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This month the Bay Area Consultants Network asked its members the following question:
To what end do we network? What happens to the cards we collect? How do we make the most of networking? What will enable you to say “I know someone who can help you with that?” when someone says says “I need an XYZ”?

• Check to see whether the person is on LinkedIn and connect with them there.
• Go to other networking groups such as BNI. Networking is about relationships built up over time through regular meetings.
• Go through your database every week and e-mail, call, or write to someone with a suggestion that can help them.
• Keep in mind that the search for the ultimate contact manager is like the search for the Holy Grail.
• Stay in front of people you network with by being visual: send a gift or postcard which is attractive with your contact info on the back so they’re constantly reminded about you.
• Try to find something right away that might help that person. For instance, go on the IMC database and look for someone and pass on the name. They’ll remember your helpfulness.
• If you can be a resource to someone that creates a better relationship.
• Note: don’t automatically add people to your newsletter if they give you their cards. This is more likely to anger than attract them.
• Don’t take cards from anyone you haven’t had a real conversation with.
• Forward job announcements from your new contacts to your distribution list. The position will be filled and the contact will remember you.
• Be clear about what you do and what it is that you want.

There was a record turnout at today’s Bay Area Consultants Network meeting this morning, where I was speaking on a panel about “Virtual Marketing Magnets.” For those who couldn’t make it, there’s a web version of my PowerPoint (complete with the text of what I said, or at least, the text of what I was planning to say) and a clickable imagemap of my handout. You need Internet Explorer to view the PowerPoint properly, I’m afraid.

The November 18th BACN forum posed the question “What have you learned this year that you’re going to apply next year?”

Here are the answers:

• Do less thinking and take more action.
• Follow Robert Middleton’s suggestion about offering something in exchange for people’s e-mail addresses and get more contacts to add to your mailing list when you speak.
• Make an appointment with BACN member Nora Wolfson to figure out what you most need to do for the success of your business.
• Automate your marketing structure.
• Create a marketing structure with Robert Middleton’s Marketing Plan Workbook and Infoguru Marketing Manual.
• While you’re at it, subscribe to Middleton’s More Clients e-zine and his free monthly conference calls.
• Get your own advisory group.
• Start speaking in public.
• Focus on one thing at a time and you’ll get it done.
• Examine your priorities: what’s your purpose and where do you want to go?
• Give yourself maneuvering room.
• Redefine persistence: give something a one-month trial rather than a six-month trial.
• Align what you do with your identity: if it’s not important to you, you can’t sustain it.

Remember: these tips are the suggestions of individual BACN members, based on what has been helpful to them. Your mileage may vary.

This month the Bay Area Consultants Network asked its members “What’s in your bag of tricks?” Here are the answers.

10-28-05: What’s in Your Bag of Tricks?

Tools and techniques used by BACN members.

MARKETING

• Use your outgoing voicemail as branding opportunity. Make weekly changes to include a short tip.
• On your second contact with a prospect, send a video intro by e-mail (for samples see www.christopherrichards.com)
• Ask prospects what kind of company they want to see in 5 years.
• Speak slowly and clearly when leaving your name and number on voice mail.
• Send your top 10 tips to new clients/prospects.
• Ask your prospects “What are your hopes for___? And why is that important?”
• Listen and ask questions-go away without proposing anything until you’ve thought of what’s appropriate to the prospect.
• Follow up quickly and with something unusual, e.g. Red Jellyfish e-cards or an actual handwritten note.
• Start writing a blog. Personalize it a bit and tie it back to your
  business. Make sure there’s an e-mail link to you in your posts and on
  your main blog page.
• Use Camtasia for Windows or SnapZ for Mac to make screen-capture videos and send them to clients and prospects.
• Invite prospects to look at your website while on the phone with you instead of sending them off to do it on their own.

RESEARCH

• Hoovers Premium is free if you go in person to the San
  Francisco Public Library main branch. You can get not just contact
  information but background information about your prospects there.

WORKING WITH THE CLIENT

• Pass out something clients and seminar participants can play with
  and remember you by, for example Koosh™ balls to represent frontal lobe brain cells and help them think.
• Be aware of an organization’s shadow culture, which is what you’ll have to deal with.
• Show up early for your client appointments-you can learn a lot in the lobby.
• If clients aren’t taking your advice, you need to charge them more money.

SELF

• Do it now-you’ll only get more things to do tomorrow.
• Attend BACN every month.
• Focus on your vision and the big picture.
• Create a roadmap for your business.
• When networking, focus on what you can offer the other person.

At the September 23rd meeting of the Bay Area Consultants Network, the Members’ Forum returned to the topic of how to deal with “scope creep”—those jobs which expand far beyond their original scope—particularly when the client doesn’t want to pay for the additional work. Here are a few of the suggestions.

• Explain the situation in terms which are familiar to the client. For instance, one member had a client in the construction industry who wanted to shift the scope of the project midway through. When she compared this to a change order from one of his clients, he understood immediately and stopped objecting.
• To prevent scope creep, start out with a clear statement of work which includes something about how to address changes. Expect to have to mention that clause four or five times before the client will really get it.
• If you prefer one-page, plain-language agreements a la Alan Weiss, include a very short list of objectives and respond to any additional requests by saying “I’ll be happy to do that, but there’s an additional fee.”
• One member found himself in a situation where the more he dug, the more he found. What he said to his client was “We’re hitting things but it’s not what we agreed: why don’t you just put me on a monthly retainer?” She agreed and he now has carte blanche to do what he needs to do for her benefit.
• It’s important to make sure up front that you identify the key stakeholders and decision makers up front and involve them on a timely basis. If they’re with you as you’re moving into these new areas, they’ll see that the scope is changing and be more accomodating about expanding fee or putting it on a second tier (new project) while keeping the original project on target.
• Frame changes in scope in terms of tradeoffs. One member took this approach when dealing with Alameda County: “Sure, we can do this, but you understand that time comes out of all the other stuff we’ve booked and built. What do you want to trade for it?” The county created a subsidiary contract to cover the additions.
• Try to anticipate the places where clients will fall down on their obligations and list these as aggressively priced options during the contracting phase. (The aggressive pricing is recommended for things that you really don’t want to do.) If adding the options delays completion, that’s okay, but the member who recommended this makes it clear that his payments are still due on schedule.
• Understand your client’s contracting process very completely. If possible, learn how they do their other contracting, e.g. with their own clients.
• A lot of clients think they they know what their needs are and confuse their needs with their wants. This is a worse problem with larger clients: large companies try to squeeze everything they can out of a vendor.
• One way to handle this tendency on the part of large companies is to get the client’s staff to do the parts of the job you don’t want to do yourself. One BACN member describes this delegation as a staff mentoring service for her clients.

The remainder of the September 23 Forum was dedicated to collecting a list of recommended reading, which can now be found on the Suggested Reading page.

Good news! You’ve met someone at a party or a networking event, and they want you to do some consulting work for their company. Now you just need to know whether these are really people you want to work with, and what kinds of issues they have. Here are some suggestions from the Bay Area Consultants’ Network May 27th, 2005 meeting on where to find out what you need to know.

SEC Filings at FreeEdgar: All the important financial information on any publicly traded company.

Reference USA, available through the San Francisco Public Library web portal.

EBSCOHost, available through the San Francisco Public Library web portal.

To use either of these, click on the link to the database of your choice, you will be asked to give your library card number. Any California resident can get a San Francisco Public Library card. Other libraries may also have these databases available online, but Contra Costa, which is my most-local branch, doesn’t.

Hoovers is also available at the SFPL, but you have to go there in person. There’s a new Hoover’s search site online as well.

BusinessWire Press Releases: What the company is announcing to the world.

Business Journal: Is this company making headlines?

OneSource: “When it’s your business to know their business.”

Google News for press releases and headlines about the company: Lets you create alerts for daily updates on any subject.

Technorati (what bloggers are saying about the company): Lets you create watchlists if you want to follow a company over time. Note that it doesn’t hurt to put your own name or company name in to see what people are saying about you online.

Other Options:
Google all the team members whose names you know.
Talk to the company’s competitors.
Talk to company employees (as if you were a customer).
Google the phrase “business journal” and the city name.

Add your own suggestions using the comments link!

Most consultants face Scope Creep at one time or another—the client just keeps adding things on to the project without adding on to the fee. Here are a few suggestions from the Bay Area Consultants’ Network meeting on April 22, 2005 for ways to deal with this phenomenon.

• The best thing is to create a clear scope of work in advance— it can be too late if you’re in the middle of the job and have no process for dealing with changes.
• Only work for reasonable clients.
• Back off the emotional reaction and pause to treat it as a selling opportunity: ask the client questions about where they want to go and what else they need and say “This is wonderful–it’s off contract, of course–would you like me to do a proposal?”
• Have coffee and re-negotiate the letter of agreement
• Give every person you’re working with a copy of the contract
• Treat it like a kitchen remodel: her contractor has no problem saying “Do you want that? It’ll cost that much.”
• Negotiate, negotiate—insert a clause saying “Anything outside these specifics is on a time and materials basis” into every contract. Then refer the client to the contract when they ask for more.
• Be very careful about not getting hooked in emotionally to the client’s needs without actually making an agreement about the money
• Think about it from the client’s point of view. Your client is probably too overwhelmed to realize what’s up for you

How do you deal with Scope Creep? Post your suggestions in the comments section or send them to sallie@fileslinger.com

Just because other people come to us for advice doesn’t mean we have to do it all on our own. Here are a few suggestions that BACN members made at the March 27, 2005 meeting.

• It’s usually a good idea to have an attorney.
• Join a Business Group.
• Every coach should have a coach
• Get a technical person to take care of your computer and website if you’re not a computer guru
• Look at which business skills you do and don’t have; if you don’t have the skill and don’t want to learn it, hire someone else
• You need a good CPA who is also a financial planner
• Don’t forget your clients as a source of information, advice, ideas, opinions
• Consider a marketing advisor.
• Collaborate or trade services with another consultant
• Look for a mentor in your own consulting specialty
• If you’re a right-brain person, find a left-brain colleague to provide you with the perspective of left-brain prospects
• Your spouse can be your consultant of first resort.

Got any more ideas? Post them here as comments or send them to sallie@fileslinger.com.

What do you give your clients as holiday gifts? Here are a few things suggested by members of the Bay Area Consultants’ Network on November 19, 2004.

• Give out copies of your new book, or of relevant books by colleagues.
• Thanksgiving can be a better time than December—you don’t have to guess which holiday the client observes.
• Hire your mother, another relative, or a friend to make homemade jam (or cookies, or other goodies).
• Try sending New Year cards.
• Gifts that are useful are best.
• Make up your own holiday at another time of year and send clients gifts or cards then.
• Never send anything without a personal note.
• Send silly things to make you seem more approachable and less of a threat.
• Give donations in the names of the companies you consult for.

Got any great ideas about gifts and cards for your clients? Post them as comments or e-mail them to sallie@fileslinger.com

What do consultants want to see programs about? This was the response when members of the Bay Area Consultants’ Network were asked on September 23, 2004.

• Things that cut across different strategic areas, or at would be applicable to any field
• Mix & Match programs: bringing together service providers and executives who might use their services
• Compliance: this is an area where there are opportunities for projects
• Data security (or other security) for smaller companies—one area where there’s funding
• Business backup/earthquake plans
• How small businesses became big businesses
• Panel of buyers of consulting services on what they look for
• Going outside your geographical area (foreign business practices)
• Lifetime Value of a Client…how consultants value their clients
• How to Avoid (or Deal with) the Client from Hell
• Metrics for your business—how do you know you’re successful?

Are you a consultant? What would you like to learn about? Post it to the comments section.

Find out about upcoming BACN programs.