Sat.Nov 03, 2018 - Fri.Nov 09, 2018

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Wow! It’s Easy to Improve Every Part of Your Consulting Firm

David A Fields

You can boost the fortunes of your consulting firm in numerous ways. Improve your processes, adopt better techniques, dial up your leverage, incorporate dessert breaks… the list goes on and on. Amongst these, there’s one, (fairly) easy shift you could make today that will help every aspect of your consulting firm. How cool would it … Continued.

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5 Soft Skills that are Critical in Consulting Interviews

Tom Spencer

Most consulting firms are wrapping up their recruitment process for this year and offers have been sent out. The hard skills help you do the analysis, but once you’ve got an answer, you need client buy in. To get client buy in, you almost always need exceptional soft skills. As a result, the consulting firms want to see strong soft skills demonstrated in the interviews.

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Small Firms, Big Problems

The Crazy Lives of Consultants

The first thing you notice when you move to a smaller firm is how much more freedom everyone has. No process, no approvals, no problems, right? After a while, you start noticing how much more personality everyone has. She does everything but gripes constantly; he does nothing and no one seems to care. I would say that everyone is writing their own job description, but that's not true because no one even has a job description.

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5 Essential Competencies for Executive Leadership

Consulting Matters

It’s a common career trajectory: An employee becomes a front-line supervisor, then a manager, then a leader of leaders and then eventually an executive over a department or an even broader entity. From that perspective, leadership is leadership and executives merely have a larger scope and span of control. Despite common perception - executives are not simply managers with a broader scope and span of control.

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PowerPoint Best Practices for Creating Stellar Presentations

Mastering data visualization in PowerPoint will help accelerate your career because it positions you as someone who can present data that drives business decisions forward. think-cell's PowerPoint Best Practices eBook was created specifically for professionals aiming to master the art and science of data-driven storytelling. What’s inside: Practical Insights: Uncover valuable tips for crafting engaging and persuasive presentations.

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Michael Zipursky on Conscious Millionaire: How To Achieve Success As A Consultant

Consulting Success

Michael was recently featured on Conscious Millionaire for the second time. You can listen to it here: Michael Zipursky on Conscious Millionaire: How To Achieve Success As A Consultant How do you achieve success in your consulting business? Do you focus on making as much money as you can — or creating as much value as you can? Money follows value.

More Trending

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Instructional Design Trends: Choice is King!

Clarity Consultants

Formal learning programs are often incredibly rigid. They facilitate a push-based learning culture, allowing management to dictate what employees must review in each unit, irrespective of the worker’s position or prior knowledge and experience. The post Instructional Design Trends: Choice is King! appeared first on Clarity Consultants - Learning and Development.

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5 Essential Competencies for Executive Leadership

Consulting Matters

It’s a common career trajectory: An employee becomes a front-line supervisor, then a manager, then a leader of leaders and then eventually an executive over a department or an even broader entity. From that perspective, leadership is leadership and executives merely have a larger scope and span of control. Despite common perception - executives are not simply managers with a broader scope and span of control.

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Selling $7 Million In Consulting Services Within 12 Months with Shannon Adkins: Podcast #61

Consulting Success

For the ten years being in industry, Shannon Adkins was a buyer of consulting services and of multimillion-dollar contracts of consulting services. Shannon is the president and CEO of Future State Inc., a management consulting firm that brings change management and operational transformation expertise to global enterprises in the life sciences, healthcare and technology industries.

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Tips For Building Strong Emotional Connections In A Virtual World

Melissa Agnes

Virtual communication can breed misunderstandings and yet how many of your meetings are virtual? Do you see where I’m going with this? Dr. Nick Morgan, author of Can You Hear Me? (amongst other great books) and founder of Public Words, joins the Invincible Brand Podcast to discuss the impacts that the virtual world have on internal teams and the conscious efforts and actions that leaders can take to mitigate the risks that these impacts present on company morale, team-building, and ultimat

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How to Stay Competitive in the Evolving State of Martech

Marketing technology is essential for B2B marketers to stay competitive in a rapidly changing digital landscape — and with 53% of marketers experiencing legacy technology issues and limitations, they’re researching innovations to expand and refine their technology stacks. To help practitioners keep up with the rapidly evolving martech landscape, this special report will discuss: How practitioners are integrating technologies and systems to encourage information-sharing between departments and pr

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Importance of Developing Soft Skills in Consulting

Tom Spencer

As I start my consulting career, some of the questions that I keep coming back to are: How can I stand out amongst all of these high achieving and well educated individuals, especially in the beginning? What skills do I need to develop? What are the keys to longevity at my firm and the greater consulting world? These are questions I routinely asked myself as I approached my starting date.

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Best Business Books 2018: Strategy

Strategy+Business

How can you innovate to avoid irrelevance? How can you nurture your best people, especially the rebels? And how can you set goals and objectives effectively to make sure your company succeeds? These are key questions for anybody charged with developing strategy for a large organization. And these key questions are answered with clarity and verve in this year's best business books on strategy.

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United Air Lines: Five Lines, Two Lines, No Lines?

The Crazy Lives of Consultants

Although all airlines suck, you still have to pick one. So I picked United. I fly a lot so they pretend to treat me well (as long as it doesn't cost them anything). All I really want is the " stealth luxury " of being left as un-molested as possible at the airport. That's why United 1K's like me board first and pick window seats: Get on, slide over, and leave me alone!

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What to Do If Your Career Is Stalled and You Don’t Know Why

Harvard Business

June Buck/Getty Images. A CEO whom we’ll call Melissa was exasperated. Having delivered seven years of breakthrough performance and nearing retirement, she was eager to select and prepare her successor. Members of her executive team were strong in their current roles but none was quite right for the top job. As we considered a broader group of potential candidates, the CHRO chimed in with an idea: “What about Tom?

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Savings Consultants Are Needed in Today's Market More Than Ever

Savings Consultants are needed in today’s market more than ever. With an increase in expenses, businesses are looking for opportunities to save. Often unknown to businesses are savings in expense reduction, specialized tax savings, specialized savings including medical underpayments, health benefits cost reduction, zero cost processing, and more. Blue Coast Savings, with over 20 years in business, assists Savings Consultants in helping these companies move toward more profitable businesses.

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7 Creative Ways to Boost E-commerce Sales

Tom Spencer

Your website is live and you’re ready to sell, but you just can’t seem to attract enough customers. Even when you get shoppers to your site, they’re just not converting. Sound familiar? Don’t give up hope for a bustling business. Here are 7 e-commerce marketing techniques to boost your online sales. 1. Leverage Email. Email is by no means a new marketing technique, but it is often misused or underutilized.

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Agile Toolkit Podcast with Bob Payne

Johanna Rothman

Back at Agile 2018, I had a chance to record a podcast with Bob Payne. The recording is Johanna Rothman – Agile 2018. We discussed my experience report with Mark Kilby, the geographically distributed agile teams book with Mark , and my roadmapping session. I’ve known Bob forever. I think of him as a friend and as a colleague. You can tell in our conversation.

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When the Open Office is Closing In

The Crazy Lives of Consultants

Everyone has seen an "open plan office" setup. A bunch of my clients had them, especially Out West. I actually liked the look, minus the dogs and yoga balls, but I hadn't really worked in one until now. Open plan offices suck. In an open office, everyone can smell your food or be offended by your body odor. Everyone can see what your high school buddies post on Facebook and wonder if you're like that too.

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If You Want to Get Better at Something, Ask Yourself These Two Questions

Harvard Business

Mike Hewitt /Getty Images. It was the last race of the ski season. My son Daniel, 10 years old, was at the starting gate in his speed suit, helmet and goggles, waiting for the signal. “3… 2… 1…” The gate keeper called out and he was gone in a flash, pushing off his ski poles to gain momentum. One by one, each gate smacked to the ground when he brushed by.

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TOOLS and METHODOLOGIES for developing DECISION SUPPORT PACKAGES

This White Paper targets opportunities for Management to develop proficiency in the Decision Framing and Analyses element of input to Decision, & Risk Analyses for Major Project Funding Decisions.

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Lessons Learned From Adidas' College-Recruiting Scandal

Henry DeVries

Bad scandals can quickly undo years of good marketing. Leaders have to make a decision as to what standards they are going to set and then hold themselves and everyone under their guidance for living by those standards.

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When Word of Mouth Isn’t Enough

Martinka Consulting

On this podcast I discuss why word of mouth marketing isn’t always enough, even though it’s great, necessary, and I believe in it. The post When Word of Mouth Isn’t Enough appeared first on Martinka Consulting.

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Who is in your scene? (get better, faster in a group)

Rod Burkert

When it comes to your practice, who is supporting and challenging you to get better? Because getting better – REALLY better – will happen faster if you work with people who understand your journey. When it comes to your practice, don’t overlook the power of belonging to a group. Hey, what’s up everyone! I’m Rod Burkert. And welcome to my Practice Development Corner, the place where business valuation professionals like you come to learn how to turn the practice they have into the practice they w

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Under-Management Is the Flip Side of Micromanagement — and It’s a Problem Too

Harvard Business

Chalermphon Kumchai/EyeEm/Getty Images. Micromanagement gets most of the attention, but under-management may be just as big a problem. This is the term I’ve given to a constellation of behaviors that I’ve seen occurring together often during my 24 years in management: weak performance management, a tendency to avoid conflicts with employees, and generally lackluster accountability.

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Why You Need to Use Case Studies in Sales and Marketing (and How to Start Now)

Case studies are proof of successful client relations and a verifiable product or service. They persuade buyers by highlighting your customers' experiences with your company and its solution. In sales, case studies are crucial pieces of content that can be tailored to prospects' pain points and used throughout the buyer's journey. In marketing, case studies are versatile assets for generating business, providing reusable elements for ad and social media content, website material, and marketing c

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If At First You Don’t succeed…Then quit

Confessions of a Consultant

Consider re-writing your success software. “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point in being a damn fool about it.” W. C. Fields. The flight to Faro was particularly bumpy. High above the Bay of Biscay we were bouncing around like a table tennis ball in a Jacuzzi. At one point I was tempted to email the Bacardi factory in Cuba and ask them to put on a 3 rd shift.

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Asking Why – A Great Question

Martinka Consulting

I’m known in my family for constantly asking, “Why?” Others will say something about what they’re going to do, what they want to get, etc. and I’ll ask, Why? Sometimes I get the answer, “Because.” And no, that’s not a reason why you want to do something. A client told me if he had the money (at the time) he’d like to buy a larger machine. Why? It turns out because he likes big machines, not because the business needed it.

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Best Business Books 2018: Leadership

Strategy+Business

This year's best business books on the subject of leadership all deal with the vital topic of finding meaning and purpose in the workplace. But they approach the topic from fundamentally different and illuminating angles. Fred Kofman, an advisor at Google, argues in The Meaning Revolution that leaders must transcend the challenge of employee disengagement through intentional actions.

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Ego Is the Enemy of Good Leadership

Harvard Business

Francesco Carta fotografo/Getty Images. On his first day as CEO of the Carlsberg Group, a global brewery and beverage company, Cees ‘t Hart was given a key card by his assistant. The card locked out all the other floors for the elevator so that he could go directly to his corner office on the 20 th floor. And with its picture windows, his office offered a stunning view of Copenhagen.

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ABM Evolution: How Top Marketers Are Using Account-Based Strategies

In times of economic uncertainty, account-based strategies are essential. According to several business analysts and practitioners, ABM is a necessity for creating more predictable revenue. Research shows that nearly three-quarters of marketers (74%) already have the resources needed to build successful ABM programs.