To be persuasive your pitch will need to contain the right building blocks EARLIER POSTS looked at the elevator pitch and tips for creating an effective pitch. The elevator pitch, as you may recall, is a high-level overview of whatever it is that you are selling and is designed to just get the conversation started. […]
Category: Consulting
List of strategy consulting firms in Hong Kong Accenture Alvarez & Marsal Applied Value Group A.T. Kearney Bain & Company Booz & Company Boston Consulting Group Deloitte Consulting Forum Corporation Global Intelligence Alliance Hay Group Hill & Knowlton IMS Health Kurt Salmon Associates Lippincott McKinsey & Company Monitor Group Navigant Consulting OC&C Strategy Consultants Oliver […]
Successful businesses use the Rule of Three to help them drive sales or raise awareness PREVIOUS posts looked at the Rule of Three, how you can improve your speeches with the Rule of Three, and a few amusing examples of where the Rule of Three has been used in comedy, storytelling, and the movies. This post provides […]
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The Three-Question Rule
“I Can’t Stand to Be Asked the Same Question Three Times” ~ Mustafa Part 1: The Rule of Three Part 2: Improve Your Speech Writing with The Rule of Three Part 3: The Three Question-Rule THE PREVIOUS two parts looked at The Rule of Three and how you can improve your speeches with The Rule of […]
The Rule of Three can make you more persuasive, memorable and entertaining Part 1: The Rule of Three Part 2: Improve Your Speech Writing with The Rule of Three Part 3: The Three Question-Rule EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION is a skill like any other, and the Rule of Three is a simple tool that you can start […]
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The Rule of Three
Omne Trium Perfectum – everything that comes in threes is perfect Part 1: The Rule of Three Part 2: Improve Your Speech Writing with The Rule of Three Part 3: The Three Question Rule OKAY, you may be thinking, what’s so special about the number 3? Good question. The “Rule of Three” is the name […]
The Value GROW Model can be used to help people set and achieve goals 1. Background The Value GROW Model is an adaption of the traditional “GROW Model” – a framework used widely for coaching individuals to set and achieve goals. The traditional GROW Model has been used and popularised by various high profile coaches […]
This guest post is by Rob Ashton, chief executive of Emphasis – a business writing company that runs report-writing courses for consultants. No matter how knowledgeable you are as a consultant, you’re only as good as your last report. Meetings come and go, but reports last. You may meet five or ten people while on an assignment, […]
Good management consultants follow the scientific method A GOOD scientific experiment will follow 7 steps. The type of science can change: biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, computing, management consulting – but the steps remain the same. 1. Aim Clarify the questions that the organisation is trying to answer: Who, What, When, Where, Why, How? For example, the organisation may […]
THERE MAY be a business school bubble for other people, but not for you. Whether you are buying into a bubble depends on whether the cost of what you are buying significantly exceeds its intrinsic value. For most assets, you can find the intrinsic value by looking at the expected return – the more money […]
THANKS to Wil for pointing us towards an interesting HBR article looking at The Business School Tuition Bubble. Is there a business school bubble? Almost certainly, and you can view a scary graph of the higher education bubble here.
TODAY MAY 1st 2011 (US time) the news of Osama bin Laden’s death circled the globe. According to the New York Times, Bin Laden was shot in the head when he resisted capture and his body was later buried at sea. And there was much rejoicing! Bin Laden’s death is a popular outcome for the US and its […]
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Relationships Matter
IN THE English-speaking world, we have issues when it comes to relationships. There is only one word for friend, which begs the question: “are you a friend, or aren’t you?” Facebook has helped us go some way towards solving this problem by providing a new class of friend, you can now have “real life friends” […]
Consultants make a god damn difference Teachers and consultants are alike in many ways, one of the more striking similarities is that great teachers and great consultants both make a god damn difference!
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Understanding the Competition
“Know your [competition], know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.” ~ Sun Tzu YOU are running a company, advising companies or would one day like to be. A company needs to understand its competition, and here are 11 points to help you do that. 1. Identify the competition Who are the […]
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Set SMART Goals
Whether your goals are personal or professional, setting SMART goals is the first step to actually achieving them “A goal properly set is halfway reached.” ~ Zig Ziglar 1. Background ALTHOUGH its origins are unclear, SMART goal setting appears to have been first used by Peter Drucker in his 1954 book “The Practice of Management”. […]
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Understanding the Customer
“One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth doing is what we do for others.” ~ Lewis Carol IF THE GOAL in life (and business) is to help others, then a good first step would be to try to understand the people we are aiming to help so that […]
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Understanding the Product
WHETHER you are entering a new market, launching a new product, growing market share, developing a pricing strategy or managing costs, you will want to understand the products that you are dealing with. Here are 9 things to think about when trying to understand a product. 1. Identify the product What is the product? What […]
HERE is a short list of quality consultancies in Spain: 1. Everis Website: www.everis.com Founded in Madrid in 1996, Everis operates in 26 locations across 13 countries (Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, France, Italy, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, Spain, UK, USA). In Spain, Everis has offices in A Coruña, Alicante, Barcelona, Bilbao, Las Palmas, Madrid, Murcia, […]
OVER the last 3 years we have witnessed the birth of student run management consulting firms in Australia. Student run management consulting firms harness the energy and enthusiasm of capable students to help non-profits enhance their social impact, and provide a platform to foster mutually beneficial relationships between students and the non-profit sector. Students benefit because […]
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Why consulting?
You will be more likely to succeed if you can clearly articulate why you are getting into the consulting industry BEFORE applying for interviews, one question that you will want to ask yourself is “why consulting?” Relevance of the question The question is important for at least two reasons: You will be asked this question […]
Good presentations are clear, relevant, structured and provide the audience with a takeaway message YOU have probably seen a presentation at school, university or at work that you would describe as “less than successful”. The presentation was probably unsuccessful because it failed to meet your expectations. You may have found yourself asking one of the following questions: […]
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Don’t boil the ocean
THERE is a term that consultants use which is called “boiling the ocean” (I borrowed this idea from Victor Chang). If you want one cup of hot water, there are two ways you can do it: go and collect one cup of water, and heat it up; or try and boil the entire ocean. As […]
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Approaching the Guesstimate Question
IN A RECENT post we learnt 12 tips for nailing the Guesstimate Question, which is a usual type of question that you can expect to be asked when interviewing for a position at a consulting firm. We now consider how to approach the Guesstimate Question. There are at least three ways to answer a guesstimate […]
THE only way to do well in the consulting case interview is to do lots of practice. Here is the most current list of free online case interview questions: Ace the Case Bain & Company Booz & Co Boston Consulting Group Capital One Job Search Online MBA Case McKinsey MIT Oliver Wyman
AS WE found out in the previous post, the guesstimate question is a usual type of question that you can expect to be asked when interviewing for a position at a consulting firm. Here are 12 tips to help you nail the guesstimate question: Practice: We live in a world where most of us use a […]
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The Guesstimate Question
THE guesstimate question is a usual type of question that you can expect to be asked when interviewing for a position at a consulting firm. What will you be asked to do A typical guesstimate question will require you to estimate a number by doing a rough “back of the beer coaster” calculation. You are […]
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The Rule of 70
WORLD GDP is growing at 4% per year, how long will it take for world GDP to double? Your company’s revenue is growing at 10% per month, how long will it take for your company’s revenue to double? There is a simple rule of thumb that you can use to figure out roughly how long […]
An elevator pitch needs to be clear, concise, provide a solution and generate interest in order to just get the conversation started AS WE discovered in the previous post, an elevator pitch is a high-level overview of whatever it is that you are selling and is designed to just get the conversation started (Elevator Pitch […]
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The Elevator Pitch
An elevator pitch is a high-level overview of whatever it is that you are selling and is designed to just get the conversation started.
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Creating a winning résumé
A résumé is a sales document which presents a factual account of your skills, knowledge and experience in the best possible light to help you win an interview 1. The importance of a résumé A résumé is a factual presentation of your skills, knowledge, experience and proven abilities and an indication of your potential. The […]
Consultants can help an organisation by supporting organisational change, accelerating information gathering and ensuring rigorous analysis FOLLOWING on from the previous post which considered whether consultants are just highly paid scapegoats, let’s consider a common consulting stereotype which sheds some light on where consultants add value. Consultants are people who borrow your watch, tell you what time it is, and then walk off with the watch. Attributed to Robert Townsend, this well known […]
Consultants charge huge sums for superficial but well “powerpointed” presentations in return for the company executives’ right to take full credit for any successful outcomes MANAGEMENT consultants are often loudly criticised. Why is this so? A large part of the reason is that consultants are paid a lot of money to provide recommendations which may […]
FORMER McKinsey consultant Victor Cheng provides us with an interesting insight. The skills that get you hired as a consultant are not the same skills that get you promoted, and the skills that get you promoted are not the same skills that take you to the top. You get hired for your analytical skills, you […]
EXECUTIVES often rely on the advice of expert management consultants. Was it always this way? Where did it all begin? The very first management consulting firm was Arthur D. Little, founded all the way back in 1886 by a professor at MIT whose name was (funnily enough) Arthur D. Little. Almost 30 years later, Booz […]
In order to maximize your chances during the interviewing process, it’s important to prepare carefully. This article provides 5 tips to help you ace the interview.
There are six strategic principles which are relevant to any company that wants to be profitable online IN AN article entitled “Strategy and the Internet” published in the March 2001 edition of the Harvard Business Review, Michael Porter outlined six principles that he believes companies need to […]
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GE-McKinsey 9-Box Matrix
The GE-McKinsey 9-Box Matrix offers any decentralised corporation with multiple business units a systematic approach to help it decide where to invest its cash IN SEPTEMBER 2008, the McKinsey Quarterly published an interactive audio presentation on the GE-McKinsey 9-Box Matrix. An outline of this framework is provided below. 1. Background The 9-Box Matrix follows in […]
IT would be easy to forget that there are many fine people out there who have never heard of this “CFA Program”. What is the CFA Program? The CFA Institute describes the CFA Program as a graduate-level course for investment professionals. The course covers an extremely broad range of topics including: ethics, quantitative methods (read: […]
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Rejecting the rejection letter
IN THESE troubled economic times it may be difficult to obtain an offer of employment. There are lots of skilled people competing for a small number of jobs. Be bold, stand up for yourself, and don’t take no for an answer! Dear Employer, Thank you for your letter rejecting my application for employment with your […]
1. The golden ratio THE golden ratio is believed to have aesthetically pleasing properties. The golden ratio is a naturally occurring number that has been the subject of interest since ancient Greek times, and has been used in architecture, art, books and music since at least the time of the Renaissance. For example, artists have […]
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Product Life Cycle Model
The Product Life Cycle Model can be used to analyse the maturity stage of products and industries 1. Background THE idea of the Product Life Cycle was first developed in 1965 by Theodore Levitt in an article entitled “Exploit the Product Life Cycle” published in the Harvard Business Review on 1 November 1965. 2. Benefit […]
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Cover letters win interviews
1. The importance of a cover letter A COVER letter is a short one page sales letter that accompanies your resume as part of your job application. The cover letter is important because it creates a first impression of you with your potential employer. The main purpose of a cover letter is to obtain an […]
When a company is trying to borrow money, executives, entrepreneurs and consultants should be aware that there are five criteria that most lenders care about What are lenders looking for? IT IS important to understand what lenders look for when they lend money because companies often need to borrow money for various reasons: increase cash […]
PREVIOUSLY I created a list of certain consulting firms in Australia and America. I have decided to do the same thing for India. This list provides quick access to a list of the top consulting firms in India and provides a short description of each. I hope you find it useful. The list of consulting […]
THIS list of strategy and general business consulting firms forms part of the full list of consulting firms in India: McKinsey & Company Boston Consulting Group Bain Consulting India Pvt Ltd AT Kearney Accenture Tata Strategic Management Group A. F. Ferguson & Co. Arshiya International Ltd Deloitte KVP Business Solutions PRTM Management Consultants Madras Consultancy […]
THE list of IT consulting firms forms part of the full list of consulting firms in India: Diamond Management & Technology Consultants Capgemini Binary Semantics ISHIR Digital ProcessLOGIX Consulting Pvt Ltd RADIX Corbus 1. Diamond Management & Technology Consultants Website: www.diamondconsultants.com Diamond has headquarters in Chicago and offices in Hartford, New York, Washington D.C., London […]
THE list of HR consulting firms forms part of the full list of consulting firms in India: Mitcon Consultancy Services Ltd Vruksham Talent Group ALP Management Consultants Synergetics Omam Consultants Ma Foi Management Consultants Ltd ABC Consultants Pvt Ltd 1. Mitcon Consultancy Services Ltd Website: www.mitconindia.com Founded in 1982, MITCON is based in Pune and […]
CORPORATE social responsibility (CSR) involves business organisations acting in the interests of society by taking responsibility for the impact of their activities on customers, suppliers, employees, shareholders, communities, the environment, and other stakeholders. Increasing concern about global climate change is shifting consumer preferences in favour of green and organic products, as well as putting pressure […]
PREVIOUSLY I created a list of certain consulting firms in Australia. I have decided to do the same thing for the United States. This list provides quick access to a list of the top consulting firms in America and provides a short description of each. I hope you find it useful. The list of consulting […]