A CEO of a major company recently said to me, “Your timing may be perfect.”

He was referring to me being a consultant and, indeed, there’s evidence to support his statement. The industrial market is heating up. The Industrial Supply Association’s (ISA) most recent Economic Indicator Report was up for the second month in a row. Their Manufacturer Index was 66.42% in February while the January index was 60.63%. The Distributor Index saw similar gains (61.1% and 65.72%, respectively). Anything above 50% indicates those surveyed expect economic expansion.

The subjective evidence is equally strong. I talk with frustrated marketing people every week. Their complaint is with management and goes like this: “They laid off half my staff so we’ve been struggling to keep up for over a year. Every month we fall further behind and are getting our butts chewed out. Now, because business is getting better, they want us to do a bunch of new stuff. We can’t complete our work now! I have no idea how we’re going to get any new projects completed.” Maybe you can help them?

If you’re an unemployed or underemployed marketing professional consider becoming a consultant. As my CEO friend said, the timing may be perfect.

The client benefits because they can rent the expertise they need (from you). You simply augment their staff as a variable cost solution. A competent resource they can eliminate quickly without a long HR process.

Do a great job and maybe you get hired full-time, if that’s what you want. Here are a few things you need to be prepared for before accepting your first consulting job.

• Be prepared to add value immediately. One good way is to do more than you’re asked. In other words, take tasks off your new employer’s task list. Most marketing managers have presentations to create, reports to format, blogs to write and other nuisance tasks that they’d love to delegate but are beyond the skill level of most support personnel. Don’t wait for them to ask you to help. Be proactive and add value.
• Understand that there will be politics and much of it will be invisible to you. You represent a variable cost option and, as such, threaten everyone in your area of expertise that is an employee, a fixed cost. The best way to combat this is to recognize the politics exist and find a few key alliances within the client’s organization that will help you navigate through the terrain.
• You must be taken seriously so don’t walk in meekly. State your positions and your recommendations clearly and directly. Not everyone will agree but if you focus on pleasing everyone, finding the maximum in common ground and playing politician, you’ll lose. Understand your pre-designed role is to get in, complete your assignment, and get out. You are not part of the long-term extended corporate family (not yet, anyway).
• There’s nothing unethical about selling more services while you’re completing your project. Be polite and professional but keep your eyes and ears open for pain points, new projects and things the company would like to have if they had the resources. There’s truth in the old saying: “The best source of new business is old customers.” In my experience the big firms spend up to 30% of their time onsite looking for a new project while they’re completing the current project. I find that objectionable (selling while I’m on the client’s clock) so I never charge by the hour and I only spend about 10% of my time prospecting for new projects. You’ll need to find your own balance.

If you have skills and are either unemployed or underemployed I encourage you to think about consulting. The market is getting stronger, it’s a great way to leverage your strengths, and may get you the inside track on a full-time job if that’s your ultimate goal.

Feel free to call me if you want to discuss further.

Steve

800-707-9150

I guess I should warn you, I’m going to pound this subject hard. The reason is the overwhelming evidence is shouting Act! yet the activity level suggests few are listening. Change is coming too slowly.

If you own or manage a business have you figured out how the web, yeah, the one that’s almost 15 years old, will change your business or industry in the next few years? Okay, so you have a website. That's not enough. That's just a first-step. We're still at the beginning of building a connected commerce-enabled world, not the end.

What I’m asking is do you really understand how the online world is going to change your business over time (going forward) and what are you doing about it? Will you lead the innovation or will you run into it like a brick wall. Will you accelerate the adopion of new technologies and platforms like Jimmie Johnson coming out of a turn or will resist change like a grease stain on Jimmie's garage floor?

Based on facts, on history, it seems very few people figure out technology in time to prevent massive shifts, new winners and losers, in industry after industry. "Change your business" is a task, not a theme for a meeting or annual report.

Companies and people are generally very slow to change. Even overwhelming evidence is often ignored. Here are some examples of what I’m talking about.

• iTunes has sold over 10 millions songs online, how many record store owners saw that coming?
• Netflix is approaching $2B in sales and the stock has climbed 182% in the last 52-weeks. Blockbuster profits declined 17% and their stock price is down 51.4% during the same period. Mom-and-pop video stores are about extinct.
• The print industry is down an estimated 30%-40% from the highs of just a few years ago, and the smart ones left standing are scrambling to get into the website building business. The rest need to get used to revenue levels that make supporting expensive printing equipment difficult at best.
• Movie producers are linking up with the cable providers to deliver newly released movies (30 days after opening in the theaters) into our living and media rooms. Do you think most theater owners have a plan to combat this new channel, this new competitor? Some probably do, maybe, but most will watch the sun set on them and never take bold action.
• Mainstream marketing firms with plush offices and high fixed cost teams of people ready to help clients with PR, web-design, advertising, branding, logo design, messaging, product launches, annual reports and channel programs are laying off people by the truckload. Small, low-overhead outfits promoting and selling their services online are thriving.
• While we’re on the subject of “mainstream,” how about the major news networks. If you still watch the evening news on CBS, NBS and ABC, you’re watching the same format everyone watched in the 50’s and 60’s. That’s remarkable! Is it any wonder that  they are now competing with Fox News, which I consider a serious news outlet, TMZ,  Comedy Central and The HuffingtonPost.com? The HuffingtonPost now has 4,000 regular contributors (literary crowd-sourcing), 11 million visitors a month and a value estimated at $100M. They were a startup in 2005.
• The United States Postal Service is trying to eliminate an entire delivery day (16.6% of their schedule) to bring costs inline with revenues while email, texting, bill paying, banking and online promotions continue to enjoy double-digit growth.
• The big brokerage firms were getting their hats handed to them by online discount firms long before the current financial crisis hit. Rather than reposition their businesses they chose to destroy their brands by selling inferior products to trusting clients. Their strategy was no more sophisticated than a thief's: "Grab what you can before the police show up..."
• And personally I don’t see how our high-cost universities can survive into the future. The web has enough interactive capabilities and bandwidth to deliver a ton of education to our screens (all of them) at a fraction of the cost we tolerate today.

I could go on...but the point is you need to take ht e"change your business" lead.

In industry after industry a new entrant or an enlightened company figures out how to leverage the web, change the competitive landscape, and grab huge chunks of market share. The previous industry leaders stand around watching, tweaking their businesses at the edges, and waiting for yesterday’s model to reemerge victoriously. That ain’t happenin'!

Yesterday is gone forever. If you’re not figuring out how to leverage the web in a big way to change your business and the competitive landscape in your industry then know this, someone else is.

Steve
800-707-9150