Sometimes, organizations or individuals encounter complex problems that within them, they cannot solve. To deal with this, most of the time, organizations or individuals will hire a consultant to find a better way of addressing the problem. The disruption and changes happening right now are affecting organizations, businesses, and individuals on a massive scale. As a result, they need external help, and when talking about outside help, they usually call upon a consultant or consulting firm.
Consultants are individuals who are trained and have the expertise to get the job done. In the highly dynamic world of consulting, how can consultants keep up with the pace? What can they do to achieve the results that the clients want? These are some of the issues faced by consultants as they strive to remain relevant in the consulting landscape.
Do not be anxious! There is someone prepared to assist and guide consultants to level up their consulting game. The Consultant’s Consultant, Andrew Pek, has provided consulting services to thousands consultants, organizations, and entrepreneurs.
Andrew knows the nuts and bolts that help forge a consultant into a trusted advisor. He is a world-renowned authority in innovation, design thinking, and entrepreneurship and the founder of Consulting Unplugged which is dedicated to developing the power skills of the next generation of entrepreneurs, innovators and change makers
Today, Andrew will share the secret tools that an emerging or seasoned consultant needs to become a trusted advisor.
Essential Components Of Consulting
Consulting is the conscious and disciplined process of giving and delivering advice to positive and meaningful impact clients and their situation. It is the definition of consulting developed by Andrew over the years. For Andrew, excellent consulting revolves around three core elements to deliver real impact to the clients.
According to Andrew, the most important person to consultants is their client. Clients are the lifeblood of a consulting business. “As a consultant, it is inevitable to keep yourself tuned into your client’s challenges, hopes, and dreams. You should be aware and, most importantly, understand clients’ needs, situations, or challenges,” Andrew explained.
The second is disciplined. Andrew believed that consultants should apply structure, methods, and tradecraft to ensure consistency of results. “I could not overemphasize how crucial the results are to any consulting business. Clients will hire you because they want results. That is why investing in how you deploy your tradecraft and engage clients will determine how well you will deliver results, ” he said.
The third is positive and meaningful. “As I have put in my definition, having a positive and meaningful impact on clients and their situation,” Andrew explained that consultants are viewed as change agents in an organization.
That is why a consultant’s results should have a positive and meaningful impact on his client. “You provide insight and will inspire action and results that come in many different forms such as commercial benefits, innovations, new products, and services or experiences for their customers…and potential benefits for your client’s career or professional goals,” he continued.
Consulting Tradecraft
Andrew said that, like in other professions, consultants need to have the necessary tradecraft. What is tradecraft? Tradecraft are your ‘superpowers’, know-how and mojo combined to effect a positive and meaningful impact on another. Hence, Andrew provides other consultants the key tradecraft that they will need to have in order to achieve success with others and/or their clients.
- Strategy Tradecraft
Andrew said that, like in any other business, strategy is crucial to success. Strategy tradecraft is all about understanding your competition, how to outwit them and coming up with a creative and sometimes clever approach to achieve your ultimate objective.
- Design and Innovation Tradecraft
Andrew said that design and innovation are both a disciplined and iterative process of progressing from insights to ideas and implementation. “. Design and innovation start with defining the problem and then through a systematic process of discovery and idea development emerge with a desirable, doable and viable solution to that problem. ,” he continued. He added that effective design and innovation means that the consultant will need to build empathy with their client (and their client’s problem) by putting themselves in their client’s shoes.”
- Operational Excellence
When talking about operational excellence, Andrew said that it always boils down to quality and cost. There is a mutual relationship between quality and cost. Andrew explained that quality is tied to brand and user experience.
On the other hand, Andrew added that cost is tied to profitability and process efficiency. “A trusted advisor understands the tensions between quality and cost. You will help clients identify gaps and recommend solutions that bring balance between the two. Your recommendation should consider the whole system and not just a part of it,” he continued.
- Organization Tradecraft
Andrew explained that when dealing with organizations, a trusted advisor should understand what an organization is. He characterized organizations as consisting of complex systems, culture and structures that are constantly moving but, in most instances, not well coordinated or orchestrated.
“As a trusted advisor, you should help the organization effectively manage quality and cost by considering the best ways to develop the formal hierarchies and processes in relationship with the informal cultures and more loosely defined processes that spark growth and innovation,” he added.
An Invitation
Andrew is inviting emerging and seasoned consultants Consulting Unplugged online courses to up their consulting game. “Right now, the world needs skilled advisors, change agents, and facilitators who can help individuals and organizations to solve vexing challenges and come up with new solutions that will deliver positive and meaningful impact. The Consulting Unplugged program is your ticket in learning how to deliver positive and meaningful impact,” Andrew explained.
Learn the secret tools to become a trusted advisor with the help of the Consultant’s Consultant, Andrew Pek
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