinguished from competitors and define how their specific capabilities (e.g., Six Sigma, Emotional Intelligence, Executive Coaching, etc.) match major market needs (e.g., customer service in the telecom industry, quality improvement, employee engagement). Less effective firms typically promote a general capability (e.g., assessment, coaching, change management), which has to be fitted to the needs of companies. For example, the hot topic nowadays is talent management including recruiting, development of high potentials, career acceleration, succession planning, retention and other areas related to getting and keeping top talent in a tight market. Anyone who talks about this topic intelligently has a good chance of getting an audience, often by telephone. However, differentiating your capability requires more than the generic “talent management,” and should identify sub-areas within talent management (e.g., recruiting) or special techniques for talent management (e.g., behavioral interviewing and selection) that create a value equation for your services. We feel that consultants who use one set of general scientific principles to address many problems are at particular risk of failing to connect with client problems. For example, in OBM consulting, it is particularly tempting to claim that all behavioral problems can be solved with a small number of general principles and assume that this simplicity will appeal to the client. It is more likely that clients will assume that OBM consultants have a solution to sell and will force fit it to whatever problem they might have. Behavioral principles may, indeed, be applicable across many situations, but they don’t know this and aren’t likely to fill in the blanks for the consultant.

Establishing a Relationship

Your general market differentiator may get you in the door, but it will not help carry you past the first contact unless you can effectively engage the client in a conversation about their needs. The most effective consultants take time to get a conversation going about the client’s problems and needs. Focusing on the relationship can help prevent the most dreaded mistake--emphasizing the product or service rather than client needs. Some consultants, even after hearing that clients don’t need what they are offering, keep talking and, no matter what is said, ask for a few more minutes to keep discussing their favorite topics or to ask additional questions. These extended discussions can be frustrating for the potential client as they have more to do with the interests and capability of the consultant than the problems to be solved.

For us, a more successful technique involves offering white papers or research on current topics via the web (usually sent by email) and arranging a follow-up discussion if the information is interesting to potential clients. This approach offers value immediately as it fits what most executives are seeking: information that might help them develop solutions to current problems. With this type of exchange, consultants often ask the potential client for an email address in exchange for access to research papers or something useful such as graphs or trends showing recent data on talent, leadership practices, etc. Consultants often use the email address for follow up at some later point to determine if the client wants more of the same. Small packets of research on selected topics (usually in the form of white papers that I can pass around) fit into the bite-sized world in which we, and others, operate (15 minutes at a clip). After initial exposure to research or other ideas from consultants, we sometimes progress to a webinar or on-line demo, where consultants set up a time to talk, call us and use net-meeting or other online resource to show us something. If these papers/research focus on recent topics (i.e., the client’s top 10 topics of interest), they are even more likely to get the consultant into a follow-up meeting.

Some consulting approaches fit right away. The discussion is not about them; it is about the issue, and they seem to be as focused heavily on understanding client problems. Those who fail in this space are the ones who use any opportunity to pitch their products. For example, if a potential client says, “Well we have a recruiting issue,” the ineffective consultant might say, “We help organizations with recruiting problems. Let me tell you what we do for people who need recruiting.” They are better off saying something like “Recruiting is a big issue almost everywhere I go. What has your organization been doing to address this area? Here are some of the problems I have picked up from others. Do you see these same problems?” This approach involves mutual consideration of the issue and less of a sales pitch. The most effective consultants appreciate the problem and avoid the pitch until they see what issues the client is facing. They may even admit that they don’t have anything better than what the client has, but could look into it. Also, people who have data on what is going on in the client’s industry get more attention than those who claim that it doesn’t matter which industry is involved. A “one-size-fits-all” attitude can be demeaning to the client who clearly has a specific problem and needs help from someone who understands it. Many good sources are available for those who want to learn more about relationship selling including The Spin Selling Fieldbook by Neil Rackham which provides a framework for asking questions that builds a strong client relationship and High-Impact Consulting by Robert Schaffer which provides some excellent examples of relationship building methods in selling consulting services.

Integrating Differentiators & Relationship

Consultants who differentiate and engage most successfully do things like the following:

• Watch the market and connect with the “hot buttons” that relate to organization needs that are likely to get them an audience with potential clients.
• Go beyond the hot topics in defining what you do and get prepared to describe in detail how you will help solve typical problems, including examples that show clearly how you would approach problems.
• Create and offer brief research papers, presentation slides, or other samples of thinking versus brochures or promotional items to engage the client.
• Engage the potential client by using their need as the basis for discussion rather than focusing heavily on the consultant’s interest, capabilities, or services.

Our advice is to position as a market leader with a genuine interest in implementing interesting, cutting-edge behavioral technology and an interest in proving the concept rather than just selling the business. This means that, early on, consultants should form a partnership with the potential client and contribute time and energy (with low or no cost to the client) to let them know that you are there to help as needed. Successful relationships in the consulting business are built over months and, sometimes, years and versus days or weeks.

References

Rackham, N. (1996). The spin selling fieldbook: Practical tools, methods, exercises, and resources. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Schaffer, R.H. (2002). High-impact consulting: How clients and consultants can work together to achieve extraordinary results. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Biographical information on the authors

Bill Redmon started his career as an academic, first at West Virginia University (1982-1986) and later at Western Michigan University (1986-1993). In 1993, he joined the Continuous Learning Group (CLG) as a senior consultant and delivered behavior-based training, coaching and consulting until 2001 when he accepted a position as Corporate Manager of Leadership and Development at Bechtel Group, Inc. a San Francisco-based Engineering and Construction firm with 30,000 employees involved in more than 200 projects in 60 countries.

Susan Hoberecht is a consultant with her own business, Sage Strategies, located in Seattle, Washington. She provides coaching and organization development/change consulting to variety of companies, large and small. She received her BS in Business Marketing from Montana State University and her MA in Applied Behavior Science from Bastyr University in Seattle, Washington. Her specialty areas include performance management, behavior-based change management, and executive coaching.