Getting Started in Consulting, 4th Edition

Chapter 1 Your Mindset Will Determine Your Success

You might be thinking that you’re entering a sales job in going out on your own. Or you may believe that the nature of this profession is all about methodology and technology.

Let me disabuse you of such notions right out of the gate.

This is the marketing business and you’re offering value to prospective buyers.

Please assimilate that before you read on. Your mindset is going to determine your success, and I don’t mean that in the guise of some bizarre motivational speaker. I mean it as a businessperson who constantly seeks the highest profit with the least labor.

The Notion of Value

This is the marketing business. We may be consultants (or coaches, experts, facilitators, trainers, writers, speakers, and so forth) but nevertheless we’re in the marketing business. Get used to it.

Marketing is the creation of need. Most people know what they want, but few realize what they need until we propose it to them. If it’s strictly what people want that’s in question, then the lowest price will often prevail in a commodity competition (lawn mower, computer, consultant). But if you’re presenting a unique need they hadn’t considered (remote learning, Wi-Fi available in the car, a strategy in six hours), then you are creating something that isn’t subject to fee sensitivity.

This is why your mindset must be about the value you bring to the economic buyer (the person who can actually approve the check) and not about making a sale. The ...