Make The Happy Transition From Consulting To Coaching!

I've been a management consultant for over two decades, and I've been training consultants since the publication of my book, SIX-FIGURE CONSULTING, in 1997.

There have always been problems with traditional consulting, and the training that is often performed as part of it.

Here are a few:

(1) Incessant traveling.

My professor, Peter F. Drucker, himself an internationally coveted advisor, once remarked to me that the chief problem a consultant faces is that "The work is always where you, aren't." Generally, you have to fly to get there, which means you have to work, once there, for a period of days, to recover the investment you've made in traveling!
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Check an ad for consultants at Careerbuilder.com or at Monster.com and under the "travel required" portion, it can actually read, "100% travel." They're not kidding!

(2) Your billable units are large.

I alluded to this above. You can't bill by the hour for a speech that you're going to deliver several continents away. Believe me, it doesn't pencil out. So, again, you charge, minimally by the day, or by the project, or on a retainer. And this leads to my next point.
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(3) Your client list must stay small.

If you spend a lot of time with individual clients, how many can you add? Not many! Therefore, your range of experiences will be fairly narrow, and your prospects for profitability become limited, as well.
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(4) Your risk, when a client concludes its work with you, is relatively high.

What if, for some reason, a calamity befalls one of your few clients? This can utterly destabilize your income.

(5) You always face a feast-or-famine problem.
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I note this prominently in my seminars that I run for consultants, at UCLA Extension, and elsewhere. With full slate of clients, when will you find the time to market for new ones? And when you need to market, actually bringing clients aboard competes with marketing!

Coaching is a happy alternative for road weary, road warriors.
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For the most part, coaching is done locally, and this is a huge plus, and its impact is systemic.

Because it's local, you can sell your time in smaller units, making your help affordable to a much larger audience.

You can always reserve at least some of your time for marketing, if only that usually uncompensated time driving to and from airports, sitting in terminals and on planes, and checking in and out of hotels.

Your energy reserves are higher because you can work out, consistently at your home gym, or at local clubs and courts and tracks. You're sleeping in your bed, with your pillow!

And, replacing clients and adding them are really no big deal.

Finally, you can grow your coaching practice because you are in town. Your trainees will be here, and they can tag along to client sites with you, learning faster and more cheaply than you could ever do it by having to travel.

In future articles I'll explore more of the differences between the consulting and coaching models, and their relative advantages.

Dr. Gary S. Goodman, President of Customersatisfaction.com, is a popular keynote speaker, management consultant, and seminar leader and the best-selling author of 12 books, including Reach Out & Sell Someone® and Monitoring, Measuring & Managing Customer Service. He is a frequent guest on radio and television, worldwide. A Ph.D. from USC's Annenberg School, Gary offers programs through UCLA Extension and numerous universities, trade associations, and other organizations in the United States and abroad. He is headquartered in Glendale, California, and he can be reached at (818) 243-7338 or at: gary@customersatisfaction.com.