5-week Class: Marketing for Consultants ~ with Jerry Talley

Marketing for Consultants
A 5-week class with Jerry Talley

Free to PNODN Members!

Learn a strategy for building an OD practice. Learn how to market to your client’s concerns instead of talking about your specific services.

There are entire industries poised to take your time and money to market your practice; it probably won’t work. Marketing an OD practice is unique among professional services:

• Our clients typically do not know when they need us.

• Most clients do not know what we might offer.

• Clients often misunderstand their circumstance and ask for the wrong interventions.

• Contracts need to be flexible enough to allow for emergent insights and opportunities even as client asks for concrete deliverables, schedules, and costs.

So it falls to us to get in front of a potential client and engage with them in a way that opens up a dialogue rather than moving directly to a specific solution. Most digital marketing strategies (websites, SEO, Google AdWords, podcasts, blogs, LinkedIn, etc.) are too tepid to generate a robust flow of work. So this course is about what else to do.

Who should take this course:

This course is for external consultants (or internals ready to move out on their own) wanting more control over their income, their workload, and the type of engagements they attract.

Curriculum:

• The purpose of marketing (HINT: It’s not just acquiring clients)
• The unique challenges of marketing an OD practice
• What clients really want (and need) from us (it’s not your services)
• Refining your practice offering
• How to position yourself in the marketplace (“solo practice” is not the best option)
• The 3 planks in a proactive marketing platform
• Market well, and let the client do the selling; how handle the initial conversation
• Special attention to finding your first 10 clients

Structure:

Registration & Fee:

This is a no-fee course. After you register your interest here, your confirmation email will include a message from Jerry about how to get in touch with him to make sure this course is right for you and receive further details.

Your Instructor:

Jerry started his 45-year career in Stanford’s Sociology department where he taught for 18 years. Leveraging his research and assessment experience, he moved out into corporate consulting. Over the years he accumulated over 450 client engagements with companies in high tech, higher education, manufacturing, construction, health care, banking, the military, entertainment, hospitality, telecom, city & county government, public utilities, consulting firms, aerospace, college publishing, pharmaceuticals, numerous not-for-profits, and one organic grocery store. He is no longer providing client services; his practice is now focused on mentoring and coaching for the next generation of organization development consultants.