Author Archives: Craig Bailey

Oct 01 2014
6 Comments
Business Success, Inspirational

Launching a Consulting Business – Be Equipped!

When we ask a carpenter, plumber or landscaper to stop by and do some work for us, don’t we expect them to arrive fully equipped? That is, all we are required to supply is the problem (a room needing work, clogged pipe or long grass) and the compensation to pay for their service.

Well, it is no different for a consultant. The absolute must-have tools of the power-consultant include:

  • A Smartphone
  • A High Performing Laptop
  • ALL the Software

Let’s dive in to each.

Smartphone

In the prior post (Be Connected) I covered the importance of being connected and having ALL our critical information at our fingertips. In addition to being able to access our email and calendar, it is also important to ALWAYS have ALL of our contact information available.

The reason: we never know when a problem, important question or opportunity will come up (when we are FAR away from our computer) and we’ll want to be able to, quite simply, handle it – IMMEDIATELY. Having a smartphone fully loaded with our information, at our side, is absolutely critical.

My personal preference is the iPhone. In addition to owning stock in Apple, I simply love the product. It is extremely easy to use and is common in corporate settings. I keep mine in a Lifeproof case as insurance for when (not if) I drop it in the lake, on the pavement or a rock, etc. In fact, these cases are so good that my boys have taken underwater videos with their iPhone. I haven’t attempted that – yet.

High Performing Laptop

To continue demonstrating that we are highly effective and efficient, we must NEVER be the person in the room saying “Man, this machine is so slow. Give me a minute to reboot.” The reality: Reboots seldom take a minute. If we are in this situation, we are wasting our client’s time. Throw out that machine and get a new one – NOW!

My personal preference is the MacBook Pro. As of a few years ago, the capability exists to use a MacBook Pro in a corporate setting while being 100% compatible with our clients and co-workers. And, I’ve found the total cost of ownership to be much lower than Windows-based (virus-attracting) machines. Plus, again, I own Apple stock 🙂

ALL the Software

As you might imagine, the basic software we’ll want on our High Performing Laptop must include MS Office (Word, Powerpoint, Excel). In addition, other common packages we may need, depending on the nature of our services, include: MS Visio and MS Project.

Some “might” be asking: “How do you run these MS products on a Mac?”

Easy: MS Office is available in versions that run native on a Mac. And, by the way, my experience has been that they don’t crash as much as they do on Windows-based machines.

That said, there remain other packages (i.e., MS Project, MS Visio, etc.) that don’t (presently) have versions that run native on a Mac.

What is a person to do? Install VMware Fusion, Windows and these other packages on the Mac. Doing so provides access to ALL of our tools at the same time: they are only a “Command-Tab” away (on the Mac).

Bottom-Line

Some clients may offer up a laptop for us to use, during the course of their project. I have found that using my own equipment has been more effective as it enables me to fully conduct my business and personal life on “my” devices vs. segregating my brain between client A, client B., personal life, etc.

Keep it simple and be equipped!

Click here to review the next article in the series.

Sep 30 2014
3 Comments
Personal Success

How To Land That First “Professional” Job – The Hunt

Building on the prior article (“preparing” to land that first professional job) the purpose of this post is to share strategies that a newly degreed job-seeker can use “during the hunt” to stand above the crowd.

Before we do that, I thought it important to ask a couple of questions:

  1. Does it all seem over-whelming?
  2. Does any of the material covered seem familiar (with other content published on this blog or what was “hopefully” learned in school)?

Well, rest-assured that if you’ve done the work to achieve a Bachelor’s Degree, the strategies being shared here are child’s play. It just needs to get done!

And, for those really paying attention – ALL this stuff ties together like pieces of a puzzle. Or, building blocks stacked one upon another. It may also be observed that the prior post on this topic and what is about to be covered here is oh so similar to what is outlined in the series on “Launching a Consulting Business.” We’re just starting small (targeting the landing of one’s first professional job). If we can do this well here, and gain some scars of experience over time, we can then step out on faith and do our own thing. But, I digress 🙂

It’s time to go on the hunt!

First, realize – there IS A JOB “OPPORTUNITY” out there specifically designed for YOU. But, YOU must find it. It will NOT find you. And, the secret is relentlessly applying the strategies shared here – until! That is, we can’t say “oh, I have a resume out here, or a job interview there, so I’ll pause the hunt.” No, no, no!

The theme here is: We don’t have our professional job until we have our professional job. So, create and keep the momentum – until the job is 100% officially landed!

Let’s Begin the Hunt

The net offers unlimited information and resources to help land that first (or subsequent) professional job. One site, in particular, that is most prominent is: www.monster.com. I’m not going to share how to use this service, as the job-seeker can simply go to the site and follow their prompts (wizard, so to speak) to get setup and perform the hunt. And, if we’ve done everything shared in the prior post on this topic, we should have ALL of the baseline information necessary to do so – at our fingertips.

Note: while there are other sites available to perform job searches, Monster.com is a fantastic place to get started. Focus here first…

Do Something Above and Beyond

Between the efforts being applied to leverage Monster.com, the job-seeker can do other things to “shamelessly promote” themselves. These things include:

  • Start blogging on an area of passion and/or expertise that is aligned with the degree recently achieved.
  • Offer to do volunteer work, leveraging the recently acquired skills, at church, an industry association, the local Chamber of Commerce, etc.
  • Offer prospective employers a “try before you buy” short-term consulting gig.

The first 2 items above are (I hope) fairly self-explanatory. Let me share a little bit on the third item (offering a “try before you buy”). Realize, employers “can be” very reluctant to make a long-term hiring decision. And, in a hyper-competitive environment this means they will take time (to explore many candidates) before they “pull the trigger.”

So, let’s think outside the box. One thing that we can do is offer the prospective employer the opportunity to “try us out” for a predetermined (short-term) period of time, on a consulting basis. This offers the prospective employer an opportunity to:

  • Check us out, without making a long term commitment
  • Get some stuff done, while they are waiting to make the final / long-term decision

And, this provides the job-seeker a “foot in the door.” Assuming we do (exceptionally) well, after we’ve been inside the firm for 30 +/- days we’ve gained invaluable subject-matter-expertise that the prospective employer would be hard-pressed to let go.

To be prepared for this, it will be important to create a relationship with a temporary staffing agency. The reason: corporations do NOT typically contract with individuals. They will, however, contract with temp agencies. If we are speaking to a prospective employer and indicate that we already have a relationship with a temp agency we’ve made it easy for them to engage us via this method.

Bottom-line: Get creative and don’t simply “wait” for prospective employers to respond to (or find) us. We must make some noise to flush them out, during the hunt!

All the best!

Click here for the next article in this series.

Sep 29 2014
3 Comments
Business Success, Inspirational

Launching a Consulting Business – Be Connected!

Given all the hard work we’ve done to get to this point, of Launching a Consulting Business, it would be a shame if we weren’t connected.

That is, if/when a client (new or existing) were to reach out to us for help and we weren’t able to respond with our availability within a reasonable timeframe (24 hours, or less) it is very likely the client will simply MOVE ON! Opportunity lost.

Consider this: When a client has a need, they typically want to act or know that action is planned (RIGHT NOW)!

For example, a client emails us: “When can we meet to discuss a project I have for you?” If our response is something like: “I am on vacation and don’t have access to my calendar. I’ll let you know when I return next week.” it indicates that we are disconnected and suggests that we may not be prepared to perform as a high-value, power-consultant.

The point is: If we can read our email our calendar is, or ought to be, just as accessible. If it is not then we haven’t made effective use of readily available technology. The result: we are “missing” 2 very important objectives:

  1. Giving the client a prompt response to their inquiry so they can close-out the question in their mind, and in a very small, but important way, observe that forward progress is being made (towards addressing their need).
  2. Demonstrating to the client that we are highly efficient and make effective use of technology.

In a nutshell, those are the ONLY 2 reasons a client contacts us: to get stuff off their mind and to get stuff done (effectively and efficiently).

It is realized that we all will (and must) take time to “get away” from it all, which may mean that we are totally disconnected for a period of time. However, this truly is the exception. My experience (after making numerous attempts to get off the grid) is that there aren’t too many places on the planet that don’t offer a cell signal / Internet connection for our smartphones.

In closing, to be considered a highly professional, effective and efficient “power consultant” we must be responsive – no matter where we are.

As stated in the opening narration of The Six Million Dollar Man:

We Have The Technology

It is simply a matter of making the best use of it…

Click here to review the next article in the series.

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