WHY ECONOMISTS NEED CONSULTANCY SKILLS

Peter Bowbrick

Most of today's professionals are going to be forced into consultancy at some stage in their life.

For some it is the only way they can see of getting the income they aspire to.

For most people today's job market means that you can expect to be made redundant two or three times in your career. Each time you may have to survive the period of unemployment with your consultancy earnings. Each time you will wonder if you should go back to a job or become a
consultant.

By the time you are 50 there is no choice. Most of the people over fifty in Britain today are effectively unemployed. They have no realistic chance of getting a full time job again. For them consultancy is the only possibility of a decent standard of living for what should be the most productive part of their lives.

However, the fact that you are brilliant at your job does not mean that you will be even adequately competent as a consultant. You have to have consultancy skills as well. These are so important that many people with good consultancy skills make a good living even when they have no noticeable professional skills - which is not to say that they are good consultants.

The jobs are so different that you will find yourself totally deskilled when you start out in your new career.

Now, you are an achiever. You do things. Then, you will be a persuader, trying to persuade others to do things.

Now, you are a team player, a member of a tight organization. Then, you will be an individual trying to influence an organization from outside.

Now, you have strong networks within the firm and within the industry. Then, you will not be able to tap into networks from your old firm or your client's competitors. You may even work in a new industry where you have no networks.

Now, you are an acknowledged expert in widgets. Then, you will be selling consultancy to anyone who will buy, schools, factories or garden centres. Any context dependent skills you have are wrong. You have to generalize, but recognize when generalization is wasted.

Now, you make full use of the management information system, market research and any information in the firm. Then, you will have limited access to confidential information and will have to negotiate before you are allowed to see anything else. You will have to learn new ways of getting information.

Now, you are working with old friends and colleagues, and you know how to deal with them. Then, you will be talking to people you have never met before and will never meet again, persuading them to talk to you, to give you information and to do as you say.

Now, you have a track record and have the credibility and authority that go with it. Then, you will be treated with suspicion by the staff of every new client - just another consultant.

Now, you give orders. Then, you will only be able to make suggestions through the right channels.

Now, you are working with the problem all your working life, month after month year after year. Then, you will have to learn all about it and solve it in a matter of days or weeks, then move on to another job.

Now, you have an office, a secretary, a computer, a management information system, a photocopier, and the support of a host of accountants, clerks, technical advisers, laboratory technicians etc. Then, you will borrow an empty desk in your client's offices, and write up your report in the back bedroom.

The skills of the consultant can be taught. Profitable Consultancy runs one-day and weekend courses. Courses can be tailor-made to the special needs of clients wanting to do one kind of work or work in one geographical area.

• What is Consultancy?
• The project cycle
• The consultancy cycle
• Modes of consultancy
• The terms of reference
• Time - its use and abuse
• Getting facts and figures before you start
• Getting information from the client
• Working without information and with wrong information
• Interview techniques
• Inception reports
• Report writing
• Working in a team
• Human relations for consultants
• Ethics
• What if other consultants are working for the client?
• Keeping sane: stress management and debriefing
• Multiple-client work
• The politics and micro-politics of consultancy

The course is prepared by a team of professional consultants with many years' consultancy experience. They have a range of professional skills, and have each worked with multidisciplinary teams. They have worked on dozens of industries. International experience includes Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Africa Asia and the Western Hemisphere. Clients include the United Nations, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, FAO, the EEC and many national governments. They have also worked with a wide range of firms.

Other courses offered by Profitable Consultancy are

The Consultancy Business (One day)

• What is consultancy?
• Types of consultancy
• The roles of the consultant
• The project cycle
• Who are your clients?
• Marketing yourself and your practice
• Selling a consultancy job
• Networking with other consultants
• Fee rates
• Running the business
• Questionnaires: do you have the skills, the experience, the knowledge, the finance, to survive?

Marketing Your Services (Three days)

• What you have to sell
• Modes of consultancy
• Who are your clients?
• Freelancing for consultancy companies
• Getting yourself known
• The consultant's CV
• The bidding process
• Working as an independent
• Getting yourself known
• Selling the job
• What clients fear
• Free diagnosis
• Franchises
• Fee rates
• Contracts
• Payment by results
• Networking with other consultants

International Consultancy (Three days)

• Getting the jobs
• Freelancing or direct?
• Major clients
• Multi-client consultancy
• Confusion over roles
• Why they hate you
• Because your country is richer, it does not mean you are smarter
• Working with local consultants
• Working with client staff
• Working with teams
• Culture shock
• The buck stops here

Working Abroad (Three days)

• Working without an office and without backup.
• Communications
• Culture shock
• Working with local employees
• Using an interpreter
• Networks
• Finding the decision maker: hierarchical structures in a strange country
• Business ethics
• Currency and the black market
• Checklists on tax, what to do with your house, what to pack, etc.
• How not to die
• How to stay sane
• Surviving travel
• Surviving hotels
• Surviving recreation

For more information E- mail mailto:peter@bowbrick.eu