11 Things To Help You Land A Role On A Client Site in a Consulting Career
How to make yourself irresistible to a consulting client and double your salary within a year.
Are you are starting out in your consulting career for a global consultancy firm or a mid-career consulting professional?
Do you want to make yourself irresistible to the client and increase your worth?
Consulting is not a 9-to-5 job. It offers a distinct career path, along with challenges and opportunities you won’t find in a normal corporate firm.
I often hear my consulting career coaching clients describe the 4 C’s of consulting to me.
And then they describe it in their own words…
Chaos, challenge, conflict and crisis.
Another client of mine described it as Cash, cash, cash and more cash! For the client and consulting firm of course!
You might as well make it about that for you then.
I have worked with entry-level consultants to push them from analyst to consultants within a years timeframe. I have worked with senior consultants looking to exit from the industry and go it alone. I have also worked with consultants who have landed offers of roles on clients sites doubling their salaries. They have done the work and have reaped the rewards.
Here are the strategies I have used with them to achieve some of the above short and long term career goals.
The first thing I recommend you do is ditch the influencing and persuasion skills manual your consulting firm gave you.
Because…
Most large organisations that hire consultants don’t trust the consulting firms.
They are paying hand over fist to have consultants there. Consulting firms view clients as cash cows. That is their prerogative it is their business ethics.
They have paid a lot of money very quickly to have you there. Sometimes in the region of five times a consultant’s salary. But you know that don’t you? If not do your research to determine your true worth and pursue it.
It can mean the difference between setting yourself up for life in your mid-twenties and early thirties then being able to do your own thing in your mid to late forties like some of my clients.
So go get your clients influencing and persuasion skills manual out instead and consume it. Eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner and repeat.
You may not agree with parts of it but you will learn to work on the parts you can push and pull in your favour. And you will do that if progression and/or an exit strategy is important enough to you.
By that I mean you should consider the following:
Why is it important to my life and career?
What will it give me on a personal and professional level?
What is it worth?
What are the non-negotiables?
What are the personal and professional boundaries needed?
The last one is an important to consider because burnout is not an option. But I am not going to bullshit you on the harsh truth. Career progression as a consultant requires hard graft. I have seen my clients do the work.
The key catalysts for progression once you know your client's culture and style of influence, negotiation and persuasion skills are as follows:
- Challenge it
- Disagree with it
- Build trust
- Challenge it again
- Disagree with it again
- Build trust again only deeper
- Keep showing up when they make it difficult (and they will because most of them hate the firms you have come from)
- Do the grunt work and don’t bitch about it
- Set boundaries
- Always be approaching the client with the mentality of …
What is in it for them?
You are there to make them money, save them money, give them pleasure and prevent pain.
11. Be invested in your personal and professional development
If you do the work above you may very well have a direct job offer from your client doubling or tripling your salary within a year or be able to set yourself up on an independent basis in time when feasible.
It is win-win. The client has ditched the consulting firm and saved their organisation thousands.
You have hit the jackpot.
