Category: Consulting

Imposter Syndrome As time passes and you get more experience under your belt, you will find yourself answering questions and leading meetings like you have been working in the client’s industry for decades. At this point, as you self-reflect on the flight back home, you may get hit with a feeling of anxiety known as…

Consulting Key Phrases 50-Thousand-Foot View The 50-thousand-foot view of an item or process is when you take a step back and only look at the high-level aspects of it. Many people will get lost in the minutia of an item or begin to jump down rabbit holes when trying to explain something, so it is…

Land and Expand A common sales tactic used by consulting firms is where the project team or the group continues to drive new work and opportunity. This is called land and expand. This method of growth is the lifeblood of all successful firms as it costs more and takes far longer to get a new…

Ethics and Lying When you play the role of the consultant, you are usually expected to be the expert in everything. In reality, you will be placed in situations where things are very new to you. This is where the fine line between being a professional and outright lying can be difficult to navigate. Many…

Under Promise, Over Deliver You will hear this phrase numerous times on many different clients and it is a part of every consultant’s motto. There is nothing wrong or unethical about committing to work you know will be feasible to accomplish in the given time and will not require additional stress and extra hours. This…

Scoping the Work Correctly Nine women cannot make a baby in one month. When staffing projects and analyzing the work that needs to be completed there is a common fallacy that if you throw more bodies at the work, it will get completed faster. You will find this does not always hold true. Although there…

Offshoring Many firms use a practice called offshoring. Offshore resources on a project are team members who are located in a different country overseas or in a different continent. Offshoring is often used as a method to get work done for a client at a significantly lower cost. Usually, resources who work in another country…

I can Teach it to You, but I cannot Understand it for You One of the biggest frustrations you will have as a consultant will be in trying to explain a concept or an idea to another and them not being able to grasp it. You may even be reminded of the quote, “if you…

Scope Creep “Can you please add a new order management screen for international orders…?” or “Can you please write up the quarterly close process since you are already doing the monthly process?” There are a million ways a client will ask you to do a bit more than what you signed up for. Sometimes these…

Quick Wins and How to Say No In client services, the ability to go above and beyond is not just necessary, it is a must. Just floating by and doing the bare minimum may be enough to successfully complete the items listed in the statement of work, but your ultimate goal should always be on…