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.
Youre 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 youre dealing with people that can actually change,
you have a much higher chance of success. Youre not looking for a particu-
lar skill set; youre 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 youre 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 werent 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 brieng. 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 Brieng.
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. Hes got it down: the initial letters, the setup, the interviews before,
what to say, what to do … Hes 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 its very much client-led the whole time. Youre 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 OdysseyThe 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.
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2. Identify three separate opportunities/partnerships/associations that
could facilitate three separate EBs, targeting your Ideal Client base.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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!
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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.
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5. Consider the M1 questions in relation to your prospective Ideal Client.
Redraft all three sets of questions with particular reference to this client.
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