When I graduated in the 90’s, I was reporting to a person that influenced and helped shape my career. He was the project lead, had an impressive track record on enterprise projects (solid resume), Harvard graduate, 20+ years of experience, overall people person and knowledgeable.

He always smiled, in a good mood and joked quite often with the team and the management team. This did not seem, the right behavior especially when you read his resume and most off the shelf management books this was part of his strategy of creating a high performance team. (At the end he did it)

We still talk quite often; he is now a C level for a large global US corporation.

Here were some of his ideas:

• Team building is almost impossible when it comes to collective decision making. Each person will have his own agenda, and won’t say it in public. He knew how to breakdown walls between each other.

• Unless you understand the agenda of all stakeholders, the power centre within the organization (he called it the structure behind the org) you will be set to fail.

• Always show your passion, a job is what we do for money work is what we do for love.

• A smile is a curve that can set a lot of things straight, it disarms and embraces teamwork.

• Laughter is good for your health, use humour to overcome challenges, it promotes team bonding. He obliged us to read a study on the benefits of laughter during the project.

• He had already mapped the solution, and was slowly using meetings and discussions to share his thoughts. The team felt empowered.

Another analogie:

To decide which kind of team is going to be most successful you need to know what is your challenge, or the game. At the Olympics, a gymnastic team is a team of great individual performers who create an aggregate result from their individual performances, although they provide a supportive team environment. When looking at an Olympic hockey team on the other hand, they have to deliver a result which can only be delivered as a product of their interdependent effort - the team has to be more than the sum of the parts and they have to be a great team.

This drives my last point the future of work will be accelerated by more change, companies will need to innovate and co-create unique value with their customers and in today’s knowledge economy creativity will be more important than ever.

The ability to forecast accurately is central to effective strategy planning. If the forecast tends to be wrong, the real costs and opportunity costs can be detrimental, on the other hand if they are correct they can provide great benefit. Success demands commitments that are hard to copy hard to reverse configurations of resources and capabilities that are aligned with the competitive conditions of the market.

Forecasting thanks to most graduate schools has become a standard. That is under utilized or mis-understood, it is not a science or an art.

Who dares wins, IMO each company should re-invent their strategy every 2 years, challenge the thinking about the future that we cannot see clearly from a hierachy perspective this area is the responsibility of senior management.

Embrace Risk dont be frightened by it. As a person you will not grow if you don't take any risks.

One way to control the buying process  is with Project Management Techniques. Most of the top rated firms most of the times try to enforce Project Management on their projects. Why? This allows the control of information and empowers the consulting firm to generate more business by understanding the pains, reasons for the pain and to propose future projects. A good situational knowledge of the company by defining the companies pain points and helping them re-engineer their vision is always welcomed by the buyer.

Another great way to solution sell is to build a rapport and a relationship with the decision makers. Our human emotional side make us vulnerable and the top rated consulting firms have understood this principle. Also you increase your win odds when you follow the companies process and engage that relationship with the sponsor.

As more and more firms enter the market and they usually offer similar services at a lesser cost, it will force the consulting sales cycle process to change.

Some points to take into effect is to minimize the Sales Powerpoint showing how great you are (Most clients have probably googled your product or used it before), and customize your solution sell by trying to answer some of these questions.

1) What element of the customers business will be impacted and measured?

2) How much impact and value if possible and over what period of time?

3) What capabilities will be needed?

4) When will the investment pay itself off?

Supplement as needed using the three question types (Open, Control, Confirming) 

To finalize the sales cycle, create a customized plan and try to make sure you get theyre first, in helping them in setting the business and buying requirements, this will increase your win odds. Pre-empt the competition. That's the best strategy and best advice I can give to any firm that is solution selling in this competitive environment.