What if you could enjoy a huge increase in your consulting firm's success without finding more clients, competing for more projects or winning more engagements? You can, if you increase the size of your projects. Most consultants have almost everything they need to double their average project size—without doubling the workload, according to David A. Fields, Founder and Managing Director of the Ascendant Consortium. Fields will highlight several key fundamental ways to increase revenues, including how to reframe a client's RFP into a larger opportunity; the 37 Sources of Value you can tap to increase the ROI of your projects; the one obstacle that holds back most consulting firms; two conversations you must have with your client before you submit the proposal; and, the Irony of Expertise in his presentation: "Same Rain, Bigger Drops: Breakthroughs to Winning Better Projects" at the Consulting Summit in New York on Oct 24. Fields, who is the author of The Executive's Guide to Consultants:
How to Find, Hire and Get Great Results from Outside Experts , sat down with Consulting One on One to discuss his upcoming Summit presentation.
Consulting: Can you tell me a little bit about the takeaways from the "Same Rain Bigger Drops: Breakthroughs to Winning Better Projects" presentation you'll be making at the Consulting Summit in October?
Fields: Now that we're coming out of the recession, there's a real opportunity for consultants to do things right and a real temptation not to. As business picks up, there's a real temptation to put aside some of the best practices firm's have developed through the down times and just grab the projects as they come. But now is the time to start practicing a new way of thinking and to put into place new practices that will not only benefit you now, but will benefit you even more when those lean times come back some day. So, at the Consulting Summit, I will show attendees that it's possible to win bigger projects that have higher fees and higher margins without any more work involved. The first thing is breaking that mindset that bigger always means more work. Sometimes, bigger can mean more profit and be better for the client. And I'll highlight the ways you can do that.
Consulting: How can consultancies do that?
Fields: Well, there are many ways and I cover many of them in all-day workshops, but I'll focus on a few here. There are two conversations you must have with clients. One is the value conversation… and I know event he biggest consulting firms don't discuss this. I have walked into a client after those firms, and I ask: 'what is the valuation on the project,' and they tell me it hasn't been thought through yet. Hardly any firms have that value discussion. The other is the risk conversation. Hardly any firms calculate the risk-adjusted value of a project—most people don't even know what that is. But the fact is that if you have that conversation, you can double your close rates. That conversation, if you know how to do it, is gold. It's magic. The question you pose to a potential client is this: What concerns do you have about doing this project? And what concerns do you have about doing this project with us? Asking those questions will double the close rate.
Consulting: Doubling close rates, of course, is wonderful, but what about doubling the project size?
Fields: Again, there several factors that go into this, but it's about making sure you and the client understand the value of any project. When a client is tapped into the overall value of a project, they are willing to pay more and they are more willing to do the project. I have a list of 37 Sources of Value that fall into four buckets: 1) increasing something; 2) decreasing something; 3) improving something; and, 4) creating something. So you can increase retention and revenue; you could decrease attrition and spend; you can improve processes and communication, or, you can create a totally new product. Many projects have many other value creations as part of them and those are worth something. Consultants just have to recognize what they are. And make sure clients are also aware of them.
Consulting: And when you point these out, clients will pay more for this project?
Fields: Absolutely.
Consulting: What if your RFP ends up being significantly higher than all the other RFPs?
Fields: First of all, we have to get out of the world of RFPs. A lot of consultancies are still pricing on time and materials and that's flat-out wrong. I work with corporations that hire me to help them hire consultants, and I will not let them enter into a variable time and materials contract. It's the second worst type of contract. The worse is time and materials with a cap. Too many consultancies are too concerned with keeping their eye on hard metrics and caps. This is foolish. It's why the folks I work with make so much more money; we're focused on how you increase the value for the client.
Consulting: Can you talk a little bit about what you call 'The Irony of Expertise'?
Fields: When you have knowledge, you only see it one way. When a prospect asks you a question that you know the answer to because you are an expert. What do you do? You answer it; and that's exactly the wrong thing to do. Someone asks you: "Hey, do you know how to increase productivity?" And you say: "Of course I do." That's the wrong answer. The right answer is: "Well, tell me more about what's going on?" That's how you get a bigger project. When you already know how to do something and have an off-the-shelf solution, that's a smaller project solution. But if you listen, you may soon realize that part of the issue is productivity and part of it is something that needs to be addressed in a separate division and you can fix the whole thing—and that's how you increase project size. That's the Irony of Expertise; because you are an expert and you know the answer, you answer the question. That's a big mistake.
To hear more from David A. Fields and more insights from his "Same Rain, Bigger Drops: Breakthroughs to Winning Better Projects" presentation, or for additional information about the Consulting Summit, please visit www.consultingsummit.com.
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