Chapter 2: The Odyssey Arrow Value Engagement Process: Bringing Clarity to Client Needs (6/7)

48 ◾ Odyssey—The Business of Consulting

I worked with them to develop the Odyssey value-driven consulting propo-

sition, and within a year, we had six good clients in the mix. Two years in,

they’ve got a bottom line of half a million dollars.

The ﬁrst thing I had to do was to help them understand who their Ideal

Clients are. I was something like two or three years in consulting before

I ﬁgured this out, though it’s very evident in Odyssey. Another thing I’ve

discovered is that you really don’t want to take a company that’s failing and

try to save it; you want good companies so you can help them become great

companies.

You’re looking for the person that wants to grow their company. They’ve

got to be open. They’ve got to be willing to change. That’s something that

really crystallized for me when I went through Odyssey.

How do you know if your prospect meets these criteria? I’m always

preaching, “Slow it down, slow it down, take them out to dinner, really get

into the guy’s head.” If you’re dealing with people that can actually change,

you have a much higher chance of success. You’re not looking for a particu-

lar skill set; you’re looking for a particular attitude. I don’t take onany cli-

ents or any coaching situations where I don’t have a good chance of success.

The next step is to help them with their market prospecting and get their

pipeline going. This client had no referrals coming in per se, so we had to

begin with the Executive Brieﬁng. I’ve been doing Executive Brieﬁngs for

twenty years, so that’s an easy one for me to help on.

This company was partnering with a local college in staging its EBs.

Typically, when you’re doing your own brieﬁng, you can disqualify some

people who you know are not and will never be Ideal Clients. That was a

little bit of an issue with the college because they had their list and couldn’t

really say no to anybody. So we had a lot of people coming into the brief-

ings who were just not the right people. They weren’t decision makers, and

they weren’t the owners.

But we worked through that, and we still got two or three good leads out

of that ﬁrst brieﬁng. Two months later, we got two more good leads, and

two months after that, two or three more leads. On another occasion, we

had a really good HR person at the brieﬁng. She wasn’t the decision maker,

but she was insightful enough to see value in what we were doing, so she

invited us in. We did an in-house brieﬁng and ended up doing some good

business with that client.

After a slow start, my client got their Executive Brieﬁngs down. They got

to know what they were doing, their positioning in the marketplace, and

how to present that. Today, the company is just getting to the point where

The Odyssey Arrow Value Engagement Process ◾ 49

they’re starting to get really good referrals, and they will now take over from

the Executive Brieﬁng.

We did a lot of rehearsal ahead of the M1. The client started to develop

some really good questions and slowed the process way down. We also

spent quite a bit of time working on the M1r letter and ﬁne-tuning the pro-

cess with M2 and M3 meetings.

Next of course is the Business Management Review. Over the last year or

two, the principal consultant in this practice has come to deﬁne the BMR for

himself. He’s got it down: the initial letters, the setup, the interviews before,

what to say, what to do … He’s really made that process his own. It helps

too that the problems that the BMR throws up tend to be replicated again

and again. But it’s very much client-led the whole time. You’re basically giv-

ing the client the tools to hand you back the solution.

And yet the process itself is revolutionary. I’ve heard client companies

repeat that over and over: “Wow I thought I knew what consulting was

about, but I’ve never been through a process like that before!”

A Note on Technology Support

The Odyssey Arrow is supported by an integrated client relationship manage-

ment (CRM) system called Odyssey Quickstart, which is speciﬁcally designed

to enable you to track contacts, activities, e-mail and other communications,

resources, progress, and revenues/costs in each step of the Odyssey Arrow.

Chapter Summary

The Odyssey Arrow is the Odyssey business value development process. It

provides practical, step-by-step guidelines showing how consultants move

from identifying their Ideal Clients all the way through to delivering a Level

3 or Level 4 intervention. In this chapter, we covered the engagement prac-

tices in the Odyssey Arrow methodology. They are as follows: Executive

Brieﬁng (EB), Meeting One (M1), Meeting One Response Letter (M1r),

Meeting Two (M2), and Business Management Review (BMR).

Before staging an EB, it is imperative to identify your Ideal Clients. The

EB is then tailored to the speciﬁc needs of your Ideal Client base. The M1 is

the ﬁrst one-to-one meeting with the prospective client. It provides the plat-

form to explore the possibility of further engagement with you. An extensive

list of M1 questions is provided to facilitate a highly effective M1 meeting.

50 ◾ Odyssey—The Business of Consulting

The consultant then follows up the M1 with the M1r. Its purpose is to

capture the essence of your discussion at the M1, to give the client a deeper

insight into the style and approach of your consulting business, and to make

a recommendation on how the assignment/project can move forward.

The M2 and subsequent meetings help clarify the issues facing the com-

pany with other key staff members. The BMR is then arranged to provide

the client with the forum to thoroughly explore all of the issues and chal-

lenges that the company faces.

Calls to Action

1. Using the exercise in this chapter, sketch your Ideal Client. Identify the

client’s sector, size, and characteristics. Consider what the Ideal Client is

looking for, what kinds of interventions they will require, how they will

ﬁnd you, why they will seek your intervention, and how you will work

together.

______________________________________________________________

2. Identify three separate opportunities/partnerships/associations that

could facilitate three separate EBs, targeting your Ideal Client base.

______________________________________________________________

3. Develop an EB program outline using the following four key

questions:

a. What is your promise? One statement that captures the key beneﬁt

of attendance.

The Odyssey Arrow Value Engagement Process ◾ 51

Sample: We will provide you with an overview and key strategies

for staying on your growth curve and achieving higher proﬁtability

and performance in your organization.

____________________________________________________________

b. What is your key message? The statement that creates the call for

the client to engage.

Sample: All companies go through stages of growth. Today is an

opportunity to critically examine where you are in your growth curve

and identify what factors you are missing which WILL inhibit your

future growth and KILL your proﬁtability.

____________________________________________________________

c. What is your offer? What is the client take-away?

Sample: We will provide you with a quick diagnostic to assess

your “growth-curve killers” and a CEO road map to lead a “stages of

growth” discussion with your executive team.

____________________________________________________________

d. What is your catch theme/title? A short, commanding client attrac-

tion statement.

Sample: Building a High Performance Company

10 Critical Factors Killing YOUR Growth Curve!

____________________________________________________________

52 ◾ Odyssey—The Business of Consulting

4. Of, say, twenty people who will attend the EB, perhaps 20% may have

some interest in having further discussions with you on a one-to-one

basis. The EB will help them to verbalize a problem with recruitment

or strategy, with succession planning or within the senior team. Explain

how you will establish M1s with these clients based on ﬁrst contact at

the EB.

______________________________________________________________

5. Consider the M1 questions in relation to your prospective Ideal Client.

Redraft all three sets of questions with particular reference to this client.

______________________________________________________________

Table of Contents for Chapter 2: The Odyssey Arrow Value Engagement Process: Bringing Clarity to Client Needs (6/7)

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Table of Contents for
Chapter 2: The Odyssey Arrow Value Engagement Process: Bringing Clarity to Client Needs (6/7)