Consulting Skills Mastery (March 2024)
Deri Hughes
Helping consulting team leaders develop exceptional teams | Tailored course design | Expert trainers | Lasting impact
Welcome to Consulting Skills Mastery! This month I'm going to take you through my 3 Pillars of consulting skills and how to develop them. We have some free live sessions coming up - click to learn more & register for Designing Great Training Sessions, How to Write Compelling Consulting Recommendations, or Consulting Skills Accelerator: Add £500k per person profit to your consulting firm.
The 3 Pillars for Consulting Skill Development
Consulting skill development is the bread and butter of what we do at Honeycomb Consulting Skills Training . We've spent a lot of time thinking about it and refining our approach. The framework we have developed we call 'The 3 Pillars'. This encapsulates the skills that great consultants need to develop throughout their career.
The 3 Pillars are:
Let's explore each of those a bit...
Client Delivery Skills
These can be thought of as 'core' consulting skills. The knowledge and capabilities to do the job of solving difficult problems for a client, building trust, and giving them the confidence to take action.
For those new to consulting, the primary aim of development in this area is to get up the learning curve quickly, maximise return-on-effort, and ensure you are more effective for clients, faster.
For more experienced consultants this is about developing mastery - finding innovative or creative solutions for clients, doing all the little 1% actions that make your clients feel special, being able to command a room and tell a compelling story that wins hearts as well as minds.
When a consulting team have gaps in their skills or capabilities, Partners can be pulled into delivery and away from being able to focus on growth. The project leaks profit (Partner time doesn’t come cheap!), and the client relationship can take a hit as they, also, start to lack trust in the team.
This is a common frustration we hear from clients. They often know where things are breaking down in the consulting case process, and will say things to us like:
‘I have to spend a lot of time red-penning the slides my team produce.’
‘Our thinking isn’t well structured - we lose focus on what really matters for our clients.’
‘We struggle to get to the “so what” of our analysis and bring it to life.’
Understanding the specific skill gaps enables focused training interventions in the areas that people need it most. That supports their development, gets them up the learning curve quickly, and helps retain them - that sense of getting better at something is a great motivator.
Read: The Core Skills That All Consultants Must Master on The Skilled Consultant to learn more about Client Delivery Skills and the 4-phase Consulting Case Process.
Management and Leadership Skills
The hurdle into Managing can be a scary one in any career. Suddenly, people are looking to you for direction and guidance, and you have a new weight of responsibility on your shoulders.
And that responsibility is two-fold. You have to manage the project so it delivers for your clients. And you have to manage the people on your team, considering their development opportunities, feedback, and performance. That's a lot to handle.
When I was promoted to Manager at Bain & Company I was in the middle of a project. Initially nothing much changed - except I now had someone helping with my diary, so if anything it got easier! Then I changed projects. New client. New team. A type of work I hadn’t done before. In a new country. That was a huge wake-up call and to be honest, I struggled. As the Manager I was responsible for the quality of my team’s output. This new team weren’t bringing me great work, and I pulled some long days (and nights) fixing it myself instead of coaching them. I learnt - the hard way - a lot about the importance of delegating and helping them develop.
The most competent Managers will continue to develop their skills and move into leading the firm. If you reach Partner level, you will have a revenue line to win and deliver, clients to build relationships with, and you'll need to put a ton of effort into being visible as an authority. Finding time to work on the business alongside all of that can be a struggle.
A rule of thumb for senior leaders is to spend no more than 25% of your time on delivery. If you are getting pulled into more than that then make it a priority to build capabilities that let you delegate. Common blockers are a lack of money to hire the right people, a lack of capability in your team, or a lack of trust that stops you delegating.
Exploring and developing your self-awareness can help you be honest with yourself about what’s getting in the way of your leadership.
Recommended by LinkedIn
Read: Invest In Your Leadership Journey From Day 1 on The Skilled Consultant to learn more about the hurdles into managing and leading, and the importance of developing good self-awareness early in your consulting career.
Business Development and Growth Skills
These are the skills needed to grow both your reputation and revenue. This includes creating a business development mindset and toolkit, growing your network, managing your pipeline, developing proposals, and having successful sales conversations.
Ultimately, it’s about getting the projects that you want to do with the clients that you want to work with.
There are three main parts to this:
This short video explains it....
It can also be highly valuable to shift your mindset on sales from, "I need to win some consulting work" to, "This person has a problem I can help with". View sales not as pushing a product or service, but as offering solutions and value to potential clients who need them. That perspective can transform the sales process from a source of dread to an opportunity for impact.
Read: Skills To Grow Your Reputation and Revenue on The Skilled Consultant for more practical advice on attracting new prospects, building trust with them over time, and converting to a sale when the time is right.
These 1-hour workshops and webinars are free to join. They provide a great opportunity to experience our expert training content and discover some valuable nuggets to develop your skill set and support the success of your firm.
👋 Thank you for reading. I’m Deri Hughes. I run a training business that helps consulting team leaders develop exceptional teams.
If you want to see more regular content from me you can....
If you would like to explore how Honeycomb Consulting Skills Training could help your business you can...
📨 Send me an email - deri.hughes@honeycombps.co.uk