How to win friends and influence people by consulting?

I have done consulting over the years in several different companies and have gathered a routine that helps achieving things described in the starting paragraph. Not everyone is cut for consulting, it requires a special type of person to succeed in it. I am not saying you need to be especially good on particular topics to be able to share your knowledge to your customers.

The first rule of thumb is that you never, never let your skills get old.  It does not matter how busy you are. Always, and i mean always, make some time to study and test new things. If you don’t you are soon obsolete.

Second rule of consulting 101 is that you need to keep yourself motivated, once work becomes a chore you lose your “sparkle” and customers can sense that. If you want to be on top of your game you need to have that thing which keeps customers coming back to you.

Third rule is that you keep you need to keep your customers happy. Always remember who pays your salary. This should be pretty obvious though.

Fourth and the most import rule is “manage yourself”. This is something extremely important in this line of work. It is easy to work too much, sleep too little and eventually have a burnout. This is something that takes practice but is absolutely necessary in the long run. To avoid working too much you need to know yourself and know what symptoms are signs that you are not well. I need to sleep, eat and exercise to avoid this kind of situation. Just saying “work less” is not always possible so good physical and mental health is essential.

Consulting business can be a cutthroat line of work where straight up strongest survive, some describe it as a meritocracy. But in Solita it is not so black and white. We have balanced the game here quite well.
Of course we need to work and do those billable hours. But we have a bit more leg room and we aim ourselves to be the top house in the nordics. Leaving the leftovers for the b-players to collect.

If you still think you might be cut for consulting work, give me call or whatsapp or contact by some other means

Twitter @ToniKuokkanen
IRCnet tuwww
+358 401897586
toni.kuokkanen@solita.fi
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonikuokkanen/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influence_People