Odyssey Reflections ◾ 179
especially when starting out, to be able to generate revenue and to adapt
quickly without losing a beat. Mastering the process is essential to building a
sustainable business and is absolutely key to being successful as a consultant
at a global level.
It’s essential that I do exactly what I say I am going to do and do it
whenI say I am going to do it. Sounds simple, but it’s the number one
quality needed to build trust and credibility among your team and your
clients.
In today’s business environment, if you are committed to creating a
meaningful impact with the work that you do as a consultant, you need to
take the Odyssey process seriously. Why? One, we all have clients for whom
we have to produce results, and two, when we act effectively as a consul-
tant, we dramatically increase opportunities to produce results that are truly
outstanding.
I have learned what makes a great consultant:
◾ Ask the right questions and listen intently. If you don’t ask the right
questions and listen to your client, you risk spending time and money
on the wrong priorities.
◾ Establish great rapport with clients. You may have excellent ideas, but
if you lack the savvy it takes to gain buy-in with stakeholders, then you
fall flat.
◾ Understand the client’s business. If you lack an understanding of the
underlying business operations, you may try to bulldoze a solution that
simply won’t work.
In general, when you have clients, your ability to identify their needs and
implement the right solution is critical to success, but it’s not everything, and
it’s definitely not sufficient to make you a great consultant. Your positive
mind-set and presence are also vital.
I am grateful that I chose the Odyssey process as my guide to success.
I am convinced it has been the right choice. With that also comes a great
sense of gratitude for being coached and mentored by someone I truly
have come to love and respect—my coach, Dr. Shayne Tracy. For anyone
even remotely thinking of entering the field of consulting or updating their
consulting skills, Odyssey is the way to go. I have met great people, includ-
ing Imelda, and am very grateful to everyone who’s been involved in my
transformation.
180 ◾ Odyssey—The Business of Consulting
Odyssey Helped Me to See Myself through the Fog
Andrew Yoshioka, Sanbonki Inc., Ontario, Canada
During my last corporate job in 2009, I met Dr. Shayne Tracy. He had been
retained by my company to benchmark management and workforce. As part
of that process, he assessed me and the job I was doing. When we reviewed
what he had found, he pointed out an obvious conflict between who I was
and the work that I did. This wasn’t really news to me. I just assumed every-
one grumbled about their work and that I was no different. Thinking about
it later, however, it occurred to me that during my career, I had missed a
number of signals that should have lead me to realize that I should run my
own business.
When my company priorities changed, I left with a severance pack-
age and embarked on bucket list travels to see the world and to discover
the secrets of wealth and happiness. (Ha!) When I came home, I kept get-
ting referrals from people who needed help getting their businesses off the
ground. I had no idea about Ideal Clients at the time. I was just convinced I
could solve their challenges. However, these assignments usually collapsed
due to a lack of clarity around what success was, or what their expectations
were, or about how long these ventures would take to get to market. I real-
ized that there was something lacking in my consulting.
Around this time, Shayne suggested that if I was serious about consulting
as a business, I should really consider Odyssey. I enrolled in the program,
but frankly, I questioned my investment because though I was aware of the
content, I still had no idea about my purpose or my plan—pretty much right
up to travelling to the Odyssey MasterClass. The small group session, how-
ever, brought about a personal epiphany. I realized that I needed to aban-
don some of the things in my life that had been holding me back. This was
such a relief. I came home from the trip finally seeing my new self through
the fog on the road ahead. I knew I was heading in the right direction.
It has taken some time, and I have pivoted the business several times, but
repeat assignments are coming regularly now, from clients who trust and
value my solutions.
Further iteration of my value proposition took a while to develop. I
needed a statement that captured what I do and also validated the needs of
and opportunities faced by our clients. I eventually settled on this: “We posi-
tion businesses for investment, partnerships, and value growth.” It seemed
to cover the themes that arose consistently: The need for development
Odyssey Reflections ◾ 181
capital, finding partners, and alliances (development/distribution/sales chan-
nels) and growing the client’s business value (new segments/higher value/
productivity).
Today, my business is not about repeated, mundane transactional tasks
like writing business plans. Instead, I am a Trusted Advisor to the client. We
provide insight to customer segmentation or help translate good ideas into
technologies that are correctly positioned. We try to overcome the client’s
tendency to build a “field of dreams” where it is left to the customer to fig-
ure out what it is and why they need it. You become the sculptor. You take
a raw slab and deliver to your client the image of success they have in their
head but which they struggle to articulate.
I now donate some of my time working with start-ups and organize
networking functions in my industry. Donating my time as a volunteer has
confirmed for me that I do add value. It has also opened many doors in
expanding my network beyond the immediate circle of former corporate
world contacts. Others are now championing my brand.
In February 2014, I received recognition for my impact, with the Life
Sciences Ontario Volunteer of the Year Award. That accolade accelerated my
business development through all the early steps of validation because the
referral trusts the opinion of your mutual gatekeeper. Finding the connectors
and even becoming one of the connectors has been an important steps in
the process.
Your client depends on you to find the solution for them. They have
no interest in hearing you whine about the hoops you may need to jump
through to do it. One lesson I recall from Odyssey is that you should project
your business to appear bigger than you really are, but not in a mislead-
ing way. Several times, I have got together with a network of colleagues to
engage projects that were beyond our individual areas of scope. We have
expanded into other business categories and shared the revenues of projects
that we might not have landed on our own. Clients in knowledge businesses
may think their problem is technical, but it is usually a business problem.
Your client just wants the solution.
In Conclusion
We thank our Odyssey graduates who contributed their reflections to this
chapter and to those who so generously shared their experiences in the
“Odyssey in Action” sections throughout the book. These consultants, who
182 ◾ Odyssey—The Business of Consulting
work at the highest levels of their profession right around the world, endorse
the practical results made possible by integrating Odyssey concepts into
their consulting businesses. As they have testified, Odyssey processes and
programs have had a transformational influence on their personal and work-
ing lives. If you would like to talk about participating in Odyssey, our con-
tact details are listed in the coming pages.
Wishing you masterful consulting and success in your life and business.
Imelda K. Butler
Dr. Shayne Tracy
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