Interview on Business Info Guide

Here is some Q&A with me about the book and consulting in general.  The rest of the interview can be found at http://businessinfoguide.com/interview-william-mcknight-author-of-90-days-to-success-in-consulting/.

What is your book about?

It’s about how to be a great consultant and have a thriving consulting business.

What inspired you to write your book?

This is a “write what you know” book. I’ve been through a complete lifecycle of consulting. I’ve taken the bumps and bruises along the way, but I’ve also won several awards and been able to leave each client better, many times salvaging business-critical situations. I enjoy consulting and I’d like to see it pursued in the right way too, which will elevate the profession. There’s also more where the book came from, and obviously every situation is different and requires some personalization and I have some value-added services for that.

How did you come to do what you’re doing today?

About 13 or so years ago, when I took a position as an IT Vice President in a large company, I inherited dozens of consultants from a big profile consulting firm. Owning the budget, I came to understand what they were making and was astounded to understand it was more, sometimes way more, than I. I also knew what their real contribution was and knew I could do better. I furthermore was looking to leverage my abilities across multiple situations and consulting seemed to be the way to do that.

Can you describe a typical day in your life?

There are multiple profiles to my days. I might be heads down with a single client or I might be working many client situations. Clients could be short-term, high-impact or they could be my primary client over multiple months for a project. I might be at client sites or at my office or both. I might be presenting live or in a webinar. I might be on the phone a lot or a little. It depends on client priorities, but I make my commitments and am always responsive. These clients I speak of could be local, domestic or international, which obviously impacts the day’s profile. Either way, I’ve been 100%+ as busy as I’ve wanted to be in all my years of consulting. I’m very time conscious and try to apply my time to productive and/or fun activities and not time wasting activities.

What do you most enjoy about what you do?

I enjoy making a big difference to clients. What I do can have tremendous impact if done well. I enjoy stepping away knowing that people and the company will be on a different and better trajectory as a result. On a personal basis, I enjoy seeing people more engaged in their daily work and their life as a result of some direction I’ve helped with.

Are there any people and/or books that have inspired you along your journey?

There are so many. I’m always trying to learn more through reading, podcasts and audiobooks. Some of my favorite authors for business and success have been Tom Peters, Barry Posner (my MBA instructor), Peter Drucker, Dennis Waitley and Steven Covey. I’ve been inspired authors out of my field as well such as Jared Diamond, Ayaan Hirsi and George Orwell and noteworthy books In Cold Blood and The Black Swan.

I read a bunch of good blogs through my reader, as well as news online, daily. It’s an efficient way to take in the daily information I need.

And I’ve had several people who have believed in me including former bosses, clients and employees. They inspire me to continue to be the person they believed in.

It Seems Like the Basics

I'm often amazed at the degree to which otherwise smart people mess up on the basics over and over again, despite that fact that it is costing them serious business.  I know that many prefer the technical aspects of their field over the running of a business, be it their consulting business or their personal "business within" the corporation they work for.  However, doing some basics well is important in making the distinctions necessary to transcend the look of a potentially-outsourced skillset to one that is a competitive advantage for the company.  The company could be the company one works for or the clients they are working for.

It's almost true that "all I really need to know I learned in Kindergarden."  Different basics I've seen that need some work lately include:

1. Not responding to email the same business day
2. Not responsing to voicemail the same business day
3. Not being courteous and understanding of the other's situation, keeping the focus on their issues
4. Parading knowledge that's irrelevant or is about self-interest
5. Looking to partners to take care of you
6. Doing easy, low-risk, last-decade activities and calling it marketing
7. Fear to actually consult or take risks versus being directed by largely misinformed guidance
8. Fear to learn new methods for achieving client success
9. Spening inordinate time in comfortable relationships with those who cannot make things happen for you
10. Treating others as antiseptic barriers to your goal instead of the people they are

It seems like the basics, at least to me.

The Flight of the Bluebird

I just finished “Guns, Germs and Steel” by Jared Diamond for the second time. It talks about the real causal events in history. That, combined with some work I came to agreement on with a client this week, led me to think about some causal events in consulting and a term that sometimes gets thrown in with it – bluebird.

In consulting, the ‘bluebird’ term is used to refer to a nice piece of work falling from the sky onto your lap for you to sign and go. It’s a somewhat pejorative term used to indicate you did not do the necessary work to earn that business. I don’t use the term because the work that goes into coming to a consensus with a client over some business doesn’t have to have been yesterday or even this century, but there usually was work involved. This starts with the fact that you have to have taken the risk to start a business in order to win business.

Sure, some business comes easier when you have built the reputation. For those pieces of business that don’t come with a real sales cycle, I think back to starting in consulting 15 years ago where most everyone starts – with not much – and working pretty hard to build my knowledge, abilities and reputation. Unwinding the real causal events that led up to the business has always revealed a complicated cycle of awareness to contact to contract. Sometimes it’s years later when I get the call but I earned the awareness at some point.

What are the causal events of your business? Are you creating your ‘bluebirds’ of tomorrow?

Doing More With Less? Calendar Protocol

Are you being mandated, like so many, to do more with less? If not, do you realize that is always the unspoken assumption?


If you find yourself running a team or in a team with such a mandate, or ready to place one on yourself, it’s time to get more efficient rather than immediately resort to cutting heads and continuing with current inefficiencies and a “work longer” mentality. Some of the easy levers to look at are the basics - which account for a lot of inefficiency in team dynamics.

Team members need to meet. Frequently. If calling said meeting constitutes more time than is actually needed for the meeting, team meeting protocol needs to be reviewed.

Are central calendars kept up to date and shared? Are meetings accepted when realistically there is little chance of making it? Are there unspoken calendar blocks that aren’t reflected on the calendars? Do meeting invites sit for days without response?

If calendars are double-booked or meetings are frequently declined when calendars are open, the calendar is effectively useless since it is obvious it does not reflect reality and it is not being managed proactively.

I’m not advocating over-doing meetings. Meetings, their participants and their durations should constantly be monitored to ensure they are necessary. In a small-team world, ideally they are unnecessary and people just work together. But that is not the reality of the modern Fortune-level enterprise with people spread out, with consensus-building cultures and people seldom able to completely focus on one project.

Openly discussing and agreeing on calendaring and meeting protocol is required as one of those mandates for efficiency, whether it is for your project teams or your consulting team.

Knowing versus Doing

I was exiting my yoga class at the gym last week when someone struck up a conversation with me at the water fountain. He noticed I had just come from the class and he was curious about it. What style of yoga did we do? Did we do the chattamarangya (or something)? When we did said pose, did the instructor have us put our arm in front or behind our leg? Embarrassingly, I had no answers. I just “do” the yoga. I asked him about his yoga practice. He’s never done yoga. He’s been curious for years. He’s read up (obviously more than me) on the various styles and poses, even signed up for some classes, but just never was able to go through with one.


Now I ADMIRE his knowledge of yoga and he could certainly help me out there (actually he already has me scurrying to the books). I probably could not help him out primarily by talking ABOUT yoga with him. I could only help him by encouraging him to actually do what he knows to do.

And so it goes with a good consulting practice. How many consultants know stuff but don’t actually do it? And which is more helpful to a client – knowledge or results? It’s results. Are you observant enough to know when to pull back on the knowledge exhibition and ready to DO what it takes to make sure the client gets their end result? That is what it’s all about.

Interview on AfterThoughts

This podcast is an hour long conversation with S. Denice Newton and Thaddeus.  We had a very spirited discussion about consulting and the domain I practice in - Information Management.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/show.aspx?userurl=s-denice-newton&year=2011&month=01&day=23&url=consulting-expert-william-mcknight-1

Interview on Biz Talk

This podcast is a 45 minute conversation with I. Vitt Argent, "Dr. Ande."


The abstract: An expert on the ever-growing consulting career option and subject author, “90 Days to Success in Consulting”. William McKnight will be joining us this week with some insight and tips on how to handle modern consulting and career trends.

 http://www.blogtalkradio.com/ivaradionetwork/2011/01/19/kiva-biz-talk-wguest-william-mcknight