The Brazilian Connection

This week, we have been snowed-under with the preparation and hosting of a small trade mission from Brazil and were still taking care of them at 7pm Thursday night when the giant wheels of the newsletter presses usually start to turn.

The delegation is from an organisation called FIESC  http://www.fiescnet.com.br/ which is a single hybrid business support organisation for Santa Catarina state which is one of the 26 states which make up the Federative Republic of Brazil.

As Brazil is the B of BRICS, it's been interesting to spend 3 days hosting the delegation, showing them how the UK's IT and consultancy sectors work and drawing comparisons with Brazil.

With over 6 million inhabitants, Santa Catarina is about the same population as the West Midlands so we can try to compare it economically to a typical UK RDA region.

FIESC is a combination of BIS, Chamber of Commerce, Business Link, UKTI, e-Skills and Technology Strategy Board with departments covering each industry sector and employing 2,000 staff to do this for an RDA-sized economy.

Then there is also the federal (national) layer which overlays these functions.

Is it my  imagination or are they really very well provided with business support in Santa Catarina?

In the many meetings we had over the 3 days, one common theme that came out was that the EU is much more internally diverse in its  business cultures than an outsider might think and that a number of uniform, deeply-held but always unattributable perceptions or prejudices were in place regarding which countries are good or bad to work with, reliable or unreliable business partners, honest or less honest counterparts.

Anyone care to guess which EU countries were the saints and which the sinners?

Have any of you got contacts or interests in Santa Caterina state or elsewhere in Brazil ?  Or are interested in getting involved in a possible future project involving 2-way exchange of expertise, products and services between Brazil and the EU?

If so, get in touch using the usual methods and depending on response, we would look at setting  up a 'UK-BRICS opportunities' group.

How do you deal with incoming enquiries?

I receive emails from numerous discussion forums and was intrigued this week to see a someone regaling the list with a tale of woe after trying to place some work with suppliers. The client had asked the list for recommendations for suppliers to build some specialist software, and had duly gone off and called the recommended companies, about 10 in all. 3 had failed to answer the phone at all, 5 answered the phone but couldn't pass him onto someone to deal with his enquiry and the final 2 were the right people but wouldn't discuss budgets in even the vaguest terms. So despite no doubt spending considerable time and effort soliciting enquiries from potential clients none of the companies came close to actually getting the business.

In theory small companies and one man bands have an advantage in this scenario - if you work for yourself there's no question of delegating dealing with enquiries to someone else. But the story does highlight how important it is to be clear about the questions you need to ask a client to understand exactly what they need, how big a job it's likely to be and whether you are a good fit to their requirements. We know from experience that extracting the right information from clients can be remarkably difficult, which is why we have a standard form we use to collect background information about the projects that come in to Skillfair. Given that a client calling you to ask for help is what most of us are working hard to achieve I think it's well worth taking some time out to make your own checklist or questionnaire so you make sure that you're the one company that does respond well to the next enquiry!

JH2MHZ73FE6N - tag for technorati - ignore :-)

2011 - Outlook for consultants

The early results from our 2011 fee rate survey are coming in already - we asked people how they feel about 2011 and we're getting quite positive vibes. Over half our consultants are expecting their businesses to grow this year - including those with a bias towards the public sector. Seems to be a combination of 'any change means there's a need for consultancy' and a feeling that businesses are adjusting to new market conditions and just 'getting on with it'. To let us know what you think just complete the survey - there's a prize draw for a free Skillfair membership if you leave us your email address.

Getting together to do business

Sorry for the silence here since Christmas - having slipped on the ice and broken my wrist my appetite for typing has been a bit subdued! Just sent out this week's newsletter talking about the importance of collaborating with other consultants to win business that you couldn't win by yourself. Then realised that it would be a really good idea if people who already belong to established networks could let other people know about them.

The easiest way to do that was to start up a LinkedIn discussion on the subject, so if you belong to or are aware of formal or informal networks that you think work effectively please let us know here or comment on this blog.

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 !