Follow #goodnews to boost confidence

Seems to me that there are lots of small good news stories emerging at the moment, but they're being swamped by the general doom and gloom in the media. For example, there's manufacturing growth in the South West where private sector growth has steadily increased.


We've seen a steady increase in private clients coming to us looking for consultants and perhaps more significantly there's demand for training - which is one of the sectors that's been hit hardest over the last 18 months. I'll be re-tweeting all good news stories under the hashtag #goodnews - so if you want an antidote to the professional doom-mongers just follow twitter.com/skillfair !

got the project - but having trouble getting paid?

A common issue for consultants is that sometimes the euphoria of landing a tasty project can evaporate very quickly when you realise that actually getting paid is going to be as much of a problem as getting the work was in the first place! I've been having some Twitter conversations about late payments and thought I'd share some of the ideas with you;

• check your client has received the invoice a few days after you send it - so they know you're on the case
• if you have any doubts about the clients financial status, ask for a deposit
• don't keep on working if you're not getting paid - if you do they don 't feel any pain - make it clear to someone to whom your work matters that lack of payment is a problem and will mean they don't get what they want
• get someone who's not directly involved with the client to chase the payment (I use my husband for this!)

Any other suggestions?

Are projects like snow?

I sometimes think projects being posted on Skillfair are a bit like snow, some areas get a steady reliable flow - almost regardless of what else is happening, whereas others only see the white stuff in flurries. Last week we had a sudden influx of training related projects (and there seems to be a steady demand for assessors of vocational qualifications in particular) - this is after a fairly dire period in the training industry as a whole.

Today the papers are talking about a bigger than expected rise in manufacturing output and simultaneously we've had 3 fairly tasty engineering related projects appear on the site. These involve vacuum pumps, nuclear materials and safety valves - fairly specialist stuff but it's good to see activity from the industry. The projects have all come via our relationship with the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

Lets hope the project flurries develop further even when the snow disappears :-)

Training industry waking from the dead?

Training is an industry that's often hit hard by recession - it's a very easy area to cut budgets and is often one of the first to feel the axe and the last to emerge as companies start to feel more confident. As a result, freelance trainers and small training companies have to plan for fairly severe ups and downs in business volumes.

Over the last few weeks we've been seeing a few training and workforce development projects coming through from clients - and this has turned into a significant flurry in the last week. Probably too soon to say training is back to normal, but there are definite signs that this whole are is reviving. On past experience there will be an even bigger flurry of work just before Christmas (as people clear their desks for the holidays) and again in early January - so any independent consultants, facilitators and trainers on Skillfair should probably stop Christmas shopping and make sure they're ready for incoming enquiriues!

Looking Forward - this Wednesday and beyond!

Despite the dark evenings, wind and rain - I really like this time of year as there's a real sense of urgency as people try to fit things in before Christmas - and you can also start to put one year behind you and plan for the next. It's strange that a simple thing like clicking the calendar on one day can make such a difference, but in all the businesses I've worked in there's always been a significant surge in business in January. I also like November because our annual conference is our only chance each year to meet you face to face and find out directly what you think about business, Skillfair, consulting and lots of other issues. If you haven't booked yet we have 2 or 3 places left for next Wednesday - just click here for details and to book.

The theme of the conference is 'Personal and Business Growth' - the aim being to set people up so that they're ready for what 2011 will bring. Even if you're not able to come along it's worth spending some time over the next month or so planning and working out what you need to do next year. It may be that you've been frantically busy working - in which case you could look at ways of delegating some of your work to get a better balance - or if the effort you've put in on sales and marketing just hasn't borne any fruit at all - now is a good time to take stock and work out what to do differently. We'll be listening hard to everyone on Wednesday so even if you can't make it we'll make sure to share the ideas and insights that come out of the day over the next few weeks.

Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines

Finding the motivation to do difficult things - where do you get it from?

I've been following a discussion on motivational quotes on Linked In - and some have made me chuckle - particularly;

"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines." 

Posted this on the Skillfair LinkedIn group and  predictably got even more useful advice and quotes back from members - my favourite so far;

"Worrying does not empty tomorrow of its troubles; it empties today of its joys"

Consultants Conference - Last chance to book

The Skillfair conference is only 2 weeks away - and we're looking forward to meeting members and guests from all over the UK. If you've been waiting to see if your diary is clear, we have less than 10 places left and there's usually a flurry of last minute bookings - so now is definitely your last chance to book.

The formal sessions will cover topics including sales, marketing, social media, tendering and many more - with the aim of providing you with a boost to your skills and energy levels - something that is much needed in the current economic climate.

We'll also be announcing our plans for the next phase of Skillfair's development and asking for your opinions and input. For information on our thoughts so far have a look at the Skillfair blog.

We've kept the price for this year's conference the same as last year at £150 (£125 for Members) - making it exceptionally good value - to book your place just click here and login - or check out the full agenda.

Useful guide to using a consultant

Just spotted a very useful Guide to Using a Consultant from ICAEW  - tweeted by theLBSS - straightforward and balanced. It reminded me of asaying I've heard a few times, which is that the second consultant a business uses is always better than the first! Essentially, this is because businesses often don't really know what they want the first time round - and this often results in a fairly unsatisfactory experience for both the business and the advisor/consultant.

Second time around the business is usually much more focused, chooses an advisor who will be able to meet their objectives and everyone is happy! It would be nice if we could skip the first unhappy experience though - do you have any other thoughts on how to do this?

Useful info on Security Vetting

Consultants and contractors who want to work in the public sector, particularly in defence or the more sensitive areas, have often found the vetting system an insuperable obstacle. Essentially you're told you can't be vetted until you're in a contract - but won't be considered for a contract unless you've been vetted.

PCG have been lobbying government on this issue for a number of years and there's been a recent Prime ministers statement on the subject that sets out the rules more clearly than before.

Take a look at the PCG website for more details.

Should Business Advice be Free?

Discussions about LEPs seem to be gathering pace despite the holiday season and a couple of LinkedIn groups have sprung up to discuss developments around the country - From RDA to LEP and Local Enterprise Partnerships. A separate issue that's also being discussed is whether startups and small businesses should expect free advice at all. Given how much advice is already available on the internet there's an argument that small businesses should just be left to get on with things.

The main argument for free advice being provided by the government is that if businesses are better advised and equipped they are more likely to succeed and grow - with benefits to the whole economy. The counter argument is that people may be less likely to listen to and act on free advice. Given that so many of our members have lots of experience working with small businesses I thought it would be interesting to fund out what you think. If you have a moment, please fill in this one page survey and give us your thoughts - I'll post the results here next week.

Really useful sources of business advice

I've been reading a lot of blogs and articles about business advice and support recently, many allied to discussions about Business Links etc, and it occurred to me that this group should be an excellent source of what you might call 'really useful sources of advice'.

I have distinct preference for 'going straight to the horses mouth' so probably my top ones are the key government sites;

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk

http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/ (Patent Office)

These are very factual though so it would be interesting to know what sources you've found most useful in your business so far and why.

What makes a good article or blog post?

My request for small busines oriented articles last week generated plenty of offers of help, so thank you to everyone who responded. In the longer term we plan to make it possible for all members to publish their own articles on the site making Skillfair a richer source of advice, which will help boost your own website presence on search engines as well. 

A few people have asked if we have any editorial guidelines for articles - I'm reluctant to be too prescriptive as I know that things like length and amount of jargon depend very heavily on what you're writing about. But there are some key features that I think any article needs if it's to earn it's keep as part of your marketing effort - so I've written a brief article "What makes a good article?" - why not take a look and let me know if I've managed to follow my own advice!

What's in a LEP

LEPs are Local Enterprise Partnerships and it looks as though they will be in charge of any funding for small business advice once RDAs and Business Links disappear.

I've been hearing about events around the UK set up by Chambers, Councils and other interested parties to discuss setting up new Local Enterprise Partnerships. So far I know they've happened in West Midlands and are planned in Plymouth and Lancashire next week. If you know of any others please feed back here.

Anyone for a wildebeest collection?

Well  the school holidays are here - so it's my turn to manage our tenders research and loading process. The flow of big tenders has definitely slowed down - but the smaller and more niche opportunities seem to have increased to compensate, which is good news for smaller companies.

I'd forgotten how many weird and wonderful projects there are out there - particularly on the fringes of the public sector - our researches take in not-for-profits, charities and an assortment of former public sector organisations. This weekend saw what could be my all-time favourites though - one from the Natural History Museum for Wildebeest Collection Storage cabinets and another to manage the "hanging of Armada paintings in Pariliament"

Priceless!

Don't be scared of social media

Social media is the buzzword of the day in marketing speak, but to us mere mortals, it can prove to be a bit of a minefield. We’ve got a great workshop at the conference this year which will provide an overview of the main tools available and some practical insight on how you can use these to promote your own services. http://www.skillfair.co.uk/content/1075/Skillfair-2010-Conference.aspx

In the meantime here are a few dos and don’ts of online networking:

· Take a bit of time to get to know particular forums and discussion groups before you join – this will give you a good idea about who’s active and the way it’s run.
· Once you’ve found out about a group's protocol, make sure you follow it! Whilst some groups are happy for you to do a bit of self promotion now and again, others may not look at it so kindly.
· Beware of ‘reply to all’ buttons – if someone has requested an answer with personal information, send it to them and not the whole group!

RDA and Business Links – What Next?

The news that the Government will be scrapping Regional Development Agencies and the small business advice services provided through Business Link has caused a fair amount of consternation and uncertainty among business advisors and independent consultants. Not surprisingly we at Skillfair have been watching with interest and have put in our two-pennyworth on the subject. Our general stance is that small businesses should be able to choose how they access advice and that the best people to provide that advice are the independent advisor and consultant community (see our letter to Mark Prisk) rather than large organisations, whether private or public sector.

I’ve talked with a number of consultants from different parts of the UK recently and also attended a talk by an RDA representative last week. The impression I've received is that this confusion is likely to last for some time yet. The RDAs and BIS (department for Business, Innovation and Skills) are currently working on the detailed process for winding down the RDAs, something that is likely to take until early in 2012 to be fully complete. This may seem a long time but each RDA has at least 300 people to deal with and in some areas of the country they also have significant contracts with deliver companies that will need to be unwound.

So what will the result be when the process is complete? It’s hard to be clear on details but the information we have is that business start-ups will be serviced as much as possible via the web and that BIS favours using their own websites to ‘signpost’ start-ups to web resources provided by the private sector rather than delivering advice direct. Support aimed at growth businesses and other specialist support will be provided through Local Enterprise Partnerships – which it seems are likely to consist of consortia of local government organisations, the exact composition of these will vary from area to area. It seems like that these LEP’s will need to source any face to face business advice from the market so there may well be opportunities for individual advisors and groups of advisors to bid for this work – and obviously we’ll make sure that Skillfair tracks these tenders as they emerge.

What is Skillfair doing?

One of the main complaints we get from members is that we don’t get enough opportunities from the private sector, and although the level of private projects has dramatically increased since we launched the new website we feel we could do even better – particularly when it comes to attracting smaller businesses. Given the confusion in the small business advice market we think that more SMEs will be turning to the web and sites like Skillfair – so to make sure that our members get the benefit we’ll be making a number of significant additions to our service over the next few months.

SME Marketplace

The first change is that we’ll be adding an SME market to our existing Business, IT and Technology markets. This will have a much reduced set of skills focused on the core SME requirements and will be open to Accountants, Solicitors and other general business advisors. The new market will be accompanied by a revamped search facility that will allow clients to search without worrying about which market they’re in – and will also guide them to skills they’re looking for by ‘auto-filling’ the search for them rather like the search facilities on Amazon and eBay.

Existing members will be able to add a free profile to the SME market for the first year – after which they can decide whether to keep more than one profile.

Advertising

You’ll have noticed that adverts have been appearing on your daily alerts for a while – we plan to continue this and also to add a new ‘Advert Alert’ which will go out on Wednesday evenings. This alert – which will be entirely optional – will allow businesses providing services to small home based businesses like consultants to advertise their services to our consultant database and will provide another reason for small business owners to visit the site.

Small Business Site Launch

We are currently designing a new branding or 'skin' for the Skillfair website aimed solely at appealing to small business owners. This will be very simple, direct and to the point and it’s objective will be to link small businesses up as quickly and effectively as possible with advisors and consultants who can help them. The new website will exist alongside the existing Skillfair site – but using the same functionality and database so that as long as you have a profile on Skillfair, SMEs will be able to find and communicate with you – there won’t be any extra charge for appearing on the new site.

We’ll be inviting you to contribute articles and advice for small businesses to this site rather than trying to provide these ourselves, all of which will be linked back to your own profile and websites so that you benefit from the effort and exposure. We will, of course, be making sure that Skillfair and the new site feature on any government sponsored website that emerges from the coming changes and we’d appreciate your support in that and in publicising both the SME market on Skillfair and the new site when it’s ready.

Connecting sideways - who should you link with?

I spent last Thursday evening talking about Social Networking  & Marketing with a group of managers and consultants from IBC and CMI (the Chartered Management Institute) and apart from the challenge of fitting nearly 40 people into a room designed for 25, one of the key issues we discussed was how to make sure your efforts in social networking reach the right people. While posting your deep thoughts and what you had for breakfast on Twitter may be fun it won't bring in any business unless your potential clients are listening! As we all know though, the people you most want to meet as a consultant are the decision makers within a business and they're often far too busy to get involved in online networking - in fact in larger companies they may not even be able to access the websites.

One option that can pay dividends is to think slightly sideways about who you need to contact and influence. For example, if you offer facilitation or training you might be better off trying to contact interim managers or change managers who need to find ways of changing the way an organisation works. Similarly, HR specialists could seek out lawyers who specialise in employment tribunals and web designers could (and often do) hook up with marketing agencies and graphic designers who target similar clients. So your challenge for the weekend is to see if you can come up with a creative set of sideways contacts to make - to share them with with us just post a comment here.

Whcih gadgets are really useful in business?

Watching assorted news items about queues for iPads in London this week I was reminded of all the really useful gadgets I've bought over the years. Each one claimed it would allow me to organise or improve my life, but with a few honourable exceptions such as my trusty ultra-lightweight laptop, they've generally fallen by the wayside. As a result I've become a bit of a Luddite in the last few years, refusing to jump on the latest bandwagon and making do with well-known technology. However, my life hasn't got any less busy and, like most consultants, I really do need to make use of any spare time when I'm travelling, if only to deal with the rising tide of email.

Having given in and acquired an iPhone though, I still have choices to make: Should I download an App to keep track of my time or stick with a notebook? Which of the dozens of news feed readers should I pick?  Would I actually use a to-do list or a business card scanner on my phone? I'm not sure of the answers yet, but I'd be interested to know which bits of technology you've found genuinely useful over the years. I think many consultants hold off investing in new technology for fear of wasting time & money - and it would be really good to share information about what really works. I've posted here some details of some technologies I've found useful  - why not add your thoughts on the best (or worst!) gadgets you've tried.

• Laptops - couldn't be without one but much prefer a lightweight one I can tuck in my briefcase
• Mobile Phone - actually I've barely used this till recently as my home office is in a signal balckspot - but have just acquired a signal booster from Vodafone which might change everything!
• IPhone Apps - so far I've found these useful;
• Magnifying glass - good for those who need reading glasses!
• RSS feed reader - lets me see whats going on on Skillfair without logging in
• Considering, but not sure about, business card scanner, voice to email, time recorder, to-do list

Big vs Small in Business and Consultancy

It's funny how sometimes you start writing about a topic and then find that lot's of other people have picked up on the same thread. Having talked about big vs small business in rugby terms last week I've come across a few discussions on LinkedIn Groups ( Marketing Consultants and Accountancy Age) talking about the pros and cons of using large consultancies or independents. My take from a client's point of view on when to choose large or Small is here.

Then an article talking about the issue from a different angle popped into my inbox (Telling the 800lb Gorilla to go...) talks about big vs small from the competitive angle - in other words, should you worry about competing with the big boys - or just focus on ploughing your own profitable little furrow?

Rugby 7's and Small Business?

This may seem a rather odd metaphor, but while watching the World rugby sevens tournament last weekend it struck me that the difference between a 7 or 15 a side team is a lot like the difference between small and big businesses. In a sevens team there are never enough people, they all have far too much to do and quickly become exhausted. By contrast, although the 15 a side game is still very demanding there's a little more time to organise and take an occasional breather and it's much easier to defend your position. And of course some teams get themselves thoroughly stuck in a rut.

Attack is better than defence

What's very noticeable about sevens games is that it's almost impossible to play a purely defensive game, teams have to take risks and while the best teams have a clear plan and strategy they're also very good at spotting an opportunity. I think there's a message there for smaller businesses - while it's tempting to cut costs and pull your horns in, few of us have the resources to do that for very long - and we certainly can't tread water for as long as larger businesses. All of which means our best strategy is to go out and attack the market, tell people what we're doing and create the opportunities we need rather than waiting for things to improve by themselves. 

Everyone Counts

Another feature of 7's vs 15's is that in 15's, at least at the lower levels of the game, it is possible for one or two players to under-perform without the results being catastrophic. In 7's though everyone has to perform to their absolute best all the time, otherwise the whole team will go down!

If you have any ther sport/business analogies or comments please let me know!

Any suggestions for our conference this year?

Following on from Gill's blog about meeting positive people, it's prompted me to start thinking about this year's conference. It's going to be held in London in November and we've decided to stick with the new format we introduced last year of shorter sessions during the morning and longer, more in-depth workshops in the afternoon. Every year we work hard to research material and speakers that are informative, relevant and provide the 'positive energy' that's generated from like-minded people coming together - if you've got any suggestions for topics and speakers for this year's event, please let us know!

Meeting positive people gives you energy

Meeting up with other people who have a positive attitude to life and business has given me a real boost over the last few weeks. I've been very lucky - attending a speed networking event run by the IOD in Reading, meeting up with a very positive group of Skillfair members in London, and topping all that off with a team meeting this week. The result has been that I feel really energised and have started tackling a whole range of challenges that I'd left on the back burner. So if you're not sure what you should do next, why not get out and about and pick up some energy from your fellow businesses? 

I'm booked to speak at quite a few events over the next few months so I'm hoping the energy will keep coming, if you're around Derby, Birmingham or Central London it would be great to meet up.

please don't use premium credit cards

Being an entirely online business we take all of our payments online - and over the last 18 months we've been hit by successive increases in the costs of credit card transactions - each transaction costs us around 3.5% of the gross payment (including the VAT) and the percentage has increased steadily. It's always amazed me how much public discussion of credit cards only talks about the interest rate charged to customers and ignores the fact that the banks now take a cut on almost every retail transaction in the UK.

This morning I've had yet another letter from my 'friendly' bank saying that any transactions on premium cards will cost an extra 0.7%. 

This is affecting all retailers, on and off line - so if you want to keep your money out of the banks clutches please avoid the premium card - and you'll be helping the retailers too.

Useful social marketing sites and tools - can you add any?

One of the most useful aspects of our on-line marketing workshop last night was being able to pick up on new facilities and websites that other people suggested. This table is a summary of all the ones we discussed - if you have any others please let us know.

Google	Search Engines  -The amount and quality of your content is important in making sure your site or blog is indeed. Links to and from other related sites are also useful
Bing (Microsoft’s new search engine)
Yahoo
MSN
Wikipedia	An authoritative site with definitions of just about everything. Look and see if a subject you know about is in need of an editor – but be careful to be unbiased and non-commercial in what you say
Delicious	bookmarking sites where people can search for articles and blogs.
Digg
Twitter	A micro-blogging site – people post 140 character messages about what they’re doing. You can follow people you find interesting and other people can follow you.
Google Buzz	Google’s version of Twitter
Facebook	Used heavily by teenagers and increasingly adults to run their social lives. Post events, pictures, messages and play games
LinkedIn	Much used by professionals, particularly those looking for work. Can post a detailed CV, start discussion groups, post events etc. There are many LinkedIn groups for professional disciplines and other organisations – or set up your own.
Viadeo	Similar to LinkedIn – some different features on each. Generally business oriented
Naymz
ecademy
YouTube	Video sharing site – great time waster!
FlickR	Photo sharing
MySpace
Free index	Business directory and forums for small business
Hotfrog	Free Business directory
Plaxo	Online contacts/address book
Hi5	Like facebook but (allegedly) more fun

Wordpress	Sites that allow you to build a blog very quickly – just subscribe and you can have a blog within a few minutes. Then you just need something to say!
Typepad
Blogger
joomla
Technorati	An index of blogs – mainly US dominated
Feedburner	A way of providing people with feeds from your blog/twitter account
Moonfruit	Template based website building sites
Webeden
google
Crazyegg	Shows a heatmap of your website, tells you where people click
Google analytics	Shows you how many people visit and what they look at
Google Wave	Tools to help you collaborate with partners and clients eg share calendars, co-edit documents
Google Wiki
Huddle
Tweetdeck	Have multliple twitter personalities and/or searches going
Twitterfeed	Link your blog or website feed into twitter
Hootsuite	Similar to tweetdeck - Other twitter clients here http://www.twitstat.com/twitterclientusers.html
friendfeed	Allows you to pull together feeds from friends and display in one place
slideshare	A place to share slide presentations on LinkedIn
Xobni	Link your Outlook email to LinkedIn – similar facilities are also part of the next release of Office.

Would tenders say anything without the banned words?

Just seen a post about a new list of 'banned words' that IdEA say shouldn't be used in public sector communications. The list builds on an earlier version here - trouble is for a lot of the tender we post if you removed these words they quite possibly wouldn't say anything at all!

Crowdsourcing for new ideas

As you might expect with a workshop on on-line marketing looming I've being doing some reading around to make sure I'm up to date on current thinking - and a phrase that's cropped up a number of times is 'crowd-sourcing'. Essentially, this is the idea that the more people you can get involved in solving a problem or designing something the more likely you are to hit on a novel and effective result. I'm a little sceptical of how useful this is as I think the quality of results will always depend on the quality of your crowd, but I do think there's real value for independent consultants and small businesses generally in tapping in to the ideas and knowledge of other people.

In many ways this is the main benefit of networking, whether on-line or face to face. Other people have different approaches to life and business and the more new people you meet and exchange ideas with, the more chance you have of coming up with your own new ideas. I'm often amazed at just how varied the businesses are that I come across at networking events - and the stories of how people decided what business to start. I also find that approaching events with the aim of listening to other people's stories is much less daunting than going with the aim of selling and is generally more productive anyway! 

We're very lucky at Skillfair to be able to use your collective experience and ideas to help us improve the service and come up with new ways to help you and other consultants. In that spirit we'd like to invite ideas for topics that you'd like to see covered at our conference in the autumn. It will be in London in November and we plan to use a similar format to last year, 3 or 4 short talks plus a variety of longer workshops, but we're really keen that the agenda should reflect the issues and problems you're interested in. So if you've seen a great speaker or have a topic that you think is worthy of a workshop session then please let us know

Why are consultants like old bananas?

No idea really why consultants are like bananas, but having raced back from picking up a sick teenager from school I got home just in time to be interviewed about consultants & freelancers fee rates on Radio Essex. Trying to compose my thoughtful and articulate comments I was slightly thrown to hear the presenter rattling through assorted uses for old bananas - including a slightly bizarre 'banana coat'!

Things got a little more serious when he started to introduce the subject and we covered all the thorny issues of working for yourself, finding clients, setting fees and the dreaded 'feast and famine' issue. It was nice to be able to promote the concept of freelancing as a useful means for businesses to access highly skilled people and hopefully any of you live in Essex and caught the broadcast won't have found me too embarrassing!

Skillfair members get higher rates than average

Having so much data to analyse from the fee survey last week, I didn't get round to checking the regional variations, so I've now added them to the detailed results. As last year, people who say that they work 'all over the UK' do better than anyone and the table is still topped by this category, London and the South East. What did surprise me though, was just how many people are truly mobile as this category made up well over 33% of the responses. More interesting still is the fact that Skillfair members report fee rates on average 11% more than the overall average!

Things are looking up for the self-employed

Life has been tough for many independent consultants and freelancers over the last year or so. Clients are under pressure to reduce costs and retain permanent staff – plus to read the press it would seem there are thousands of newly redundant 40 and 50 something’s looking to set up as self-employed.

After analysing the results from this year's fee survey, though, it seems that most consultants are optimistic about the coming year. A whopping 93% see revenue stabilising or improving this year and over half expect to grow.

There has clearly been pressure on fee rates, which have dropped an average of around 8%, and many of our respondents have been asked to work for free - or as good as - at some point in 2009. The good news though is that while people are happy to be flexible for charities or businesses that are really struggling generally they feel confident enough to walk away from clients who are just pushing their luck - which often results in a change of heart from the client!

The key I think is to be clear about the value you bring to a client and make sure they understand this - arguing about fee rates fades into the background if your client knows you will deliver and trusts you to improve their business.

Demonstrating quality

I've always been impressed by the depth and variety of experience that so many Skillfair members have, and that's been reflected in the testimonials, references and other information they've provided for quality checking purposes. We've now added a new feature to the system that allows members to display their key memberships and accreditations alongside the quality rating - so clients can see immediately who is 'Prince Qualified' or a 'Chartered Marketer' for example. We'll be contacting the various professional bodies over the next few weeks for permission to use their logos so members will only be able to display their credentials if they've provided evidence of these to us. Once you're a full member of Skillfair you'll be able to add further detail to your profile, as well as your professional credentials, all of which boosts your own website presence on search engines.

Of course qualifications are only part of the story, they're a good way of demonstrating commitment to your profession and distinguishing yourself from other less well-qualified providers. But once you're in touch with a client the various bits of paper are much less important than what you actually do and unfortunately it is much easier to damage a good reputation than it is to build one in the first place. We've had feedback from a few project owners recently that messages they've received have included some fairly obvious spelling mistakes. In a competitive market it's easy to rush your response to any enquiry but it's more important than ever to check and double-check before sending any message - you may be the first to respond, but if you give the wrong impression you'll also be the first on the reject pile.

PS having made that comment about checking things carefully I went live with the new feature without my usual double check that everything was OK - Doh! Apologies to anyone who tried to use it on Friday and was frustrated - all OK now and  I promise to be more careful next time :-(

professional, institute, accreditation, CIM, MBA, Prince, ISO

do clients deliberately mislead in tenders?

Apparently The National Federation of Builders (NFB) has conducted a poll, which shows that a fifth of small businesses think local authorities do not advertise their tenders properly. Details here

Having just done stint of tender loading I think they may have a point - of the 10 I've just loaded onto Skillfair 3 had seriously misleading titles.

For example, "IT services: consulting, software development, Internet and support", is actually a tender to provide a data centre to host some servers and "information systems or technology strategic review and planning services" is a housing management information system.

I have some sympathy with the clients as they do get a lot of responses but it makes me very glad that we actually read every tender and change the titles to something more meaningful before sending them to our members!

Weird and wonderful tenders

One of the things that makes searching for tenders for Skillfair interesting is the eclectic nature of some of the requirements. In the last few months, some of the more unusual ones have ranged from a Totem Pole artist and designer for Liverpool, an entymology consultant for a museum in Berkshire, research into odour nuisance from sewage sludge, plus my all time favourite – being a hermit for a month in a museum tower.

Keeping it simple - do consultants over complicate things?

I've come across a few blogs and discussions this week where people have been discussing how they should refer to themselves and their  business. Critical issues such as 'do we talk about training or learning' or 'are you a mentor coach or a coach mentor' seemed to have assumed a life of their own. It's true that the language we use makes a difference to how people react to us, the idea behind 'learning and development' rather than 'training' being to help the recipients of the service feel more in control, but I do wonder sometimes if we sometimes agonise too much about how we describe ourselves.


Clients generally come to us with a very clear idea of what they want done and very rarely use complex language to describe it. They are much more likely to ask for 'help' rather than 'coaching' and for a 'training course' rather than a learning experience. Of course, some special language or jargon is essential in getting the precise nature of a requirement across - and we quite often have to resort to looking up some of the more technical requests we get - but in general I think it's worth sticking to plain and simple language whenever you can. If you're not sure if your profile or website has veered too far from simplicity why not ask a friend to review it or take a look at the Plain English website for guidance. I particularly liked their before and after examples of management gobbledegook.

social media - is it just for girls?

I've just noticed something odd about the people who've signed up for our Intelligent On-Line Marketing workshop in March. Going by the names it looks as though 80% of them are female - which started me wondering if there's something about the topic that attracts women rather than men?

Do the fellas think they already know how to do it? Maybe you don't want to plan that far ahead or perhaps that male cynicism and scepticism is getting in the way? 

If it's the last point - I share the cynicism to some extent, there's a lot of hype about things on-line and it's really important to cut through that and understand exactly which elements of on-line and/or social marketing will deliver useful business contacts rather than the inane chatter that seems to swamp the good stuff on most sites.

What do you think - and what aspects of social marketing are you using?

are things looking up?

The 'end of the recession' was hyped up over the weekend, so that yesterday's growth figure of a measly 0.1% seem rather disappointing. So the question is, what's really happening in business and how is it affecting the consultancy and freelance market?

Our fee rate survey seems to be showing some pressure on rates with many consultant reporting clients asking for work to be done for free or very low rates. But on the upside, conversations with contacts in the recruitment industry suggests that the marketing and advertising industries have suddenly started hiring. This suggests that businesses are starting to feel more confident and are looking to marketing to build more sales as the economy picks up.

We've certainly seen a pick up in projects coming to Skillfair, ranging from marketing advice for small businesses through associate requests in business advice/HR to experts in cryogenics!

All of which suggests that now is a good time to start thinking about your own marketing activity. If you're not currently occupied then use the time to check your strategy and get networking, if you're busy maybe you should consider taking on a specialist to help you market yourself so that you don't hit a bad patch when current projects finish.

Whatever size your business, there's a marketing specialist out there who'll be able to help - for some pointers to the kind of activity you should consider, take a look at http://www.skillfair.co.uk/content/757/Need-help-with-marketing-.aspx or for more anecdotal stories about marketing try http://blog.asmartbear.com/

Do you join for business or to socialise?

There's been a lively discussion on the Skillfair LinkedIn group on the reasons people join different networking organisations or professional institutes. Some people have joined to get access to insurance or meeting spaces whereas others are more interested in developing their specialist skills.

What seems very clear though, as one member put it,

"There is no doubt that those independent consultants who ‘put themselves about’ – i.e. proactively network in their local/regional business community, will do far better than those who just sit back and hope business will come to them."

 So even if your choice isn't perfect it will be better than doing nothing!

 

How much should a consultant charge?

The initial response to our fee rate survey has been stunning - well over 500 responses in the first day. If you've not had time to fill it in yet, please do - the more response we have the better. We're interested in hearing from clients about the kind of extra help they commission and how much it costs - as well as from consultants, advisors, freelancers and interims of all kinds.

One interesting feature that's already emerging is that a lot of people have been asked to do work for free or for very low rates in the last year. Your responses to this seem to be split depending on the reason, with many of you quite comfortable with providing help for little return to charities or to small businesses who are struggling, but with much less sympathy for larger concerns or middlemen trying to maintain high margins in the face of client pressure.

Freelancers always get through!

Chatting to my optician today about the snow and how much disruption it's caused  - it turns out that he's a freelance locum, working for several opticians in the area - and at each shop he's been the only person to turn up on the days when the snow was heavy.

As he put it, "I don't get paid unless I work, so it takes a lot to stop me getting through!". Coupled with the fact that so many consultants and freelancers are well set up to work from home I think those businesses that make good use of them will have suffered much less over the last few weeks.

What do you think?

Time for self-help?

As it's the start of a New Year and the end of the 'phony war' in UK politics, I was going to talk about the impending election this week - but the weather and all the stories surrounding it have made me think that we should regard politics & economic ups and downs as just another form of weather. In snowy weather it pays to clear your own path and in difficult economic conditions I think our best tactic is to go out and help ourselves, and if possible do something to help the other businesses we're in contact with. So if you do nothing else this week, come up with 1 action you can take to get involved in some business activity, join a networking group, volunteer for a committee, offer a small business some free advice or training - whatever works for you. It will keep you busy, generate activity and make you feel better too!

Next week we'll be sending out our annual fee rate survey, and we'd like to ask for your help in getting as many people as possible to respond. A number of our partner organisations, including IBC, IMechE & PCG, will be sending the survey out to their members, if you have contacts in any other groups or professional bodies who might be able to do the same we'd like to hear from you. If you can help, please email us or give us a call.