Some of my personal favorite consulting 101 tips from my Diamond Management and Technology Consultants mentors…
- Always answer “So what?”
- When presenting to clients view the presentation as a conversation
- Always have the one hit single slide
- Rehearse
- Never speed up to finish content
- Practice in the shower
- Audience and purpose
- Do research as much as possible on learning about client
- Remember the importance of stories
- Thank them when you come in
- Keep appendix separate
- Use questions as guiding principals for story
- Always show understanding of question: “Let me know if I am understanding your question correctly…”
- Reflect questions; Understand & Answer; use “we will be covering that later”
- Shake hands
- Do not rock backward; don’t put hands in pocket
- Stop making your voice so low (my voice usually becomes low when presenting!)
- All that matters is that the client is engaged
- Solicit questions
- Embrace questions
- Leave a good lasting impression; even if you have to cut it short
- Explain the axis of graphs so your client can pick up the trends easily
- Pause and think about questions
- Make a greek rhetorical circle