I am currently helping to set up a training and consulting platform to deliver internet marketing services and training to all sorts of established businesses.
I am specialising in internet marketing for finance professionals (including accountants) and business consultants.
In addition, I am creating the basic tools for our consultants to engage with clients in the delivery of these services. The services we offer are badly needed by most businesses who think that all there is to internet marketing is putting up a website on the internet.
However, the problem is that each client we engage with will be at different stages of knowledge and experience. I have therefore created a Diagnostic Tool to enable our consultants to have a consultative discussion with the client to find out where they are in their business and, if they have perceived priorities or prejudices, what they are.
The Diagnostic Tool is the initial stage in engaging with the potential client to start scoping out what sort of work would best improve their business because prescription without diagnosis is malpractice.
The Diagnostic Tool will illustrate graphically the clients strengths and weaknesses in the realm of internet marketing and can be used to monitor the clients progress by redoing the diagnostic session again after something has been delivered.
By understanding the clients business in more detail, we can start to scope out the work required and move towards agreeing some Terms of Reference. The Terms of Reference sets out the business issues or problems and what the client wants the consultant to deliver, in what timeframe and what the client can offer by way of input. It may also be important to delineate what the project does not cover.
From the Terms of Reference the consultant can then draw up a Consulting Proposal.
The Consulting Proposal will include the following:
- Cover page
- Introduction
- Background key issues
- Approach and suggested workplan
- Timing, resource estimate and fees
- Our firm and experience
- Our team
The Consulting Proposal, if accepted, forms the basis of the Letter of Engagement which clearly sets out the terms and conditions of the engagement and the progress monitoring cycle.
Unless the above process is worked through carefully and diligently, it is very easy for misunderstandings to arise and for projects to suffer from ’scope creep’. Scope creep is where the project extends beyond what was originally planned for and priced.
It is therefore important that the scope of the project is clearly understood on both sides and that if additional work outside the scope of the project is required, that it is priced accordingly.
Failure to carefully carry out the consulting engagement process will lead to losses. I will likely be producing some training videos on this process and if you wish to be kept informed then please subscribe to my Business Bullets Newsletter on the sidebar of this blog.
Did you like this entry? You will love getting my Free Business Tips so why not 'load up' with some free ammo with my Business Bullets Newsletter? (No spam and I will not give your email address to any other company.)
Tags: consulting proposal, consulting tools, diagnostic tool, terms of engagement, terms of reference
