Successful Business Analysis Consulting: Strategies and Tips for Going it Alone
- 5h 5m
- Karl Wiegers
- J. Ross Publishing
- 2019
This volume in the Business Analysis Professional Development Series by renowned expert and best-selling author, Karl Wiegers, and a group of noteworthy contributors, provides experienced, advanced-level business analysis and project management practitioners with proven strategies and tips for making the successful transition from highly respected internal expert to a fulfilling and financially rewarding career in consulting.
Key Features:
- Addresses how to effectively lay the foundation and structure of your consulting business; how to deal with or avoid the many pitfalls of working outside the corporate world and working remotely from home; and how to balance life, family, and work
- Presents a list of next steps at the end of each chapter with actions you can take immediately to begin applying the guidance and tips provided
- Furnishes valuable strategies and tips for such essentials as setting rates for your services, invoicing, purchasing appropriate insurance, establishing important business rules or policies, managing your finances and taxes, and other administrative aspects of your consultancy
- Articulates how to market your services, land both new and repeat business, negotiate deals, and craft written agreements with clients
- Describes how to establish multiple revenue streams, ways to leverage your work to develop sources of passive income, and some important issues of copyright, fair use, and managing and protecting your valuable intellectual property
- Provides sample checklists to help you keep all the activities you will be juggling as a consultant under control
- Identifies effective techniques for engaging clients in various situations, as well as warning signs about clients who can cause you headaches and how to deal with them
- Supplies solutions to a wide variety of problems and challenges of the consulting world, contributed by a group of noteworthy independent consultants with diverse experiences
- Discusses other common consultant activities that can generate a steady flow of revenue such as training, presenting at conferences, and other public speaking, and provides guidance and tips for delivering effective presentations with confidence
- Offers strategies and tips pertaining to partnering with other consultants on larger projects and how to make such arrangements work
- Examines the value of participating in professional associations and pursuing relevant professional certifications as a way to market your services and attract new clients and opportunities
- Explores the benefits of writing white papers and articles for magazines, journals, websites, and blogs as a means to simultaneously share your knowledge with the world and market your expertise to prospective clients
- Elaborates on the process and value of writing a book in the area in which you consult, how to get it published and distributed by a reputable publishing company that can reach your market, how to co-author a book effectively, and how a good selling book can be a powerful tool for getting clients and building your business
- WAV offers downloadable templates for consulting, writing, speaking, and licensing agreements, and checklists and forms to help you plan and manage your consulting business—available from the Web Added Value™ Download Resource Center at www.jrosspub.com
About the Author
When I began my career as an independent consultant more than 20 years ago there was a lot I didn't know about this new way of working. Now I do. Successful Business Analysis Consulting is the information I wish I had had available before I left corporate America. I've been fortunate to enjoy a highly successful consulting experience, and in this book I share pretty much everything I've learned about going it alone. You'll learn about some things I figured out how to do well, as well as some things I learned by making mistakes. Several other established consultants have shared their own perspectives and experiences, as well.
This book can save you a lot of grief and help make your own consulting experiences both more lucrative and more enjoyable. Even if you're working in a large corporation instead of on your own, and even if you aren't a consultant at all or planning to become one in the near future, you'll find a lot of useful information here.
In this Book
-
Foreword
-
The Journey from Practitioner to Consultant
-
Hanging Out the Shingle
-
Hey, World, Here I Am!
-
Participating in Professional Organizations
-
Modes of Consulting—What's Your Preference?
-
The Consulting Lifestyle
-
Make a List, Check it Twice
-
No Easy Answers
-
Consultants as Legitimate Leaders—The Goldilocks Approach
-
Omg, What Have I Done?! Anticipating Risks when Working with others
-
The Dream Client
-
Clients Who Give You Grief
-
Difficult Client? Try These Quick Tips
-
What are You Worth?
-
Money Matters for the New Consultant
-
Get it in Writing
-
Everything's Negotiable
-
When One is not Enough
-
It's a Matter of Policy
-
For Your Protection
-
A Kind of Business Plan
-
Be Prepared for the Unexpected
-
How to Get Repeat Business from Your Clients
-
The Challenges of Remote Consulting
-
Out of One, Many
-
On Intellectual Property
-
Seventeen Tips for Becoming a Confident Presenter
-
Some Presentation Tricks I have Learned
-
You are What You Write
-
Four Eyes are Better than Two
-
Writing for Magazines, Websites, and Blogs
-
You Say You Want to Write a Book?
-
Getting Your Book into Print
-
Being Your Own Publisher
-
On Co-Authoring a Book
-
Bibliography
