DIY PR for Consultants

Hiring a PR agency is probably beyond the means of many consultants, but that doesn't mean you can't get yourself into the press. The key is to come up with a new and interesting angle and target specialist magazines or websites that cover your area of expertise.

Writing a press release is the easy part, the hard part is coming up with a story or article that will appeal to the editors of your chosen magazine or website. It can be really hard to come up with a new angle by yourself, so try getting together with other people in your local area or specialism and brainstorm ideas for all of you.

If your target is the local press then you'll almost certainly need a local connection of some kind - charity stories, new offices and so on - and you'll probably need at least an idea for a picture to go with it.

Specialist trade press are more likely to entertain a technical or 'thought-leaderhsip' articles, make sure you read through a few back-issues to see what's come up and whether you can find a new approach.

So, why not try a bit of DIY PR and let us know how it goes! For more tips and information on writing a press release click here

What makes you trust someone?

The issue of trust comes up regularly when discussing the use of consultants and advisors - we all want to become 'trusted advisors' to our clients - but clients often find it hard to know which advisors to trust.

I've just had eye surgery and while unable to do anything else have been pondering what it was that made me choose and ultimately trust this particular surgeon with one of the most vulnerable and critical bits of me.

To kick off, I went to her initially because the optician I've been going to for many years recommended her - in his words, 'if I needed surgery she's the one I'd choose'. Qualifications and experience were a given since this is someone who works in both NHS and private practice and I'm fairly confident that you don't get the 'consultant' tag in that environment without having done the necessary training and testing.

So that's the starting point - but I could easily have backed out or changed my mind after meeting - so what else did the consultant do that confirmed my choice? She didn't ooze charm, in fact like most surgeons I've come across she was brisk, efficient and possibly a tiny bit 'gung-ho' - utterly confident she could 'fix' my problem - but I left entirely confident that I was doing the right thing, with the right person.

I think there were two clinchers for me - she took the time to explain what the options were, had read her 'brief' (my referral letter) and treated me like an individual rather than assuming that the standard cure would be right for me. The final element was her sheer enthusiasm for her subject - it may sound weird, but having someone peer into your eye and exclaim 'what a lovely myopic disk' is incredibly reassuring!

I'd be interested to know if anyone else can share similar thoughts on why they've trusted someone?

Step by Step Guide to Tendering

One of the questions we get asked most often at Skillfair is, ‘Can a small company win a tender and how do I do it?’ The short answer to the question is ‘Yes’, but the ‘How-To’ is a bit longer. This series of articles is intended to take you through the key issues step by step so you can decide if engaging with the tendering process is worth the effort for your business and if you go ahead with it to help you do it as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Some of our members are relatively large companies who've won large projects through tendering, worth many hunders of thousands of pounds - but we also have one man bands who've won projects, got themselves onto preferred suppliers lists or teamed up with other consultants to win larger projects. The feedback we get is that it can be done, but you need to choose your tender carefully and be prepared to put the effort in over a period of time to be successful.

Each of these Q&A articles can be read standalone, or you can work your way through one at a time. Click here to read the Q&s

When you’ve read everything, you may feel that you want to give tendering a try but still need more help. There are plenty of consultants and advisors on Skillfair who have a background in procurement and tendering and who specialise in helping companies get to grips with the process, to get in touch with one to help you the easiest approach is to post a project on Skillfair explaining the kind of help you’re looking for.

success story - with a warning!

A few weeks ago a client who had posted an interesting short IT project called us to say that they'd had no response from any of the consultants who'd initially contacted them. We (well Angela actually) immediately hit the phones to find out where everyone had disappeared to and despite the absence of answer phones and some dodgy email addresses managed to get through to people.

It was very satisfying to hear today from Nick de Voil that he's signed the contract for the engagement for an 'IT systems audit' - in Nick's words;

"You'll remember a couple of weeks ago you called to let me know the
company who posted this project were having trouble getting hold of me.

I just wanted to let you know that I signed a contract for the
engagement today - so thanks very much for going to the trouble! This
personal touch is the type of thing that makes Skillfair a great service."

Well done to Nick - and to everyone else, remember to make sure your answerphone is switched on or you divert to a message service or you will lose out!

Financial Requirements For Tenders - how do you do it?

Martin Kendall raised an interesting point today wondering " if there is any collaborative thinking so far on how best to "tackle" the requirement in most tender requests for a demonstration of "financial strength". Whilst it would be possible to collaborate in resourcing to form appropriate capability for a tender I cannot see how "one man band" consultants could overcome the "financial strength test" "

I thought that there must be a correct way round this and know that many Skillfair users have told me that they use umbrella companes to go in under for the first time, but for some tenders financial strength shouldn't be such a big issue, that there could be other ways of demonstrating your ability to be a sustainabe company and demonstrate your commitment to the future?

Does anyone have any coping strategies that I might be able to pass on to Martin?