Oct
21
A Consultant’s Pipeline
October 21, 2008 | Comments Off
Often people ask me how I handle my pipeline, a term commonly used on technology sales; meaning, how do I handle my expected business. A perfectly managed pipeline would provide even and always increasing business over time, regardless of economic conditions. A challenge to even the most seasoned CEO. Even large technology companies have difficulty managing it, and being a small shop I can’t claim to know how to manage everything.
I have noticed a few things, and I will share them. Maybe in a few months or a year I will notice some others and will share as well. There are two main issues to manage: You need enough contracts, and you need them to be evenly spaced across the year.
Getting Enough Work (in terms of time and money):
- Specialize in one thing - Make yourself known as the expert in one or a few types of services. These will be the ones giving you the biggest portion of your revenue. You will only need one or two big ones of this type of contract to make your year. This is where you make your money.
- Do a variety of things - Many people think there is a lot of downtime in the consulting business. I think there is some highly paid time, some lowly paid time, and some prospecting time. There is very few downtime. If you are facing a lot of downtime it may mean that you do not position yourself as capable of doing anything beyond your main specialization. This is where you fill up your time, expand your business and learn new things.
- Face to Face is Priceless – I prefer to do most of my work remotely for two main reasons: I like to be close to family and I am more efficient in my optimized home office work environment. Face to face time is full of small talk, delays, travel, customers who are not ready and make you waste your time and theirs and many 2 hour lunches and 5 hour dinners full of disabling (but great) wine. However, the minutes you spend facing your potential client or partner are worth a hundred times more than the time you spend remotely. Do face to face, but do it wisely. Prospect and market yourself face to face. Deliver initial and final presentations in person. But try to do remote work as much as possible.
Distribute Work Evenly
- Underpromise, OverDeliver - Give yourself some space on your schedule. Leave some space for new projects that may suddenly appear and have to be handled right away.
- Find Great Sub-Contractors and Partners – You can’t do it all alone. There are times when you will get way too much work. Find people who may be ready to help. When not needing them, train them. Send some contracts their way even if you can do them: you will need them to be ready when the action starts. This may be one of the most important parts of the process, and probably one of the most difficult.
- Be Careful When Hiring: Employees are great because they are cheaper than Sub-Contractors or Partners. But every employee you hire complicates things a little: it means you have to be even better at managing the pipeline and making sure you get enough business.
- Remote Work - Working from the office is another way of managing pipeline. You can take more than 8 hours worth of work per day – you can work some days longer hours. Or you can work only 4 hours a day when business is slow. Make sure you price yourself at a point where you can meet your targets at 50% utilization, and you should do fine.
Don’t Take The Pipeline Too Seriously
Even the best CEOs mess it up. I have seen so many Executive Vice Presidents of Sales being fired, or worse (demoted) because of their inability to manage a steady pipeline. Think of an amount where you will be comfortable. Price your business to hit the target at 50% utilization. Do your best to have even business but recognize it will not be perfect. Use the spare time wisely. And enjoy your practice: that was probably the main reason you started it.
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