are you a good partner?

David made a good point about partnering with other professions (and consultants) in his comment on my blog about business advice. Which got me thinking about the debate we had a while ago about specialists versus generalists. One of the issues to bear in mind is that if you appear to be the sort of person who 'does everything' then other professionals may be wary of working with you in case you try to take over the whole job.

If you can articulate clearly the things you do best it becomes easier for both clients and potential partners to see where you fit in their business.

Partnering is a very effective way to get business, people regularly post joint bid requests on Skillfair and report that this is a good way to win bigger contracts than they would normally go for. So why not think about what kind of business or profession is likely to know people you could help?

Some of the more obvious examples include;

IT providers working with accountants
graphic designers, marketeers and web designers working together
Lawyers passing work to HR professionals and vice versa
Engineers helping out patent & IPR specialists

As a starting point, try thinking about your last few clients, what problem they were trying to solve and who else they might have gone to for help if they hadn't found you.

opportunity for business advisors?

I've just read an interesting article on FTOnline that talks about the recession and the impact that and the proliferation of new support schemes is having on the RDA s and Business Links. I wanted to comment on the FT- but you can't - so thought I say my piece here.

I know quite a few of our members work through Business Links, but I think there's a real opportunity here for independent Business Advisors to create their own relationships with the small business community and avoid all the bureacracy that goes with the BL approach. There are a lot of people currently thinking about starting up a business and they almost all need advice of some kind - and while BL is a useful source of basic advice they are very stretched. So how do you find the startups that will pay for and thrive on your advice and input?

These are just a few suggestions, feel free to add your own!

• Get to know your local accountants and solicitors - almost everyone knows they'll need an accountant when they start up so these can be a good source of client contacts
• Set up a local networking group - just invite a few contacts to meet for coffee at a local pub/hotel and get them to bring a Guest. Doesn't need to be a formal group but you may be surprised at how a group with the right atmosphere snowballs.
• Run a workshop or seminar on starting a business - don't make it free but don't expect to make a profit! The more people you can get to come along the more chance you have of making contact with some new clients. Publicise through networking groups, local paper, blogs websites/email

How to get the best from a consultant or consultancy

I had a fascinating insight into the client's perspective on consultants this week as I went to a meeting of IBC's Consultancy Purchasing Steering Group. The aim of the evening was to talk through the risks and benefits of consultancy assignments from both sides of the fence, culminating in a discussion of a draft set of guidelines for the 'consultancy sales process'.


The audience was a mixture of purchasers and consultants - which had the benefit of making sure both sides had to take a conciliatory approach rather than just complaining about each other. There were plenty of good points made, but I was struck by how concerned people from the purchasing community were about the behaviour of consultants once they're 'inside' the organisation. Unexpected changes in personnel, surprise additions to the bill for 'account management' and hunting out or creating extra work were just some of the examples quoted.


I think part of the reason was that many of the purchasers involved work mainly with very large consultancies who have large numbers of staff and very sophisticated sales and account management skills. The positive message that came through is that if clients ensure that they are an important account for the consultancy then they can ensure the best service. Key points to help with this are;

• Choose a consultancy for whom your assignment will be a significant but not overwhelming project


• Find a consultancy with the right skills but an interest in growing into your sector


• If there's likely to be follow on work make sure the consultancy realises that


• Be a 'good' client, give them a clear brief and monitor progress regular

If you have any tips for other people on how to get the best out of a consultant then feel free to add a comment.

What do you want to see on Skillfair's Conference agenda?

We've been working on the agenda for this year's conference almost since the last one finished and are getting to the stage now where all the pieces are starting to come together. We are currently planning to run the conference on 18th November in Manchester, although we've yet to settle on a firm venue.



While the feedback from last year was very positive, a number of people commented that there were rather too many presentations and that it was difficult to go into any depth or have detailed discussions in the time available.



To change the balance we're planning to split this year's event into a mix of very short 20 minute presentations and longer workshops that will last 1.5 hours. The workshops will be able to cater for a maximum of about 20 people each so it's obviously important that we pick the right ones to run.



So that we can make sure we get the right mix of talks and workshops I'd really appreciate it if you could take a few mmoments to look at the topics available and let us know what you think - just click here to have your say about the content of the agenda.

Easy way to check your profile

I stumbled across this rather useful web site yeterday - called the gobbledygook grader it looks at a piece of text and counts how many over used or essentially meaningless words have crept in. It also gives you a very visual representation of which words have been used most.

Not surprising that when I ran it for a few of my newsletters the word 'consultant' loomed rather large then! But I've tried out on a few consultant profiles with varying results - be worth taking a few minutes to run your profile through and see what it shows.

NB you need to untick the 'send me newsletters' link if you don't want to get emails from the website owner.