This book provides consultants with a career framework to build, grow, and transform their consulting businesses by becoming brilliant at the basics. The Odyssey process challenges current thinking and offers a methodology to help readers rise to the top of the profession by applying leading-edge techniques and methodologies. An ideal companion to the Odyssey Consulting Institute's suite of learning materials, this book details a proven system designed for consultants who want to work at the highest levels and achieve greater rewards. The consultant's growth path outlined in the book demonstrates how a successful consultant builds a sustainable career by working through the Odyssey process. Explaining what consultants must do to join the top 10 percent of the profession and be rewarded accordingly, this book delivers both the tools and the confidence to develop powerful relationships with the right people and drive greater value-based revenue.

Whether you are preparing for a management consultancy career or only want to acquire widely applicable consultancy skills, you will need a clear and concise introduction to this area. This fully updated second edition text provides you with a practical, step-by-step guide to learn the proven successful methods and techniques of the world's leading management consultancy firms. Detailed descriptions and real-life illustrations enable you to develop consultancy skills for structured problem-solving, critical thinking, collaboration and communication. Additionally, this text provides rich insights into the latest developments in the consultancy industry and their firms. It includes alumnus of a top management consultancy firm and is essential reading for aspiring consultants as well as anyone dealing with consultants in their career.

This book is a "scientific" introduction to management consulting that covers elementary and more advanced concepts, such as strategy and client-relationship. It discusses the emerging role of information technologies in consulting activities and introduces the essential tools in data science, assuming no technical background. Drawing on extensive literature reviews with more than 200 peer reviewed articles, reports, books and surveys referenced, this book has at least four objectives: to be scientific, modern, complete and concise. An interactive version of some sections (industry snapshots, method toolbox) is freely accessible at econsultingdata.com.

Dramatically grow your client base following pragmatic and insightful advice by bestselling author Doug Fletcher How to Win Client Business When You Don't Know Where to Start: A Rainmaking Guide for Consulting and Professional Services serves as an invaluable and indispensable guide for everyone in the business of selling professional and consulting services. Author Doug Fletcher dives deeply into the five skills required to "make it rain" Create Your Personal Brand Identity Demonstrate Your Professional Expertise Build Your Professional Ecosystem Develop Trust-Based Relationships Practice Everyday Success Habits How to Win Client Business When You Don't Know Where to Start provides a masterclass in teaching the practical techniques and concrete strategies that professional services providers were never taught in school or on the job. Pragmatic lessons take the place of the vaguely defined principles found in competing books to turn readers from sales novices into rainmakers. Written by the same celebrated author who brought readers the best-selling book How Clients Buy, How to Win Client Business When You Don't Know Where to Start is perfect for any professional services provider or consultant who seeks to dramatically increase their book of business.

Exploring the new professional scenes in digital and freelance knowledge, this innovative book provides an account of the subjects and cultures that pertain to knowledge work in the aftermath of the creative class frenzy. Including a broad spectrum of empirical projects, The Reputation Economy documents the rise of freelancing and digital professions and argues about the central role held by reputation within this context, offering a comprehensive interpretation of the digital transformation of knowledge work. The book shows how digital technologies are not simply intermediating productive and organizational processes, allowing new ways for supply and demand to meet, but actually enable the diffusion of cultural conceptions of work and value that promise to become the new standard of the industry.

The practical toolbox for readers of Million Dollar Consulting
This useful guide provides specific checklists, guidelines, templates, and actual examples for every step of the consulting process. It covers marketing, sales, meetings, implementation, follow-up, invoicing, practice management, insurance, equipment, subcontracting, and scores of other elements. Thousands of people have bought Weiss's Million Dollar Consulting and started their own consultancy. Now, this handy resource goes hand-in-hand to provide all the tools new consultants need to enact all the recommendations and ideas in Million Dollar Consulting.
Alan Weiss, PhD (East Greenwich, RI), has consulted for hundreds of organizations around the world, including Mercedes-Benz, Hewlett-Packard, Merck, Chase, American Press Institute, and the Times-Mirror Group. He is the author of 12 books, including Getting Started in Consulting (0-471-47969-1) and Organizational Consulting (0-471-26378-8).

Great Consulting Challenges: And How to Surmount Them shows how consultants can use the wisdom gleaned from Weiss's own practice and from other seasoned members of the profession to help overcome persistent problems and next-level challenges. Weiss explains that as consultants' careers develop and become more sophisticated and complex, so do the challenges they encounter. For example, the question of price competition occurs at every level of the consulting business, yet the techniques for astutely resolving the issue can be vastly different for the veteran consultant as compared to the novice who is merely trying to establish a new business. In this book, Alan Weiss discusses the great consulting challenges in key areas such as marketing, selling, delivery, and practice management and offers practical advice for overcoming common problems and learning to thrive as a consultant.

Delivers the essential practical skills needed to consult and make sharp, well prepared interactions in a wide range of business situations This comprehensive handbook covers the fundamental skills and attitudes required by successful consultants from novice to practitioner level, irrespective of their specialist area. It untangles the key variables present in any consulting service and introduces practical ways to improve their effectiveness based upon the author's experience of helping consulting organisations to develop and excel in the marketplace. The book explores consulting from the ground up' steering away from theory and focusing instead on practical application, providing a solid platform upon which to build further domain-specific competence. The Consultant's Handbook provides: * An understanding of the key variables that can be addressed in order to improve one's own consulting performance * A set of simple practices that can be implemented with immediate benefit to the reader * Practical insight into day-to-day real life consulting interactions * Confidence to implement the new ideas and approaches

This is the autobiography of one of the most influential management consultants of recent times. Herbert Henzler grew up in the German village of Neckarhausen during the Second World War. Starting his career as a sales apprentice with Shell, he went on to study at the universities of Saarland, Ludwig-Maximillian and California, Berkeley, where he received his PhD in economics. In 1970, Henzler accepted an offer to join McKinsey & Company, a rapidly growing firm that would eventually become the world's leading consultancy group. Working in its German office, Henzler quickly rose to Partner in 1975 and then Director in 1978. His spectacular rise continued when, in 1985, Henzler became head of McKinsey's German office and one of the most powerful management consultants in the world. Honest and at times direct, this book provides a rare insight into the world of management consultancy and how one man made it to the top by constantly pushing the boundaries.

The author of the well-received, A Guide to Federal Contracting, Dan Lindner provides in one volume, a succinct yet thorough treatment of Defense contracting requirements and regulations. The Department of Defense is the largest buyer of goods and services in the world, spending hundreds of billions of dollars per year, employing hundreds of thousands of people as civil servants or contractors. Yet no textbook is commercially available to discuss how defense contracting is done in a format that is written for the general public as well as the practitioner. This publication is intended fill this void - to demystify the volumes of regulations and policies, and provide in one volume a succinct yet thorough treatment of defense contracting requirements and regulations. Bringing together concepts of business law, politics, public and social policy, pricing, and procedures for contract placement and administration, the author draws on over 30 years of federal government experience to cover the vast spread of this important process which impacts our daily government operations.

A close-up examination of several important consultation models and of the structure, dynamics, and operation of family businesses in Brazil, Canada, Chile, Ireland, South Korea, Lebanon, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, Trinidad & Tobago, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States This book is designed to fill an important gap in the family business literature. Florence W. Kaslow, Ph. D., Editor, an internationally respected authority in both family psychology and family business consultation, presents a disciplined look at how family businesses are structured, the ebb and flow of their dynamics, and the ways they operate in thirteen diverse countries spanning four continents. Top family business consultants working in those countries share their methods of helping clients increase earnings and fulfill the missions of their companies. The contributors examine essential aspects of the world of family business today, including family offices, globalization, and the management of a family's wealth. Tables and figures, plus a helpful glossary, make complex and unfamiliar information easy to understand. As the world's economies interface and intertwine with the evolution of international markets and globalization, the Handbook of Family Business and Family Business Consultation provides the essential broad knowledge that family business consultants need in today's business climate. It provides a capsule history of the premiere organization dedicated to helping family businesses, the Family Firm Institute (FFI), and then examines issues essential to anyone involved in, or consulting to, family businesses, including: the importance of family businesses to the economic well-being of countries worldwide family officeswhat they are and why they're important the significance of differentiating between the family business and the business of being a family for everyone involved in these overlapping relationships the multiple and diverse roles that family business consultants play in different kinds of businesses and in different countries the roles of non-family employees in family businesses gender issues that affect family businesses sibling rivalry and other issues of family conflict the trend toward globalization in various family businessesand the implications of this trend in terms of family wealth dispersion, international understanding, competitiveness, and other emerging phenomena With expert commentary from family business consultants in such a wide variety of countries, the Handbook of Family Business and Family Business Consultation is an essential read for family business consultants, family business owners, and Family Business Forum staff and member families, as well as professors and students in MBA programs and family business courses.

A close-up examination of several important consultation models and of the structure, dynamics, and operation of family businesses in Brazil, Canada, Chile, Ireland, South Korea, Lebanon, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, Trinidad & Tobago, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United StatesThis book is designed to fill an important gap in the family business literature. Florence W. Kaslow, Ph. D., Editor, an internationally respected authority in both family psychology and family business consultation, presents a disciplined look at how family businesses are structured, the ebb and flow of their dynamics, and the ways they operate in thirteen diverse countries spanning four continents. Top family business consultants working in those countries share their methods of helping clients increase earnings and fulfill the missions of their companies. The contributors examine essential aspects of the world of family business today, including family offices, globalization, and the management of a family's wealth. Tables and figures, plus a helpful glossary, make complex and unfamiliar information easy to understand.As the world's economies interface and intertwine with the evolution of international markets and globalization, the Handbook of Family Business and Family Business Consultation provides the essential broad knowledge that family business consultants need in today's business climate. It provides a capsule history of the premiere organization dedicated to helping family businesses, the Family Firm Institute (FFI), and then examines issues essential to anyone involved in, or consulting to, family businesses, including: the importance of family businesses to the economic well-being of countries worldwide family offices--what they are and why they're important the significance of differentiating between the family business and the business of being a family for everyone involved in these overlapping relationships the multiple and diverse roles that family business consultants play in different kinds of businesses and in different countries the roles of non-family employees in family businesses gender issues that affect family businesses sibling rivalry and other issues of family conflict the trend toward globalization in various family businesses--and the implications of this trend in terms of family wealth dispersion, international understanding, competitiveness, and other emerging phenomenaWith expert commentary from family business consultants in such a wide variety of countries, the Handbook of Family Business and Family Business Consultation is an essential read for family business consultants, family business owners, and Family Business Forum staff and member families, as well as professors and students in MBA programs and family business courses.

Based on the authors' twenty-five year experience of consultancy in the public services, this book develops an empowering approach to thinking about and doing consultancy with public services. It challenges the traditional view that the consultants are brought in as experts and instead examines ways of using consultancy to empower staff, patients, service users and members of the public, so that they can take part in developing, changing, innovating and ultimately transforming these services. The book includes chapters explaining consultancy, on preparing bids, on negotiations and on the importance of assessment and review which are geared towards the needs of those working in public and third sectors, either as or with consultants. It includes a glossary, abbreviations, helpful contacts and websites which are valuable for quick reference and to aid further understanding.

While family businesses have existed for millennia all over the world, it is only in the past few decades that professional consultants have been utilized to help them function more effectively. This engaging, up to the minute volume explores the varied and complex world of family enterprises as they now exist in the third decade of the 21st century. Attention is given to the factors unique to family businesses in their attention to perpetuating family values, traditions, loyalties and their legacy to future generations. Consultants may be drawn from law, finance and accounting, organizational psychology, or family psychology (with its special emphasis on understanding the family relationship system). The book describes methods of assessment and how to effectively communicate the results as well as techniques of consulting and provides an invaluable description of what is necessary to be and become a family business consultant. Readers will benefit from explorations of A new model featuring 8 inter-related business domains Cybersecurity issues and how to handle them Working collaboratively with financial and legal professionals Comprehensive coverage of research based assessment instruments Given that over 85% of the businesses in the world, from small to multinational in size and scope are family businesses, the enormous amount of information conveyed in this volume can be extremely valuable to professional consultants and those in the C Suite (CEO's, CFO's, COO's) in helping businesses operate at maximum efficiency, productivity, profitability and satisfaction to all involved. "Throughout this well organized and well written book, the authors raise the pivotal questions that form the basis for becoming and being an exceptional family business consultant. Psychologists can learn to transform family business conundrums into healthy interactions between the family members of the enterprise before, during, and after transitions of the company. The various aspects of serving as a consultant are fleshed out in the carefully-researched chapters. Case studies show the patterns of behavior that can lead to continuing multigenerational successes or hard dissolutions. Their new model entitled "The Dynamic Interactive Multifactorial Family Enterprise Ecosystem Model" constitutes a major contribution to the field. The best part of the book remains its celebration of the importance and richness of family businesses across generations that will inspire any reader." G. Andrew H. Benjamin, JD, PhD, ABPPPast President, American Academy of Couple & Family Psychology Past President, American Board (ABPP) of Couple & Family Psychology Clinical Professor of Psychology & Affiliate Professor of Law, University of Washington

This book provides scholars and practitioners in mergers and acquisitions (M&As) with a solid foundation for further research. M&As continue to shape the economic landscape across the globe. While there is already a huge body of scholarly work on the subject, findings appear contradictory and academics and practitioners often struggle to understand what factors make M&As successful. Due to the lack of an agreed-upon definition, research findings appear contradictory, while in fact they are often simply not comparable. To address this, the book rethinks how we measure key umbrella constructs. It specifically focuses on the conceptualization phase of the measurement process, often taken for granted in the current research.

Follow the expert advice in this book--the fourth in The Ultimate Consultant Series--and you won't fall victim to the success plateau that undermines many consultants. If you feel that your work has become easier, it may be that you're not climbing "up" but rather moving laterally. And, sooner or later, your plateau will begin to erode and you'll find yourself on a decline. In How to Acquire Clients, Alan Weiss, internationally recognized consultant and author of the best-selling Million Dollar Consulting, shows you how to continue to move "up the mountain."

This timely volume provides innovative perspectives on the management advice industry from leading contributors in critical theory, organizational behaviour, sociology, psychology, actor-network theory and narrative analysis. It addresses such fundamental questions as:
What is management knowledge?
How is it created and sold?
What is the role of consultants, gurus, academics in this process?
Does the management advice industry add value?
What is the nature of the client-consultant relationship?

The development of interest in the management advice industry, both within the business press and the social sciences, reflects the need to answer these questions. The critical analysis presented here evaluates what management consultants offer as well as investigating the emergence of their industry as a contemporary social phenomenon.

This volume provides the first critical evaluation of the different actors and activities that comprise the management advice sector, and will be invaluable both to those teaching courses in consultancy and to analysts who are trying to make sense of the explosion in the management knowledge industry.

This book looks beyond the public face and below the surface of organisations. Using a deceptively easy-to-read and accessible narrative concerning eight international organisations, it covers many fields: real estate, banking, finance, retail, market research, wildlife reserve, fashion, and IT. Each case presents a particular situation or event ranging from dealing with conflict to working with culture and team dynamics. Opened by an incisive foreword from Vega Zagier Roberts, there comes a clear introduction of the authors' journey so far within the field of organisation development. Each compelling story demonstrates the complexity of working with organisational problems. The supervision conversations captured within clearly show how consultants can get caught up in and derailed by the dynamics of the organisational system. This book is written for those who work in and with organisations - for founders and executives, for leaders and managers, and especially for other organisational consultants and those who work with or are considering working with them. Through these accounts, the authors encourage interest and curiosity in a way of working with what lies beneath the surface.

As a professional, you can't just apply your expertise. You need to present solutions in a way that best suits your clients. You have to work with a wide variety of people: team members, subject matter experts, top executives, and others. Working effectively with associates--while keeping an eye on budgets, schedules, and results--requires a collaborative outlook."Successful professionals today need more than technical skills-- they need to know how to foster and nourish relationships with clients. Consultative skills are essential in this process. The tools outlined in The Consultative Approach have proved to make a difference for our professionals in dealing with their clients."
--Jon Olson, partner, Arthur Anderson
"This book is rich, not only with specific suggestions and step-by-step instructions, but also with commentary and illustrations from [the authors'] own client organizations. It is a useful book about a very important subject."
--William Bridges, president, William Bridges & Associates
Working consultatively enables you to:
* Know how to work effectively with all types of people
* Use a strategic and collaborative communcation process
* Apply your expertise in ways that show your value . . . and more!
The Consultative Approach is a how-to handbook that will enable you to reap the benefits of partnering. You'll find informative case studies, easy-to-use assessment tools, enlightening exercises, and practical worksheets. Plus, you'll get flow chart planning guides and a partnering strategy action plan that will enable you to chart your communication growth. The Consultative Approach has it all! Plot your path to consultative success withthis comprehensive guidebook.

Even though corporate clients continue to spend millions of dollars on consultant-based solutions, the success rate of these high-priced remedies is far from what it should be. No matter how wise and creative the input of a consultant, says Robert H. Schaffer, it will pay off only if the client does what is necessary to benefit from the advice. But often there's a big "implementation gap" between what client's must do to make a project succeed and what they are actually able and willing to do.
In this new and revised edition of the landmark book "High-Impact Consulting," Robert H. Schaffer reveals how senior managers unwittingly collude with their consultants to perpetuate the great waste inherent in "the five fatal flaws of conventional consulting." Drawing on his own work with companies-- Motorola, Rio Tinto, IBM, General Reinsurance Corporation, The World Bank, and other successful organizations-- Schaffer offers a field-tested approach to working with consultants that has proven to get results. He identifies the key elements of an effective project design?particularly that project objectives are defined in terms of client results rather than just consultant deliverables. The process enables clients to be certain that the work is carried out in ways that ensure success.
The author explains the importance of accomplishing results quickly and then using these "rapid-cycle wins" as vehicles for sharpening management skills, strengthening work disciplines, and introducing new technology. In addition he tells managers and consultants how they can build on these early successes and tackle larger accomplishments and organization wide improvements.
This thoroughly updatededition features valuable new insights and illustrative cases. It also includes a wealth of practical new tools that make the book a user-friendly, quick reference for both client managers and their consultants.

Outsourcing has become one of the key restructuring tools for companies seeking to boost their growth and business performance. As the outsourcing phenomenon has mushroomed, so a range of academic studies have sought to define and describe a unifying theoretical model. Outsourcing: Design, Process and Performance draws upon managerial, economic, sociological, historical and psychological perspectives to bring about a new understanding of how outsourcing design and the outsourcing process feed into the performance of firms. Blending empirical insights from a range of international cases and large-scale statistical tests with existing theoretical perspectives, the author argues that a negative curvilinear relationship exists between outsourcing and firm performance. A critical analysis of current outsourcing strategies, together with a discussion of future trends, offers a new agenda for academic researchers and business managers alike.

The world of M&A has always been complex and nuanced. Corporations encounter their toughest business problems during a divestiture or a merger. At the same time, optimal execution of divestitures can also create high value for the seller as well as the buyer. This book is a collection of leading practices on Divestitures and covers end to end transaction life cycle from readiness through execution including post deal transformation. It contains the synthesis of experiences across a wide array of clients across industries, ranging from $500 million to $100 billion in revenue. Each chapter in this book can stand on its own as an authority on leading practices related to the topic it presents, and together, these chapters provide a comprehensive set of perspectives needed to successfully complete a divestiture. The highlight of the book is valuable real-life examples and references that a business can benefit from, when it is considering, analyzing or implementing a divestiture.

This book is a "scientific" introduction to management consulting that covers elementary and more advanced concepts, such as strategy and client-relationship. It discusses the emerging role of information technologies in consulting activities and introduces the essential tools in data science, assuming no technical background. Drawing on extensive literature reviews with more than 200 peer reviewed articles, reports, books and surveys referenced, this book has at least four objectives: to be scientific, modern, complete and concise. An interactive version of some sections (industry snapshots, method toolbox) is freely accessible at econsultingdata.com.

Create a sustainable revenue model that can propel your mission-driven organization into the future Effective Fund Raising: The Trustee's Role and Beyond is the result of author F. Warren McFarlan's two decades of research at Harvard Business School, along with over forty years of active social enterprise board service. This book offers a depth of knowledge and insight that will prove invaluable for trustees, donors, and others related to and responsible for the success of social enterprise. Social enterprise organizations have played a vibrant and important role in the USA for the past century. And yet, the business of fundraising has not become any easier or more elegant. In this book, you will discover how to help raise the financial resources that your organization needs to perform its good deeds. This book focuses on the steps and strategies you need to know to secure funding to fulfill your mission. Development is the lifeblood of most social enterprises, be they large or small. You'll also discover how to harness the energies of the right people to ensure the long-term success of your development efforts. Learn why an effective, sustainable revenue model is critical to the success of even the most exciting mission-driven organization Understand the core elements of the revenue model, including governance, fees, the annual fund, capital fundraising campaigns, planned gifts, and more Develop a strong plan for sustaining your organization's revenue, regardless of organization size Build the skill of asking for money and lead your organization to a revenue and philanthropy orientation Many social enterprise CEOs spend over half of their time on fundraising. Why? Simply put: without a sustainable revenue model, even the most exciting mission-driven organization will collapse. The dirty truth is that, with no fund raising, there is no social enterprise or enduring mission. This book will help you shoulder the burden of fundraising and ensure the long-term success of your venture.