November, 2021

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Now is the Best Time to Raise Your Billing Rate

Successful Independent Consulting

Photo 50727473 / Piggy Bank © David Franklin | Dreamstime.com. The easiest time to raise your rate is on the cusp of something new — a new year, a new project, a new client. With the new year just around the corner, now is an excellent time to inform your clients. This article offers ideas of how to do this, as well as some sample language. How to determine your new rate Unfortunately, there’s no one-size-fits-all formula.

Policies 195
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10 Rules of Pricing for Consulting Firms

David A Fields

Pricing your consulting firm’s projects is tricky. You’re not alone if your heartbeat elevates or your stomach clenches when it comes to talking about your consulting firm’s fees with a prospective client, or when you’re developing the “investment level” for a specific consulting engagement. A few rules and a handful of cookies will soothe your … Continued.

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Timeless Marketing Principles For Consultants (Get More Long-Term Clients) with Larry Robertson: Podcast #213

Consulting Success

Everyone will benefit from having long-term clients who will always return to you and even refer others to work with you. But garnering such individuals is not so easy to accomplish. For Larry Robertson, getting ideal customers boils down to the value you are delivering, not just the profits you are earning. Joining Michael Zipursky, Timeless Marketing Principles For Consultants (Get More Long-Term Clients) with Larry Robertson: Podcast #213 is a post from: Consulting Success.

Marketing 209
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Invisible Women as Part of Security Questions

Johanna Rothman

The good news is most sites realize we, the users, need nudges to create strong passwords. The bad news is too many of those nudges reject strong passwords from password managers. (I use and am happy with 1Password.). Worse, too many sites still ask horrible , terrible security questions instead of asking for two-factor authentication. Your first house, your first dog, your mother's maiden name.

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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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Color-Coded Persuasion

The Fearless Marketer

Persuasion is a language art. That is, words and ideas are what persuade, more than anything else. The problem is, we communicate without noticing if we are expressing features or benefits in our messages. Features are what WE DO. Benefits are what THEY GET. Typically, we are mostly talking about features – our process, the steps, the concept. But when we add a benefit to the feature, our communication suddenly (and almost magically) becomes more persuasive.

Marketing 118

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Listen. Stay Engaged. Stay Relevant.

Leadership Planning with Liz Weber CMC

Every one of my clients is experiencing the same thing: It’s almost impossible to recruit and hire strong team members. Because of this, retaining strong team members has become critical to enable on-going operations. So what can a leader do to not only retain, but excite strong team members? Listen to them. What […]. The post Listen. Stay Engaged.

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5 Easy Questions to Detect Huge Opportunities for Your Consulting Firm

David A Fields

As you think about how to grow your consulting firm, you may want to explore new offerings or new markets for your services. For instance, the opportunity to win doorway advisory projects looks wide open, or you could turn your attention to the booming fireworks market. Whether you’re expanding on a successful service line or … Continued. The post 5 Easy Questions to Detect Huge Opportunities for Your Consulting Firm appeared first on David A.

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How Consultants Can Create & Implement Winning Business Strategies With Christian Stadler: Podcast #214

Consulting Success

The only way to prevail as a small consulting firm is to do something different. In this episode, Christian Stadler talks with host Michael Zipursky about the winning business strategies you can use to grow, adapt, and beat your competition. Christian is the Professor of Strategic Management at Warwick Business School. One exercise is the nightmare.

Exercises 248
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Leadership Tip 16: Decide When to Choose Power-With or Power-Over

Johanna Rothman

All decisions are a form of power. We exercise our personal power (power within) in many ways: when we decide where to live, what to wear, and what to eat. Not only that, we also choose our jobs, who we vote for, and where to go on vacation. We have a ton of personal power. Healthy teams often need to decide together. They use power-with, where people decide what to do as collaborators.

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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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17 Memorable Quotes about Gratitude and Thanksgiving

Rick Conlow

Gratitude means the quality of being thankful, and the readiness to show appreciation for or to return kindness. In our drive for success, many times we neglect what’s most important and who is most important. We focus more on the “what” and forget about the “how” As one forward thinking CEO told me recently, “The how matters.” In business it is about the numbers, facts, figures, data, metrics, business intelligence, profits, and results.

eBook 109
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5 Stakeholders You Need to Engage with When Applying Change Within a Company

Clarity Consultants

Change within a company won’t succeed if the only people involved are members of the leadership team. Instead, when you’re preparing to apply change within a company, engaging with the right stakeholders is essential to ensure success. Through stakeholder engagement, you gain powerful insights. Plus, it creates opportunities to address concerns early, leading to faster buy-in.

Company 105
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The Importance of Being Wrong at Work

Tom Spencer

Being wrong is a natural part of being human. Everyone makes mistakes, misinterpretations, and miscalculations. Unfortunately, another natural part of being human is having an ego, and the accompanying desire for self-preservation. No one likes being seen to make mistakes as it can be embarrassing, cause reputational damage and loss of status, and make us feel unintelligent, uncomfortable and insecure.

Culture 88
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3 Winning, Foot-in-the-Door Projects for Your Consulting Firm

David A Fields

A small project with a new client could pave the way to a long-term, lucrative relationship with your consulting firm. Alternatively, it could waste your time with a low-margin, low fee engagement. Let’s say your consulting firm has forged a connection with Esther Bunnie, CEO of Cad’s Berries, a multi-national player in the chocolate novelties … Continued.

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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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How to Design a Consulting Business You and Your Clients Love with Jonathan Fields: Podcast #212

Consulting Success

While business success and happiness seem exclusive, it is possible to design a successful consulting business that you and your clients will be happy about. Best-selling author and founder of the Good Life Project Jonathan Fields sits down with host Michael Zipursky as they talk about the fundamental nature of work, transforming yourself, self-awareness, and.

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Five Tips for Your Successful (Hybrid Remote) Satellite Team

Johanna Rothman

You've spent the better part of two years organizing for all-remote work. Now, your managers want people back in the office. However, your team won't all be back in the same time and space. People get to choose which days (and possibly hours) they come into the office. That means you don't have a collocated team. You also don't have a fully remote (nebula) team.

Agile 110
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4 Courageous People: Turning Setbacks into Successes

Rick Conlow

Courageous people can survive just about anything because they are resilient. They demonstrate hope within tragedy and defeat. All of us could use more encouragement like this amid this pandemic. Unfortunately, Steven Wolin , Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University, says our culture tends to perpetuate all of us as victims. He says it encourages frailty by enabling people to dwell on their troubles too much.

eBook 107
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80/20 Rule in the Real World

CaseInterview.com

I’ve always been fascinated by the 80/20 rule. The 80/20 rule was an observation made by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto in 1896. Pareto observed that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. The main idea is that the majority of particular outcomes in systems are often caused by a disproportionately low portion of the possible causes (even though the ratio isn’t always exactly 80% of outcomes produced by 20% of causes).

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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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6 Reasons Inflation is Higher than You Think

Tom Spencer

“By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.” ~ John Maynard Keynes. Inflation in America is currently running hot, with the official rate hitting 6.2% in October , its highest level since 1990. Some market commentators saw this coming, and those same players predict that higher inflation will persist.

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293: Marie-Claude Stockl—The Time Is Now To Boldly Reinvent The Role Of Women In Business

On the Brink Podcast

Hear how change can really, actually happen for you. While I have known Marie-Claude Stockl a long time and we are both devoted horse lovers, I never had the pleasure of really getting to know her back story, and how she became so successful doing interesting and important things in teaching people how to better communicate. Today we have a splendid conversation about the challenges women face in the workplace, and the slow pace of change taking place in our society today.

How To 97
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How to Build Marketing & Sales Skills as a Technical Consultant with Heather Couture: Podcast #211

Consulting Success

If you are learning something beneficial for you, stick with it. If you have zero experience in sales and marketing while running a business, take time to learn it. Heather Couture is the owner and machine learning consultant of Pixel Scientia Labs, and she learned how to sell. Learn why and how she got into AI machine learning. How to Build Marketing & Sales Skills as a Technical Consultant with Heather Couture: Podcast #211 is a post from: Consulting Success.

Sales 217
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Use Decision Deadlines to Plan for Product Deliverables

Johanna Rothman

Strategy and Product Feedback Loops. Many organizations ask teams to forecast when the team can deliver a feature. (Or finish a project.) That request often means the teams spend a ton of time forecasting, not delivering. Instead, what if managers told the team when the managers want to make a decision? The team could deliver enough to help the managers make those decisions.

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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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How To Tell A Good Business Story That Attracts Clients

Henry DeVries

If you want to attract more high-paying clients you need to become a better business storyteller who reaches the emotion part of the brain. Dave Leiber explains why the best part of your story is the worst part.

How To 97
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Nuance

CaseInterview.com

The media turns issues into black and white. Social media revenue optimization algorithms do the same. Fear sells. Extreme points of view get attention. Love it or hate it… you’re paying attention (and generating advertising revenue for the publisher or social media platform). The most accurate forecasters do not end up with TV airtime. The ones who keep people paying attention do.

Media 98
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Early Career Tips for Success

Tom Spencer

Starting out in any profession is difficult. Starting out and standing out simultaneously is even harder. In this article, we will look at some of the things I learned from my experience interning at a range of consulting firms this summer. 1. The power of networking. Although networking is a widely cited element of success in the early stages of a career, I didn’t realise until recently how critical to success networking would be, or why.

Data 88
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Whose project is it anyway?

The Management Centre

How to clarify project roles and responsibilities. Three of the main problems that affect project success are unclear responsibilities, poor communication, and ill-defined decision-making. If team members are unclear about their role, tasks can get missed or there may be a duplication of efforts. When communication is poor, this can lead to misunderstandings and people disengaging from the project.

Meeting 97
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The Art of Remote Collaboration: How to Successfully Whiteboard with Remote Teams

Just because we're working with a distributed team doesn't mean we have to abandon time-tested tools and methods like whiteboarding. Digital look-alikes often cramp creativity and all but eliminate the humanity of shared interactions. Hardware solutions are also limiting and, of course, expensive and immobile. In an increasingly digital and remote-first world, it’s important for us to select tools and processes that allow us to mitigate if not eliminate the above problems.