Consulting Business Archives - Page 2 of 5

Preventing & Managing Challenging Customer Situations

Consulting Business, skmurphy / By Sean Murphy / November 13, 2014

Here are my notes from tonight’s Professional and Technical Consultants Association (PATCA) meeting on “Handling Difficult Client Scenarios in an Agile and Effective Manner.” It was a candid discussion among primarily experienced consultants about real situations that were challenging–and frequently painful. Several good suggestions for preventing and managing challenging customer situations:

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Tips for Low Cost Marketing of Your Services

Consulting Business, Lead Generation, Sales, skmurphy / By Sean Murphy / October 9, 2014

I took part in a great roundtable conversation at tonight’s PATCA meeting on “Low Cost Marketing and Advertising for Consultants” Here were a couple of suggestions that I made in response to situations or challenges that other consultants put on the table.

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By Sunday Night Your Chips Are Down For The Week

Consulting Business, skmurphy / By Sean Murphy / August 24, 2014

By Sunday night the week is over and all of your chips are down. The bets you have been able to place will have to bear fruit, or not. “So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late” Bob Dylan “All along the watchtower“

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Write Down Key Commitments And Questions That Need Answers

Consulting Business, Demos, skmurphy / By Sean Murphy / July 8, 2014

Managing key commitments to customers is essential to closing deals and preventing churn. Getting a customer the correct answer to a question is a critical sales and support skill: the first step is to write down the question when you don’t know the answer.

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IEEE CNSV Mastermind 2014

Consulting Business, Events / By Theresa Shafer / March 3, 2014

We wanted to let all of you know that IEEE-CNSV has a new benefit for its members. You have a chance to join and participate in a formal Mastermind (Peer Support) Group. This group is much different from our regular meetings. We will meet for a fixed set of four weeks about every other week

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Four Questions We Use To Help Improve Our Practice

Consulting Business, skmurphy / By Sean Murphy / February 12, 2014

We are diligent in getting feedback on our consulting performance. Here are four questions we use to help us to improve our practice. We also solicit feedback after every talk, seminar, and workshop that offer. We read all of it, and try and make new mistakes on the next iteration. Four Questions We Use To

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Remarks from “Future of Professional Consulting” at PATCA June-13-2013

Consulting Business, Events, skmurphy / By Sean Murphy / September 21, 2013

PATCA is a non-profit organization created in 1975 specifically to help connect businesses and independent consultants. I was invited to take part in a PACA panel on “The Consulting Landscape: Forward Looking Skills and Practices” on Thursday June 13, 2013. It offered me a chance to clarify my thinking on the future of professional consulting and

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Use E-Mail Like a Walkie-Talkie, Not A Bullhorn

Consulting Business, Customer Development, skmurphy / By Sean Murphy / August 7, 2013

I don’t think it’s a new trend but one new service that I recently signed up for asked me to take a short survey about how I felt about their product and what I planned to do. They E-Mailed it from a “no-reply” email address and I realized that an answer I had stuffed into

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Reminder: Successful Consulting Engagements With Startups at IEEE-CNSV Tue-May-21

Consulting Business, Events, skmurphy / By Sean Murphy / May 19, 2013

Quick reminder: I will be moderating a panel on “Successful Consulting Engagements with Startups” at the May 21 IEEE-CNSV meeting. I volunteered to pull this panel together after a long thread on the CNSV e-mail list June about the topic. I have been fortunate to attract three knowledgeable and experienced engineers to take part in the

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Preliminary Results From Research On Managing Creative Projects

Consulting Business, skmurphy / By Sean Murphy / November 15, 2012

If you manage a firm that provides creative, design, or professional services you have to balance making a profit with investing in your team. If you are struggling to increase project profitability you may be interested in preliminary results from an ongoing research effort that has identified key questions that can help you manage and deliver

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Impatience For Success Works Against Learning

4 Finding your Niche, 5 Scaling Up Stage, Consulting Business, skmurphy / By Sean Murphy / November 14, 2012

Most successful products start in a niche and expand via a sequence of larger adjacent niches. Impatience for success works against learning.

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CTO Mastermind Open House

Consulting Business, Silicon Valley / By Theresa Shafer / March 19, 2012

Saturday March 24, 9-11am Ground Floor Silicon Valley, located at 2030 Duane Avenue, Santa Clara, We are launching new Mastermind groups in response to several requests from entrepreneurs who wanted to form an advisory board of peers with a deeper understanding of each other’s businesses and shared accountability. Come to the meeting and see if

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Tools for Finding a Physical Workspace: Deskwanted, LiquidSpace, Loosecubes, OpenDesks

Consulting Business, First Office, Silicon Valley, Startups / By Sean Murphy / February 7, 2012

Here is a list of tools for finding a physical workspace: this covers desks, cubicles, offices, and meeting rooms you can rent by the hour, day, or month.

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Ford Harding on Rules of Thumb for Networking

Consulting Business, Rules of Thumb, skmurphy / By Theresa Shafer / October 6, 2011

Networking is good questions, listening, and helping others. Some rules of thumb for networking from Ford Harding’s Rainmaking (pages 44-59).

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Refine and Curate Your Thoughts as FAQs, Articles, and Talks

4 Finding your Niche, 5 Scaling Up Stage, Blogging, Consulting Business, Rules of Thumb, skmurphy / By Sean Murphy / September 20, 2011

Refine and curate your thoughts by reworking the first draft of your answers in an email or in response to a question from a customer or an audience member at a talk.

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Len Sklar: Be Clear About Payment Terms And Consequences

2 Open for Business Stage, 3 Early Customer Stage, Consulting Business, Rules of Thumb, skmurphy, Video / By Sean Murphy / July 25, 2011

Len Sklar, author “The Check is NOT in the Mail” has spoken several times at Bootstrapper Breakfasts. Here is a recent talk he gave where he stresses the importance of putting payment terms and the consequences on non-payment in writing, communicating them in advance, and ensuring that they are understood. It all seems so obvious

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Getting Unstuck From Perfectionism

Consulting Business / By Sean Murphy / February 27, 2011

Innovation is never able to “get it right the first time.” Getting unstuck when your perfectionism paralyzes you requires you to be willing to share bad versions and ugly drafts.

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Five Reasons Companies Hire Consultants

Consulting Business / By Theresa Shafer / February 10, 2011

From an article by Theresa Shafer in the PATCA Feb 2011 Newsletter Understanding why companies hire consultants can provide clues on what to look for and how to find more business. 1. Crisis Resolution: Often consultants are hired to solve a crisis when the current staff cannot resolve the situation adequately. Sometimes the crisis involves time

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Keeping the Ball Rolling With Prospects

2 Open for Business Stage, 3 Early Customer Stage, 4 Finding your Niche, Consulting Business, Customer Development, skmurphy / By Sean Murphy / December 13, 2010

Most of our clients offer complex software products, frequently in combination with some amount of consulting services. Their sales are not the results of credit card transactions but a complex orchestrated sales process. Frequently their prospects need to see a custom demonstration or a benchmark that relies on their own data, not just the standard

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Keeping Your Customers’ Trust

Books, Consulting Business, Rules of Thumb, skmurphy / By Sean Murphy / November 29, 2010

Earning and keeping your customers’ trust is essential to your success as a startup. Gerald Weinberg’s “Secrets of Consulting” offers “11 Laws of Trust” as a guideline for establishing and maintaining successful business relationships.

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