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Panel of Consultants Share Insight with Jenkins MBA Students

In the course of the hour-long discussion, the students learned how to ‘get in the door’ – by bringing something of value to the table; the importance of clarifying roles in the consulting relationship; and how to position yourself as a thought leader. The students continued their discussion after the panel members left, with Brianna Tegtmeier debriefing the class and coordinating a round of votes that produced the following top five lessons learned for emerging consultants.

  • Emerging consultants should understand the importance of recognizing their “features as benefits.” They must learn how to leverage what they bring to the group as something that offers value. This will help emerging consultants on their career path towards working for any size consulting firm.
  • Consultants need to understand the importance of positioning themselves as thought leaders. Whether it means you participate in blogs, respond to LinkedIn forum discussion topics, write articles or share other people’s articles, consultants need to position and portray themselves as thought leaders in the field.
  • When managing hostile clients, it is important to understand the client’s organization’s dynamics. There are many extraneous variables that can contribute to the hostile behavior of a client. Understanding the environment that they are surrounded by can shed light onto their behavior and offer a new perspective on how to work through it.
  • The most important thing that consultants can do is manage expectations with their clients. This will eliminate a situation in which the client is surprised by actions of the consultants and the project results.
  • Consultants need to learn how to build trust with their clients. This may mean that the consultant brings in another partner to assist or even walks away from the project all together if they are not aligned with the project in order to show that they are invested in the client’s success regardless of their level of participation.

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Serving on the panel of consultants were, left to right: Jeffrey Smith, PMC, principal consultant, Trajectory Business Services, LLC; James Davis, president, HoskinsDavis; Michael Franken (back, panel moderator), market intelligence and strategy; management consulting; Kelly Welch, CPRW, MHRM, GPHR, YES Career Services; Danielle McCulloch, Fuentek.