Traits Of The Successful Consultant
by Linda Banks
Ask ten successful consultants what made them successful and likely as not you’ll get ten different answers. But – delve a little further and you’ll find that one thing stands as the foundation of success: Loving What You Do.
Loving what you do helps consultants weather the storms, the downturns and the slumps that come with any business opportunity. That’s because each consultant understands their personal priorities related to their goal to work as a consultant is placed before other personal goals. Given this, let’s look at what four successful consultants have listed as keys to their own success.
Marsha Marinich believes in innovation.
Marsha states that she believes in never accepting the status quo. Innovation to provide newer and better solutions to client’s problems helps her to increase her level of service and grow her level of products.
A customer’s needs never remain stagnant – they continue to evolve and change as their industry changes, the laws change and their own customer’s needs change. Therefore, the consultant must be able to continually evolve as well.
George Phares believes in tenacity.
The willingness to overcome struggles in order to meet your goal is a primary success factor for George. He believes that consulting can be a very scary business because you can go from flush to bust very rapidly.
Having the tenacity and sense of self reminds you that you are good enough and smart enough to succeed, if you can only hang in there. In addition, even when times aren’t tough, it’s still sometimes hard to go into a room of people you don’t know, develop a relationship, find out what their needs are and sell that you can serve these needs in the most and most efficient manner.
John Sullivant believes in flexibility.
John has seen new consultants fail because they limit themselves to one specialty and won’t learn anything new. It’s very important to gain experience across a total spectrum of an industry or service.
This means that continuing education and a willingness to try something new that stretches your boundaries can help you become successful. Keep up to date with new information, learn new skills and gain new experiences.
John Strauch believes in patience.
For John, it took at least five years to make the kind of money to fully support himself and his family. This is actually a very common occurrence - many successful consultants have started their business more than once or may take several years to achieve financial independence from their efforts.
It also helps if your family is supportive of your decision. Since your family can be impacted by your decision, it is always important to bring your family into the decision making process and plan for both the changes in each business cycle.
If you are just starting out as a consultant, take a few tips from the pros. Love what you do, be creative, be flexible, be tenacious and be patient. And your view of success can be within your reach.
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