Repackaging Your Skills for Consulting. A presentation by John Hedtke john@hedtke.com

Transcription

1 Repackaging Your Skills for Consulting A presentation by John Hedtke john@hedtke.com

2 Speaker Background John Hedtke has worked in high tech for 30 years and has written books and documentation for many leading software products. John owns and operates Double Tall Consulting, a company that provides writing, consulting, and training services to private and government clients in all fields. A list of clients, projects, and other information can be found at his web site, When not otherwise occupied, John lives in Eugene, OR, where he writes magazine articles, plays the banjo, and sings Renaissance and jazz music with several choirs. John is a Fellow of the STC and has served on the STC s Board.

3 What this presentation covers What skills do you have now? What kinds of consulting are there? What skills does consulting require? How do you repackage your skills for consulting? How do you find work as a consultant?

4 What this presentation doesn t cover Becoming a consultant in the sense of being freelance but it s going to be valuable job hunting and interviewing skills even so. If you want to learn more about being a freelancer, download this article:

5 What Are Your TC Skills? Analyzing Researching Synthesizing Reporting Interviewing Estimating Writing/Communicating Publishing

6 What Are Your General Skills? Domain knowledge Project management General business skills Negotiation and risk management Spreadsheets PowerPoint Presentation and sales skills Marketing Team/department management

7 What other TC or general skills can you suggest?

8 Kinds of Consultant Business analyst Efficiency expert Disaster recovery consultant Documentation consultant Implementation consultant Process consultant Hiring/retention/layoff consultant Executive coach General consultant What other types of consultants can you think of?

9 What Does a Business Analyst Do? Identify problems Gather information Listen to people Write problem statements and reports Identify potential solutions Create CBAs and projections Present findings Negotiate budgets and deadlines (possibly) Manage teams to implement a solution

10 These are the same skills!

11 The Skills Are the Same! Identify problems = Analyzing Gather information = Researching Listen to people = Interviewing Write problem statements and reports = Reporting Identify potential solutions = Synthesizing Create CBAs and projections = Estimating Present findings = Presenting Negotiate budgets and deadlines = Negotiating Manage teams to implement a solution = Managing

12 Are There Differences? You ll need different sets of domain knowledge but you always do. Different deliverables: white papers, presentations, executive reports, some P&P. More graphics work: flowcharts, Venn diagrams, conceptual art, more elaborate page design. More sales emphasis: even if it s just selling your conclusions, you need to present them well. More interaction with people, particularly execs.

13 But they re still basically the same skills.

14 Skill Sets for Other Consultant Types What are the primary skills/tasks for each of these consultants and are there things that you don t already have as a TCer? Efficiency expert Disaster recovery consultant Documentation consultant Implementation consultant Process consultant Hiring/retention/layoff consultant Executive coach General consultant

15 Skills You Most Likely Need to Transition into Consulting Domain knowledge General business knowledge People skills Certifications (occasionally)

16 Above All, Confidence Consulting is all about confidence. Read the books on the reading list for a vocabulary of concepts.

17 What If You Don t Have Everything? Most people think of their skills as a checklist. You match your skills against the skills in the job listing.

18 How Most TCers View Their Skills Suppose there s a job that lists the following requirements: Bachelor's in English or technical writing 5-10 years experience MS Office 2010 IT systems knowledge Left-nostril glow-in-the-dark inhaler technology

19 But Your Skills Don t Match Bachelor's in English or technical writing 5-10 years experience MS Office 2010 IT systems knowledge Left-nostril glow-in-the-dark inhaler technology

20 What Do You Do Now? At this point, most people just stop, but they re thinking about this wrong. It s not a checklist, it s a circle.

21 Bachelor s Degree in TC MS Office 2010 Left-nostril glow-inthe-dark inhaler technology IT systems knowledge 5-10 years experience

22 Bachelor s Degree in TC MS Office 2010 Left-nostril glow-inthe-dark inhaler technology IT systems knowledge 5-10 years experience

23 Bachelor s Degree in TC MS Office 2010 Left-nostril glow-inthe-dark inhaler technology IT systems knowledge 5-10 years experience

24 Bachelor s Degree in TC MS Office 2010 Left-nostril glow-inthe-dark inhaler technology IT systems knowledge 5-10 years experience

25 Bachelor s Degree in TC MS Office 2010 Left-nostril glow-inthe-dark inhaler technology IT systems knowledge 5-10 years experience

26 Bachelor s Degree in TC Right- Left-nostril glow-inthe-dark inhalers inhaler technology MS Office 2010 IT systems knowledge 5-10 years experience

27 Bachelor s Degree in TC Right- Left-nostril glow-inthe-dark inhalers inhaler technology Glow-in-thedark technology MS Office 2010 IT systems knowledge 5-10 years experience

28 Cover as Much Area as You Can The trick is to cover as much of the circle as you can. You want the remainder to be something you can dismiss with a wave. In fact, any job documenting new product/software has something nobody s ever seen before.

29 Getting Out There! What do you need to do to get out there? Figure out if you want to work freelance or captive. Build a brand. Design your collateral. Find work.

30 Freelance or Captive? You can be a consultant on your own (freelance) or you can work for someone else (captive). I prefer freelance work for a variety of reasons, but many people like having a structure. As a captive, you can work for very large consulting firms KPMG, Deloitte & Touche, many others or for thousands of smaller companies. Many companies have consulting departments for internal consulting, too. You ll find captive jobs like this through normal job-hunting venues. But let s take a look at more freelance jobs (and this applies also to building your persona as a consultant for captivity, too).

31 Identify Your Brand Magid s Law! Answer these questions for yourself: What s your specialty that will keep your market coming back for more? What do you do that s fantastic? Do you have superpowers? What problems do you solve? You need to claim your niche, the things you do that are fantastic and that will make you worth hiring.

32 Self-Assessment Tool You can download a very helpful self-assessment tool here: This helps you identify your strengths and weaknesses and shows where to bolster your skills.

33 Build a Value Proposition Build a statement about what you re going to do, something that s elevator-speech level that you can rattle off within about seconds. This should tell your clients what they can expect from your company. For example: Double Tall Consulting helps companies so they can produce timely, clear, and informative documentation that maximizes the value of a company s products and minimizes their customers need for product support. We can evaluate and enhance existing documentation departments as well as set up new ones, troubleshoot process problems, and provide a complete range of writing, training, authoring, and ghostwriting services.

34 Marketing Collateral signature Website Blog Posts White Papers Brochures Business Cards Resume Social Media Sites Google+ LinkedIn Facebook Twitter Instagram

35 If You Don t Know Marketing. Find someone who does to team up with. Learn to do it on your own: Marketingmo.com Impactbnd.com Hubspot.com You ll probably find you know a lot already, but you didn t know you knew it. Bad marketing people are right out of Dilbert. Good marketing people are worth their weight in pigeon s-blood rubies.

36 How Do Consultants Find Work? Home Office Computing had a survey of successful vs. unsuccessful consultants. (Successful consultants made 2x or more than the unsuccessful consultants.) SUCCESSFUL consultants got work through: Speaking Networking Referrals UNSUCCESSFUL consultants got work through: Advertising Mass-mailings Cold calls

37 Some War Stories There are lots of things you can do to build up your presence. Books & articles Social media Networking Professional organizations Referrals

38 Recommended Reading The Secrets of Consulting by Gerald M. Weinberg Peopleware (3rd ed.) by Tom DeMarco and Tim Lister A Whack on the Side of the Head by Dr. Roger von Oech Clutter's Last Stand by Don Aslett Up the Organization by Robert Townsend The Richest Man in Babylon by George Clason The Time Trap by Alex Mackenzie

39 Summary As a TCer, you have a lot of skills. These skills are the skills you need more most consulting jobs, packaged a little differently. You will need to add domain knowledge, so be ready to learn things quickly. Figure out what you do that s fantastic and build on that. Read the books I recommended. Be confident and, if not, fake it. (That s just as good.)

40 Thank you! John Hedtke Double Tall Consulting 2171 Kingfisher Way Eugene, OR USA Feel free to or write if you have questions. (Please use the name of this seminar as the subject so I can get to it quickly.)