So you want to be a knowledge management consultant

So You Want to be a KM Consultant?
Joe Raimondo
Ontologique
May 2011
Copyright © Ontologique 2011

So You Want to be a KM Consultant?
The Making of a Consultant
The State of the KM Consulting Market
KM Consulting –a Career Perspective
KM Consulting Strategy: 2010 & Beyond
Seven Keys for Consulting Success
Conclusions & Takeaways
Questions

I Always wanted to be a consultant
I don’t know why
© www.despair.com

Worked in “Big KM” – Big 4 in the ‘90’s. The time we fondly remember.
The eye of the storm for KM at the time
Everyone want to get back to that time
But, IT’S NOT COMING BACK!

The KM Professional Services Market 2011
Vertical Market Perspective
Horizontal Market Perspective
The Bottom Line

KM Consulting – a Vertical Market Perspective
Pharma & Life Science
- AV & BV
Financial Services
Integrated Manufacturing
Chemical and Process Manufacturing
Professional Services
Public Sector
Non-profit

KM Consulting – a Horizontal Market Perspective
Subject matter expertise
Project & Analysis Expertise
Technical/Platform Expertise
KM Expertise (plus…)
Trusted Advisor/Guru

KM Market – The Bottom Line
Knowledge Management is still relevant
Still the best term to encompass the broad spectrum of technologies and disciplines involved in optimizing the value of an organization’s intellectual assets.
The strategic justification is a major challenge
Business environment of cost-cutting and consolidation
The tactical justifications are driven by
Platform consolidation
The search for “intelligent” life
Public sector-graying workforce
Finding the right “internal team” and defining their concept

KM Consulting –a Career Perspective
Three Words
Who Gets the Coffee?
A-B-C
Guru-dom

Up or Out
Successful consultants are like sharks – they have to keep moving
The Big 4 model – up or out – is kind of a constant, either you qualify yourself as a partner, or you eventually land a staff position at a client
There are staff positions at consulting firms, but it a risky proposition – always the first to go in a downturn.

Who gets the coffee?
In my experience, the key to long-term success in consulting is SELLING, not delivery
Once you sell, of course you deliver – but the long-term perspective on business development and closing is the engine for growth.
Consultants who aren’t good at sales, but who are successful, will have a good sales team at their side
Successful sales in consulting comes in all forms, from cold calling to 100 percent networking

A-B-C
Selling in consulting come in many forms:
High volume, sales as marketing
Low-key networking, the country club approach
Proposal machines
The all important follow-on

Guru-dom
The option to being the big closer/Partner/Principal is to be a Guru.
Requires more of a focus on constantly generating new intellectual property.
Still requires selling and closing, but the IP (books, courses, methods, etc.) are the primary draw.

KM Consulting Strategy: 2011 & Beyond
Strategy as the Optimization of a Portfolio of Intellectual Assets
A Textbook Approach
Strategy and the Sole Practitioner

Strategy: Optimizing a Portfolio of Intellectual Assets
E.g., practice what you preach
Develop and Leverage your own portfolio of assets
Capture, classify and develop avenues for distribution of as much of the artifacts of your intellectual effort as possible
Provides the engine for generating the intellectual assets that move your firm forward
For more info, see The June 2005 Harvard Business Review “Surprising Economics of a "People Business” by Felix Barber, Rainer Strack http://bit.ly/2B0Jtt

A Textbook Five-factor Perspective
Strategic factors driving decisions about allocation of:
Time/Attention
Capital (financial/social)

Strategy and the Sole Practitioner
Even sole practitioners faces the need to operate strategically
- “Kill and eat” is not really a strategy
If you’re not operating strategically, you short-change your clients, even if you are totally successful at delivery

Seven Keys to Consulting Success
Winning the Proposal Game
Your Give Away
Dealing with Expectations
Moving In – becoming part of the family
Appearing bigger than you are—project yourself
Eating your own dog food—practicing what you preach
Build your virtual team

Winning the Proposal Game
Successful proposals don’t simply win you business
They are the blueprint for maintaining the relationship with the client
Successful proposals usually win on the strength of the team, and the demonstration of capability to perform
- You need to document all your past experience (qualifications) rigorously.
You need to run the proposal through an applicable project management method to clarify scope, identify resources and role, and to manage risk.

Your Give Away
You must offer a “freebie” – a lure for potential clients
- A free taste of the services you offer to get them hooked
The BEST charge clients for their give-away.
- It gets the client’s skin in the game.
Make sure that you (and the potential client) don’t confuse your give away with your real offer!

Dealing with Expectations
Winning professional services business requires setting high expectations.
The biggest source of suffering in professional practice is the inevitable divergence of expectations once delivery begins.
The client is always right – to a point.
It’s important to establish a partnership with clients that allows give and take.
Don’t be afraid to fire a client. In the long ruin, it’s more important to maintain your professional integrity than to be abused for billable hours.

Moving In – Becoming Part of the Family
“Be thou familiar but by no means vulgar..”
You want to cultivate a trusted advisory relationship AND maintain your independence.
This is a high-wire act for consultants.
You have to create your own structure that YOU belong to so you’re not dependent on belonging o the client’s culture and structure.

Appearing Bigger—Projecting Yourself
One of the tenets of small business is to find ways to appear bigger than you are.
Overinvesting in image – quality of materials, deliverables, web site, etc. is one way to accomplish this.
Pulling in allies from your network to flesh out your team also can be helpful.
Be smart about this, and also be accurate. Leaving people with an impression is different that mis-representing yourself.

Eating Your Own Dog Food—Practicing What You Preach
Vexes every consultant – focus should be on delivery and new business development.
But especially in a discipline like KM, it’s important to be able to lead client – to show a vision, to open their eyes.
Practicing KM internally – no matter your size – expands the boundaries of your professional capabilities.

Build your Virtual Team
Consultants are expected to be experts in their disciplines. But too often they think that their expertise in on domain extends to other domain.
Beyond your professional cadre, it’s important to build a social network that’s balanced with people who have key skills – sales, marketing, branding and image, project management, etc.
Train your teams eyes to spot opportunities for you. They should be clear about what you do that they can reliably identify an obvious opportunity back to you.
- Train them!

Questions
Joe Raimondo, @JoeRaimondo
joer@ontologique.com
http://www.ontologique.com

So you want to be a knowledge management consultant

by Joe Raimondo on May 13, 2011

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