Consulting Fundamentals: Skills, tools, tips (2023)

Please find link to book on Amazon here:  This is a sample of the content:

I love consulting

Yes, that’s a nerdy thing to say, I know. Wrote my MBA entrance essay about career switching into management consulting. Worked at Deloitte Consulting, then healthcare consulting, then launched 5 courses on Coursera.

Currently, I teach strategy and healthcare at Emory University.

Want to share what I learned over the last 20 years.

  • Yes, consulting is $130+ billion industry with firms with fancy reputations and powerful alumni who run the world.
  • Yes, consulting is a career accelerant; you gain real-world experience at 1.5x speed. It is the “MBA after the MBA.”
  • Yes, consulting is about clients. Keeping smart, and often demanding, clients happy is a difficult job. Ergo, it pays well.

Yes, books and videos can help. Of course you need to know the basics. I’ve written 600+ blog posts on consulting and trained a thousand+ consultants. This works.  

Consulting is an apprenticeship

It’s the same as if you were learning to be a chef. You learn the basics of cookery – ingredients, equipment, process. But foundational knowledge doesn’t mean you’re a Michelin star chef.  You learn cooking – by cooking. So find ways to apply this.

Stay curious, learn quickly, write things down. Find smart and generous people to learn from. Work on complex problems from demanding clients. Make mistakes (once) and get better. Put in your 10,000+ hours of deliberate practice. Win.

Who should read this book?

 

New hires (caps):

You may be a job candidate who is recruiting. Dropping resumes, practicing case interviews. These jobs pay well, accelerate learning, and give career flexibility. It’s no surprise that successful people like you (smart, diligent, relational) like to keep their options open. Consulting is the ultimate open-ended, round-trip plane ticket. Once a consulting partner joked to me, “I never decided what I wanted to do, so I just stayed in consulting.” 

Even if consulting is not a career, you become valuable – rich with skills, experiences, and relationships. In a world where ChatGPT is commoditizing a lot of white collar work, consulting is rarely considered a waste of time. Want proof? 14% of Harvard undergrads go into consulting.

Recruiting: Consulting firms have a structured recruiting process. It’s fairly rigid, so please watch to your university’s recruiting calendar. Plan it out. Market yourself like a product:

  • Which firms are recruiting? When?
  • What networking opportunities are there?
  • How to refine my resume so it gets me an interview?

All of Chapter 2 is on “Getting a Consulting Job”, where we uncover the skills, experiences, competencies, and attitudes that consulting firms are looking for.

Warning: this book does not focus on case interviews. We do not dig deep into the tactics of case interviews. There are many books, videos, and programs on that already.

Internal consultants (ladder)

Whatever your title, you are in a hierarchical organization and you get things done by managing people, products, or processes (think: The Profit).

Organizations are complex and relational. Every function has its own goals and metrics. Nothing is simple in a company of 100,000 people, that why companies hire consultants. In fact, you may have interacted with external consultants. Perhaps they interviewed you or asked for data.

  • How do they get so much done in a short time?
  • What skills and tools do they use to impress the boss?

Let’s take that consulting DNA and empower the team.

“Solo” entrepreneurs (plane)

Here’s your chance to harvest all your knowledge, wisdom, and relationships.

  • Maybe you have skills that clients will pay $$$ / hour
  • Maybe you do work 2-3x faster, cheaper than others
  • Maybe you have relationships with clients with budget

If you are building your own business, learn how consultants:

  • Build credibility, “sell without selling”
  • Write proposals that entice, yet don’t over-promise
  • Manage expectations, while working smarter
  • Cross-sell work and get referrals
  • Do more with less and win, win, win

What will you learn?

When explaining consulting to my “cousin”, I might say:

Consultants help executives break down problems, make difficult decisions, and create change

 

Using a healthcare analogy, we act like corporate doctors who help patients with multiple illnesses to figure out what needs to be done, create a set of options, let the patient make informed decisions, and finally, help them get healthier. 

We define consulting much too narrowly

It’s not just management consultants who benefit from these skills. These are superpowers and tools you can apply daily (chapter #):

  • Solve problems like puzzles (1.5)
  • Demonstrate clear thinking (1.9)
  • Run projects like an internal consultant (2.8)
  • Network for long-term career success (2.9)
  • Scope problems (3.3) and work with messy data (3.8)
  • Get smart with industry analysis (4.1)
  • Launch effective surveys (4.9) and benchmarking (4.11)
  • Present well (5.15) and develop gravitas (5.19)

Consultants help executives

Why executives?  Consultants are eager to make a difference. So, we often look for large organizations (or governments) that have complex, or high-risk problems, where we can add value. Basically, the tougher the problem, the more likely that a client will need help and be willing to pay $$$,$$$.

Big problems = big projects = big impact = big $$$,$$$

Be (really) patient: Consulting clients make decisions slowly. It often involves multiple stakeholders and cross-functional relationships. It’s expensive enough to need budget approval from a committee. Welcome to the world of B2B services.  As you learn more about consulting, ask around. You will find the consulting projects come in all shapes and size.

Thanks for all the encouragement over the years.  The book is paperback in color. My hope and blessing is that it’s useful to you. Let me know how else I can be of help to you. 

John

 

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