Continuing education for consultants

Keep that pipeline replenished

Ordinarily we equate September with back-to-school. That may get cramped by social-distancing and/or Zoom classrooms, but the need to keep current—especially if you’re in the professional-services business—is ongoing. Let’s call it the continuing challenge of continuing education. 

In this article, we’ll review the “why,” the “what,” and the “how.” Let’s not waste time: The “why” is hugely important. 

Why continuing ed is vital

It’s not degrees. Or awards. Or certificates. Or accreditations. It’s income. Simple as that. 

Put it the other way: If you can get by, and keep current, and prosper, without continuing education, then by all means, do so. Because education is an investment. And you want ROI. 

Thing is, no one can keep current, and properly prosper, without continuing education. Know why? Things change. It’s the entropy of business. If you don’t keep up, it’s your loss, quite literally. 

Think of the common business metaphors you often hear: 

• “We don’t want to be dinosaurs.”
•  “We don’t want to be making buggy-whips.” 
•  “Look at those digital Neanderthals.”

Need we go on? 

If there’s one thought that encapsulates this—if there’s one takeaway in this article that should motivate you—it’s this: 

• Your clients and prospects are changing.

If that doesn’t make your blood chill, then nothing will. 

Let’s be more specific. What, exactly, changes? What do you need to learn about? Here are some examples: 

• Clients’ needs. 
•  Their clients’ needs. 
•  The state of the competition. 
•  The state of technology. 
•  Current or pending regulation. 
• Social, fashion, and news trends. 

At this point, you should rightly be wondering: “But how does all of this pertain to education? This goes way beyond what you learn in school.”

Bingo. You’re on the right track already. 

A not-so-tangential tangent: 

Back when scientists were first measuring the speed of light, they encountered a puzzling phenomenon. No matter what the speed of the observer, the speed of light was always measured as a constant. Think about that, and it makes no sense. If you see a car approach you at 50 mph, that’s one thing. But if you’re also racing toward it at 50 mph, then, clearly, your rate of closure—the apparent speed of the approaching car—is 100 mph. 

But light didn’t behave like a car. No matter how they measured it, the scientists always came back with the same speed. What were they doing wrong? 

Turns out that they weren’t measuring anything wrong. Their measurements, to the contrary, were quite accurate. But these brilliant scientists were thinking wrong. And it took an even-more brilliant scientist—yep, Albert Einstein—to realize that in the classic “speed” definition of “distance over time,” the variable here wasn’t distance, but rather time.

He figured out that time changes. So the speed of light seems the same. Conceptually, it’s very simple: If one of the two variables isn’t changing, then the other must. But no one, before Einstein, could wrap their heads around it. It was this germ—this passel of head-scratching experimental data about the speed of light—that led to his immortal Theory of Relativity. 

In other words, he asked the question that no one else was asking.

To return to our thread: 

There is a certain Einsteinian logic to your question about continuing ed. That question about “what they teach in school.” 

Think big(ger)

Yes, you can certainly go (back) to school for your continuing ed. Colleges these days, given the drought of students in the wake of Covid-19, would be more than happy to accept your tuition. And it needn’t be on-campus or even in-person; virtual learning is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the pandemic, along with tech enablers like Zoom and GoToMeeting. 

So you could do that. 

But can you sense our, um, indifference toward this topic? There are so many more opportunities available to you these days. And so many of them are richer, cheaper (free, even), faster, more efficient, and infinitely more fun. 

Now, we can’t narrow this article to your one specific field of professional-service consulting. But we work with enough consultants to know “the usual suspects” when it comes to ongoing educational opportunities: 

• Trade associations (think AIA, SHRM, etc.) and their offerings, such as publications, websites, courses, and seminars. 
•  Accrediting organizations (PMI, Six Sigma, Blue Ocean, etc.).
• Trade shows (think of seminars and panel discussions, whether live or virtual).

Those are obvious. We’re also somewhat wary of professional associations—specifically, the ones that are more interested in your dues than delivering value. How much are they charging you, each year, to tack a few letters after your name? Do your clients, um, care? The important question—think like Einstein!—is “Am I gaining new insights that help me grow my business right now?” That’s a good litmus test. 

Through the looking glass, down the rabbit hole

So there’s traditional education. There’s professional societies. Fine. But the interesting, third, often-overlooked category is what we’d call “nontraditional education.” And it’s where you’ll find the answers to some of the thorniest questions. It’s where you’ll gain peer-around-the-corner insights that will impress your clients, and entice prospects to sign on. 

The fun thing about this third category is [READ THE REST HERE]