One thing is sure: the current recession isn't going anywhere soon, and many people are going to be experiencing pain. But I am not saying this as a detached observer: last year we suffered pain. We noticed a slowing down of commitment to projects, and a general avoidance of expenditure. Some long standing clients had to relinquish us – staff redundancies meant they could hardly justify paying 'consultants' while they were busy laying off. Besides, the act of laying-off leads to all sorts of other problems which then the organisation needs to wrestle with.
But opportunities are always there, and this pain proved a wonderful and therapeutic catalyst to re-strategise what we were doing, and this led to some brilliant new ideas and shifts. Perhaps the most significant being the new pricing model we developed for the Maps mid-2010, and which has had a phenomenal effect on our activities, leads, and conversions.
However, with all that there is more pain to come, especially if one is in employment. I like to think the safest thing to do is to take risks, and that people who don't inevitably get their worst fears realised. For us the unemployment is a golden opportunity: we want consultants and coaches in our licensing structure. Of course, we want the superb ones, not the dross that just falls into it.
So, for those coming out to be consultants or soon to be consultants, the hot topic on the Discussion forums is: how to do it successfully? Let me share then my first piece of advice about this 'opportunity'. A key issue is the importance of understanding the sector you wish to operate in: there is a world of difference between operating as a consultant in the Corporate sector, the Public sector, and what we in the UK call the SME or small to medium sized businesses sector.
Often consultants come out from a Corporate and go back in as a consultant for six months – but that's a gravy train that usually runs out. The time, effort and preparation it takes to get into a Corporate from scratch is seriously substantial, and there is a highly finite number of them. Once in, however, the pay's great. Contrast that with SMEs: often one decision maker – the entrepreneur – intuitive and positive responses, clearly 'sees' a improve bottom line proposal, and an almost infinite number of them out there to market to. Downside? Pays not so great – may be only 10-25% of what the Corporate day rate is. And jobs also tend to be much smaller – so you need lots more of them.
The most frequent mistake I have seen in nearly 16 years of consultancy and training is the ex-Corporate expert coming out and thinking they can sell their expertise to SMEs – it requires some heavy re-thinking and re-conceptualising. That said, if the Corporate expert is prepared to take advice, use possibly a first rate coach or expert in the field or acquire a license from organisation like ours, then they potentially have a huge amount to offer the SME market, which is frequently starved of really new and cutting edge ideas (depending on location – in some areas it's the SMEs that have the ideas!).
So, the opportunity is clear for us: where are those new consultants with people skills, coming out of Corporate, fed up with Corporate, who are humble enough to learn new stuff? They are there, aren't they?
The Mapping Motivation Series 