How can you differentiate your consulting services without making these common mistakes?

Here’s a 3-step process I suggest to consultants looking to find a viable niche: 1. Choose your best expertise. List 3-5 skills or expertise you know really well and then pick your best. Examples: strategic planning, operations, financial planning & analysis, Microsoft 365, etc. 2. List all market segments you know well. These could be industry verticals (Biotech, construction, etc) or grouped in other ways (Global expat small businesses, minority-owned orgs, etc.). 3. For each segment you know well, identify unmet market needs (in the context of your expertise). For example, fast-growing manufacturing businesses risk failure because they don’t manage their cash flow and inventory. Niche idea: Fractional CFO for small manufacturers.

If you are coming from Academia, you will basically make all the mistakes! Here is how to avoid them: 1- Nothing narrower than your PhD research project, may be even gets narrower as you move along the academic ladder, you truly need to look the other way and focus more broadly on your field. 2- Do not try to beat the experienced or corporate consultants, you have a skill and a method, identify it. 3- You publish a lot, now speak that as general as you can 4- Learn consulting skills and methods, it is not as easy as you might think 5- Do not wander around your tasks, focus & deliver what's needed 6- Go for the value, like teaching, not for the money or prestige 7- Consultancy research is not your lab research, learn the differences

If you would like to stand out in the consultancy market, you need to develop a niche in a few specific areas where you can consolidate your offering, earn the trust of customers, and attract other consultants to share opportunities with you.

Differentiating consulting services involves showcasing unique value without common mistakes. Avoid vague marketing jargon; clearly define your expertise and specialization. Steer clear of one-size-fits-all solutions; tailor approaches to individual clients' needs. Eliminate over-promising; set realistic expectations and focus on tangible outcomes. Lastly, avoid neglecting post-service support; maintain relationships, offer continuous value, and gather feedback for improvement. By being specific, personalized, honest, and attentive, you can stand out authentically and establish a loyal client base.

It's important to understand what your competitors are doing.... Not to copy them...but to properly articulate your differentiators. 'Copy and paste' is a horrible strategy. 'Enhance and surpass' will provide you with much better dividends.

Try to reach a profitable balance between the needs of your leads/clients and your competences. Don't try to please your leads/clients at any cost. Understand what your competitors do and assess to follow them and/or differentiate. According to market opportunities choose the right balance between to be a follower or to explore the supply of new services.

To determine if a management consulting job is the right fit, consider the firm's culture, values, and work-life balance. Evaluate the types of projects and industries they focus on and if they align with your interests. Assess the growth opportunities, mentorship, and support for professional development. Reflect on how the firm's mission resonates with your career goals and personal values. Lastly, trust your intuition about the people you met during the interview process.

In my experience, it is important to be aware of the evolutions of your area of expertise. From one side, experience is key, but if you do not study and consider new technologies, you risk of being out of the market. One example in telecom, is the use of AI in many processes. Building on what you know and considering new trends can help you in developing a winning proposition.

This is one of the TOP areas consultants sabotage themselves. See in order for you to not feel an urge to copy your competitors or jump on each bandwagon, you want to get comfortable with your voice and your unique value proposition. However, one very important distinction here is the word "COPY". While you do not want to copy your competitors or jump on fads, you cannot build your business without doing sufficient market research so it is beneficial to know what's out there, even if to be able to articulate what makes you stand out in the market. I have seen too many consultants for fear of being seen as "copying" others, completely ignore what the market is saying and put offers out blindly which becomes a waste of time and resources.

Another common mistake is copying your competitors or following fads without having a clear value proposition or a sustainable competitive advantage. If you do this, you will end up competing on price and quality, which are easily replicated and eroded by others. To avoid this mistake, you need to develop your own unique selling proposition (USP) that showcases your expertise, experience and personality. You also need to monitor the market trends and the emerging needs of your clients, but not blindly follow them. Instead, you need to innovate and adapt your services to create value and differentiation.

Consultancies aim to solve pressing issues for their clients (currently, for instance, ESG). Therefore, there will always be overlaps, and you need to stand out in your marketing, customer care, and sales processes. Needless to say, you need to communicate your value - but in order to do so, you need to acquire and retain the attention of executives - who might be overwhelmed by the "attention" they receive, and delegate communication to assistants.

Communication is very important. There may be a limiting belief inside to stop you speaking about your own stuff. But it's worth. There is difference between being noisy and communicating clearly about your values, your workdone, your success (consciously and in order to add value for your potential clients)

Communicating your value, and being willing to walk away if you are not compensated for the value you add is key. This is especially true in a consulting environment, where numerous solutions may exist, with various levels of success. You need to be adept at articulating what your time is worth and the financial results to expect (and therefore value you must receive). This is a discipline I did not master initially, but once I was able to highlight these clearly, I was able to compel the types of clients I want to work with, and repel those who were not willing to pay for the value added.

I see that many consultants avoid visibility and knowledge sharing as a method to strengthen the competitive advantage and build a base of future clients. That is just wrong - as consulting services also have their market and marketing rules, and a great opportunity cost for consultants that have valuable knowledge to share. I see it as a parallel to free samples marketers are offering to boost demand for FMCG. Our social media presence and "digital footprint" are similar to that free sample: reducing the risk of future clients, building trust and connections with the stakeholders.

Neglecting personal learning and development is indeed a detrimental mistake for consultants. To counteract this, mastering one's craft is crucial. It’s not about doing the best job you can do; it’s about doing the best job anyone could have done. This involves surpassing minimum continuing education requirements and earning and highlighting special certifications. It is imperative to be up-to-date with the latest methodologies, technologies, and trends in the consulting sector and to invest in project management skills for effective ways of working. Seeking constant feedback, mentorship and coaching will enhance your performance and help achieve your goals.

Lifelong learning is important, whether it is in consulting, or literally any other job you do. When I look at the people who have had the most success professionally around me, in the overwhelming majority of cases I see leaders who were focused on getting better and learning daily. Since I witness this characteristic in those I want to imitate in business success, I personally work to get 1% better every day and learning and development is a key component in this journey.

To build a successful consultancy, it is important to develop expertise and become a trusted advisor in one's niche. Good to nurture relationships and networks to connect with potential clients, partners, and referrers. Understanding also each client's unique needs before providing customized, impactful solutions. Also to being good at in project management, communication, and expectation setting. A sound methodology, toolkit, and process need to be in place. These combined with strong listening, questioning, presenting, and writing skills.

I have experienced personally. As Dr. Elayahu Goldratt says, 'never say I know everything'. Although this is told to the client before we start consulting, we also say this to ourselves as consultants. I often get approached by organisations with products which I have never consulted before. The products range from steel to luggage. From insurance to aluminium to furniture. While they ask me my expertise in their product I tell them to its them who will teach me about their product as they are the best makers. I behold knowledge of process which probably the client is lacking. If we both share product and process knowledge it make best service offering to customers earning profits to client. Learning is integral part in business

To avoid all these mistakes one really needs to understand what consulting is. Get required skills on consultation Take courses online or intern with consulting brands to understand how to consult.

This is a common mistake: lack of systems, quality control and clear specifications. Many harmful delays, mistakes and disappointments are born from overcommitting combined with underdelivering. Alternatively, overcommitting leads to stress and burnout (on all sides!).

It's very crucial to know things before committing to any clients. It's better to evaluate your sources if they can provide those studies required by the client. If not, better to communicate about the absence of such studies and propose a way through which you can come up with deliverables that the client needs. In this way, you are creating an opportunity for yourself to work on the project instead of clearly saying no.

O excesso de comprometimento ou entregas insuficientes costumam advir de uma definição superficial do escopo do projeto/estudo. Neste caso podemos ter uma distorção da expectativa de ambos os lados, cliente e provedor. O cliente pode esperar mais do que o prestador do serviço planejou e culminar em uma entrega insuficiente do ponto de vista do cliente e dentro do esperado sob a ótica do provedor, ou o contrário. Por outro lado, muitos provedores imaginam que se fizerem uma entrega acima do esperado irá garantir a perpetuação de serviços com o cliente. Entregas insuficientes também podem ocorrer por alocar os recursos de maneira incorreta ou mesmo na inabilidade de lidar com o Gerenciamento de Mudança de Escopo.

The contract between you and your client needs to be water tight. Both parties need to be comfortable with the possibilities of success and be aware that issues may arise “on either side”. If you identify issues of any kind that may/will impact the quality of your delivery you need to get in front of the sponsoring stakeholder the/moment the risk becomes an issue and flag to them the potential impact. To exceed your clients expectations you then need to plan to work with the issue whilst recovering lost delivery time in order to achieve the original contract end date.

Es necesario priorizar objetivos y definir un alcance por cada cada proyecto en temas y tiempo de duración. Las métricas deben contribuir a alinear a tiempo los cambios para lograr los objetivos.

In consultancy, adding value and delighting clients is crucial. However, there's a pitfall to avoid: providing excessive value for free. Recognizing the true value of your expertise is key. Undervaluing your services can make clients reluctant to pay a fair amount. Striking the balance between delivering value and fair compensation is essential. It ensures sustainability and reinforces your worth in the industry, creating a win-win scenario for both you and your clients.

I have seen that every consultant has to develop deep industry knowledge of the arrea in which he provides services. Without this it is difficult to add value because even the means of demonstrating that value and communicating it to current clients will not be possible. Secondly, as Consultabts we may feel that we want to charge for every single value added initiative we propose and this closes our eyes to potential opportunities to serve our clients with a value addition mindset.

Learn how to be a better storyteller. I don’t mean the ability to deliver a polished marketing campaign. Do better at addressing the friction between perspective and reality (credit to Michael Lewis).

It is for sure important to "add value" to your customer, but it is also necessary to listen to what he wants. Sometimes they only want you to focus on a specific deliverable and are not open to listen to a different point of view. If you have been a manager with a leadership attitude, sometimes is not easy to accept that you can't drive or you have limited access to information. I think it is important to always act with honesty and integrity: deliver what customer wants, but never exaggerating in pleasing them if you don't think they are going the right way. If they ask for another point of view, be open to offer it, but always listen to understand to what they need and accept that sometimes you will not be the leader.

Mistake 7: Assuming that your way is always the 'right' way! Be confident, but not arrogant. Be knowledgeable, but not know-it-all! Please remember that your clients know their businesses much better than you could ever know. It is OK to go into a project with a hypothesis, but it is highly critical to be open to new findings and evidences and adapt your solutions accordingly. Learn from your clients, and create a synergy between their experiences and your outside-in perspective.

A few things that worked for me: 1. Under commit and over deliver 2. Sharing the framework of Consulting approach - sometimes we fear, client could take advantage of this and go to our competitor or even commission internal teams, but this step is important to show clients how we deliver the results 3. Regular or periodic updates through 1-1 discussions. 4. Read-out of the insights delivered to clients and their stakeholders so the consulting loop gets closed at least for Consultants.

An effective consultant in any field should have a set of processes that can be used (and adapted) to most consulting situations in their area(s) of expertise. This does not mean they should consider every engagement as "the same" as the others, but in many cases the problems or challenges at one organization are not dissimilar from those at others. A set of successful approaches and the processes for each approach is a valuable tool for all consultants.

All that's mentioned in this article are given and must do activities for any consulting firm and/or consultant. These are "whats". Differentiation is always in "how". How you make your customer feel during each transaction is your differentiator. For me keeping these in mind while performing any action would help- 1. Considering clients' money as your own. Do not make them spend more than what is required. 2. Keeping efficiency and quality as "The KPIs" for all activities. 3. Get completely involved in the problem so that clients see you as one of them, yet be totally detached so that you can offer solutions without any prejudice. 4. Don't force fit problems, find solutions.

Listen to clients and understand what they need versus selling them something you have or think they need. Clearly understand the scope of work and align on what is realistic, and create a collaborative approach - executive, management, and employees need to be part of the process! An external influence alone will not generate durable behaviors and results over time!

A mistake , I have come across quite often among consultants is a one glove fits approach . Each customer organisation is different and have their nuances. So though the problem statement they voice maybe the same, the solution cannot be. What worked for another client will definitely work for this customer in the same avatar. Solutions must be offered such that it serves the customer purpose.