• Do it on my own
• Get inspiration from one of the dozens of books and magazines that promise the answer to my problems
• Sign up for a class
• Hire a personal trainer

When you are facing a challenge in your business, the options are actually very similar. The business equivalent of the last option—a personal trainer—is a management consultant. Webster’s reflects the accepted definition of a consultant as “one who gives professional advice or services.” We think you should expect much more than that.

If you really want to succeed, you should hold your consultant to the “personal trainer standard”. What do I mean by that? A personal trainer will take the time to understand your current state of health and specific goals. They will then apply their expertise to come up with an exercise plan that works for you. Finally, and probably most importantly, they will set up a schedule to work with you to implement your exercise plan. This is the way a good consultant should work with you. No surprises there.

But please notice one very important point—a personal trainer does not do the exercise for you. Here is where the parallel to consulting gets lost too often for a lot of people. A good management consultant is one who helps you get to where you need to be by helping you to develop your own skills, build your own organizational muscle, and do the hard work needed to be successful. Consultants inform, advise, and challenge—but they should not do the work!

-Mary Adams (adams@trekconsulting.com)

• Develop fresh information about your market, your customers and your company to encourage innovative thinking
• Structure a process that encourages continuous learning and performance improvement
• Provide focus and discipline to ensure that the process works the way you would like

In some companies, this is the job of a specific position or a department. However, this function serves as an internal consultant and still should not be developing the strategy. Whether internal or external, a good consultant can help the managers on the line (who should be forming the strategy itself) create a good process and keep it on track.

- Michael Oleksak (oleksak@trekconsulting.com)

Setting the Stage for 2005 with your Customers

Late last year, we kicked off an assignment with a new client to develop a long term value and exit plan. But our conversations about the business kept coming back to a pressing priority of the CEO: the finalization of annual account plans for their customers. These plans are critical because they essentially become a contract for a full year of business with the customer. We shifted gears and tuned up their process, locking in a much better year for the company by doing two things that may also be applicable for you:

• Have strategic conversations with your key customers. Don’t just talk about what you have to sell today. Understand their goals for the year and how your company can help them reach those goals. Also, ask them about the longer term—where they see the market going beyond the year ahead. For more information about this topic, see our article on Strategic Conversations with Your Customers.
  
  
• Take a fresh look at your customer communication materials. Are you demonstrating your understanding of their goals? Are you relating the value of your firm? It is always important to make it clear how your services are addressing the client’s pain and making their lives better. Bring up the level of your materials to reinforce your image and your connection with the customer.

Whether or not you work on the basis of annual agreements, now is a great time to tune up your customer relationship management.

How to Hire a Management Consultant
and Get the Results You Expect
By IMC USA

Given our focus on consulting this month, we thought it might be helpful to refer you to a pamphlet produced by an organization to which both of our principals belong, the Institute of Management Consultants-USA. This pamphlet is based on a manual developed by Stewart Washburn twenty-five years ago. Stewart is now retired but was for many years an important member of both the IMC national and New England regional organizations. It includes the answers to basic questions about using and identifying the best management consultant to fit your needs. It also includes the Code of Ethics to which all members of IMC (including Trek Consulting) comply.

This document is available online as a service of IMC-USA. Please note that you will have to register to get the manual, but you may opt out of their mailing list.

Family Business E-News included a piece by Trek entitled, How to Plan an Off-Site Family Business Meeting.

Trek will be speaking to the Printing Industries of New England on March 9, 2005 about building realizable value for business owners.

Next month, Trekking will address the art and science of business strategy.