28 ◾ Odyssey—The Business of Consulting
These briefings are generally low cost or no cost seminars/workshops
presented to an invited audience, where you showcase your business and
whet the client’s appetite for the services you provide. Your aim is to favor-
ably alter a prospective client’s decision criteria or biases by using data,
information, pain points, a touch of drama, and a call to action.
To grow and maintain a healthy client pipeline, consultants are advised to
consider at least four EBs annually.
Our Story
An alternative EB option is to partner with other professional organizations.
I recently collaborated with our accountant on a series of four EBs run on
the last Monday of each month. We presented relevant topics, including
“How to Put the Mojo Back into Your Business” and “How to Reinvent your
Entrepreneurial Spirit.” We also brought in specialists to present particular
topics and a celebrity speaker to add further traction to the briefings.
Partnering with your local chamber is another worthwhile option, or
handpicking your audience, either from your client base or from the market
sector in which you specialize. You could offer an in-house EB at corporate
level, bringing the senior executives together for an 8 a.m. business break-
fast. To maximize effectiveness, always pick topics that are both relevant and
timely.
The EB is a critical first step, designed to introduce you to potential cli-
ents and to prompt them to critically assess their own businesses. The EB
will help the participants recognize challenges or opportunities in their busi-
ness, which they would like to address. This realization will trigger the M1,
which is your first one-on-one meeting with the prospective client.
Meeting One
The first meeting provides you with the platform to explore the possibility
offurther engagement between you and your prospective client. Outlined
here is the precise format recommended in the Odyssey Arrow system
(Figure 2.3).
After the standard introductions and rapport-building niceties, there comes
a “signal point,” when you set the course of the process and how it is to be
conducted by saying something like the following:
The Odyssey Arrow Value Engagement Process ◾ 29
“My objective (purpose) today is to gain an understanding of you and
your organization (or this assignment/project), and to give you an insight
into who we are and what we do … Is that OK?”
Agreement, even a nodding agreement, puts an unwritten contract in
place, which allows you to ask questions and explore possibilities. As you
work through the process, consider both your own and your client’s position
within the four parallel process levels. As an accurate picture of their situa-
tion emerges, ask yourself, are they your Ideal Client?
The M1 questions are set out here in three stages, designed to bring you
deeper into the client’s organization, project, or assignment. Frequently, con-
sultants will ask the step one questions but lack the confidence or expertise
to continue through to the metrics and clarifying objectives questions. Used
correctly, the M1 questions represent powerful tools for analyzing the pro-
spective client’s mind-set and the issues they face.
Do not, however, become a victim of the questions. It is important not
to stick slavishly to the list set out here but to respond to the client as the
issues emerge. In essence, you are taking the client through each of the four
levels discussed in Chapter 1:
◾ The hand: How are things working on a day-to-day basis?
◾ The head: What is the thinking behind these processes?
◾ The heart: How do you feel about it?
◾ The soul: What is the ideal situation?
The consultant should always go into the meeting with this attitude:
“While I would like more business, I do not need it.” This phrase helps to
set the tone of the meeting and keeps the focus on the client, not the con-
sultant. It is recommended, for business growth purposes, that the consul-
tant set up at least four M1s per month to keep the client funnel flowing.
M1r
REC
M2
BMR
ODI
SER
EB
Figure 2.3 Meeting One.
30 ◾ Odyssey—The Business of Consulting
The M1 Questions—Step 1: Situation
Analysis—Past, Present, Future
◾ Tell me about you and/or your company, its history, and its
development.
◾ What is going well?
◾ What are the current challenges?
◾ Where does it hurt? What is your biggest unsolved problem?
◾ How long have things been this way? Why?
◾ What is your current goal?
◾ What are you really trying to achieve in your business?
◾ What is your business philosophy?
◾ What is the biggest obstacle to achieving your goal?
◾ What are you doing about that obstacle?
◾ Where will you be in three years’ time?
◾ If you were to take a performance improvement initiative, what would
make it worthwhile?
◾ What are the critical metrics that you use to check the pulse of your
business? List the top five or six.
◾ What has been your experience with improvement initiatives and earlier
consulting interventions?
◾ What do you believe is the best way to approach change?
◾ What opportunities are open to you?
◾ What priority do you give each of these opportunities?
◾ How committed are you to your own personal and professional
development?
◾ How do you create business advantage?
◾ How would you describe the culture in your organization?
◾ How would you characterize morale?
◾ How would your customers describe you?
◾ What is your business model?
◾ How does it serve you and your business now?
◾ Will it still serve you in three to five years’ time?
The Odyssey Arrow Value Engagement Process ◾ 31
◾ Is there anything further you would like to add?
◾ What questions would you ask if you were me?
◾ Knowing what you now know about XYZ, would you have acted as
you did?
The M1 Questions—Step 2: Clarifying Assignment Objectives
◾ What three macro outcomes, in order of importance, do you want from
this assignment?
◾ Waving a magic wand across the problem, what would an ideal
scenario/outcome look like?
◾ On an operational level, what difference would this outcome make to
employees and others?
◾ How would it impact your customers?
◾ How would your board of directors recognize the change?
◾ What is your biggest concern about undertaking this assignment now?
◾ What do you need to know about me?
◾ What bottom-line metrics can be measured to prove this assignment is
a success?
◾ What else do we need to talk about to make this meeting worthwhile?
The M1 Questions—Step 3: Establishing
theMeasures (Metrics) of Success and Value
◾ Can you quantify the impact of this problem, opportunity, or change in
dollar/euro terms?
◾ What are the implications for you if this assignment fails?
◾ What direct effect will this project have on performance, productivity,
sales, profit?
◾ How will this assignment affect cultural factors such as morale?
◾ How will we know you are happy?
Add Questions Appropriately to Dig Deeper
◾ How do you mean?
◾ Tell me more?
◾ Would you still hire person X? Would you still …?
32 ◾ Odyssey—The Business of Consulting
Having completed a thorough note taking and fact-finding M1, you will
then “pen sell”; thank them for their overview, which gave you an excellent
appreciation of the client’s business.
You then outline your business model for your potential client, using sto-
ries and connecting your business model to the potential solutions for their
challenges and opportunities. If you cannot help the client or if their chal-
lenges are outside your area of expertise, be upfront about it.
I recently met with a potential client, and as I listened to their situation, it
emerged that they required IT expertise. I simply recommended that they solve
those issues as a priority and perhaps revert to me once they had resolved
those issues. The secret is do not try to be all things to all people. If IT,
finance, social media, or other identified issues are not your area of specializa-
tion or expertise, make recommendations that they seek appropriate advice.
If, on the other hand, the challenges, objectives, and issues raised are
within your portfolio of expertise and remit, let the potential client know
that you will review the meeting and write a response letter reviewing the
key points of the discussion, giving a more in-depth overview of your busi-
ness and making a recommendation to move forward.
The Discovery Audit
Comprehensive diagnosis is essential to deliver an effective result-based REC
and value-based ODI—both of which are discussed in detail in the next
chapter. Right from the first meeting—the M1—you are examining the scope
and nature of the consulting assignment before you. You are consistently
uncovering the client’s opportunities, threats, weaknesses, and strengths.
You are “getting your arms around” the consulting assignment and working
to bring more clarity to the organizational challenges the client is struggling
with. Very often a discovery audit is conducted as an independent, fee-
based activity project before the REC stage.
Diagnostic Methods
There are several methods of gathering facts and information about the cli-
ent organization. These include:
◾ Records
◾ Special occasions/events
◾ Observations
◾ Interviews
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