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The vast majority of technology consultants fail to grow their businesses because they fail to abandon business. A technology consulting firm is not like an automobile manufacturer who tries to sell as many cars as possible and adjusts production based on demand. If business picks up, more assembly line workers are hired, new plants are opened, dealerships established, and more cars are produced. When business starts to decline, plants are closed, workers are laid off, and production stops.

Technology consulting is profoundly different from this concept. There are only so many billable hours in a day, and only so many clients in a week you can service. Remember growth is not just financial. It includes broadening your scope of services, working with higher-level clients, enhancing your reputation, and offering more sophisticated solutions. For the techie whose lifeblood is sustained by cheap break-fix services, the attitude tends to be “All business is good business and I’ll never turn down a paying client.”

There are a few things wrong with this mentality, but they are all deadly because:

Reputation works in all directions. If you are known as an “inexpensive solution,” your services will be judged accordingly and the average prospect will assume he/she will never have to pay a lot for your work nor receive anything of value that’s above your cheap asking price. Your reputation will build as such and will pigeon hole you into a corner. Imagine McDonald’s trying to break into fine dining. McBottle Service anyone?
Quality, not quantity, is the sole measure of success. A friend of mine, Dan Turner, has built a million-dollar web design business from scratch. A couple years ago we collaborated on a few projects in which he commented that common approaches to direct mail were off base. “Most people look for a response rate of around 2 percent to represent success,” he pointed out, “which is simply a number. If you mail out 5,000 pieces, all you need is one very high quality response.” Dan based his entire business on this concept–find one high paying client and do a great deal of work their rather than find 10 clients and do a little work for each. As a technology consultant you are far better off doing $10,000 in business with one client rather than do $500 in business with 20 clients. You’ll work less, make the same amount of money, and you’ll be working with high paying clients that can get you more high paying clients to do this kind of work for.
Sales effort is equal across all technology price points. From my experience in the IT industry, I’ve discovered that it takes the same amount of time to sell a $200 service as it does to sell a $10,000 service. The amount of advertising, number of calls, number of questions asked, amount of pre-sale research preformed by the prospect, are all surprisingly consistent. The only difference is the attitude of the consultant. So, if you are trying to close business and it takes the same amount of effort to close a $200 client as it does to close a $10,000 client, which would you rather spend your time pursuing? This isn’t rocket science, but do you get my point? The effort it takes to attract, sell, close, deliver, and administer small IT projects is the same for large projects, so you are not making up in volume what you could be doing in size. By continuing to accept anything that comes along, a technology consultant is doomed to poor time management and lack of growth.
So here’s the cold hard truth: Every time you raise your fees or pursue more sophisticated work, you will lose the bottom 15% of your market. Million dollar technology consultants regularly abandon the bottom 15% of their market as a growth strategy to free up time to pursue the upper reaches of their market.
Every 2 years or so you should be able to look back and identify work that you would no longer accept. If you are accepting the same type of work with the same fees as you did 2 years ago, than you probably have not abandoned your bottom 15% and therefore have not expanded into the top 5% of your market (which is far, far more profitable).

If you wish to become a nurse and are interested to work for courtrooms and emergency rooms then pursuing legal nurse programs is the best option for you.

Legal nurses utilize their health care knowledge and legal system interest to make a rewarding consulting career. Legal nurse consultants are also known to defense prosecutors or attorneys for their pharmacological or forensic familiarity to assist in determining the difficulty of civil or criminal cases. The legal nurses consult with prosecutors and others in legal field on topics related to personal injury, medical malpractice, workers compensation, etc. They are also responsible for reviewing medical records, interviewing clients, researching and processing medical literature, assisting in evaluating damages and liabilities, preparing exhibits, helping with depositions, and are considered as expert witnesses.

A legal nurse consultant often has a previous experience in emergency rooms and other disciplines and who further undergoes training at different legal nursing schools. The schools providing legal nurse programs also offer online degree coursework in personal injury, legal ethics, legal writing and forensic science to name a few. Also, you can also take dedicated classes in the legal issues about auto accident damage, medical malpractice, product liability and lower back pain.

A certified legal nurse is constantly hired to work with corporate lawyers and private attorneys. However, many of the legal court consultants are able to locate work outside the courtroom as well. You can also find work in insurance companies, hospitals and the government agencies. Many legal nurse consultants are also contracted to give quality assurance at various chemical companies and pharmaceutical firms. According to the recent salary survey by nursing management, 50% of the legal nurse’s work as a staff at insurance companies, law firms and other institutions, and they all earn similar salaries to those working as nursing administrators at the hospitals and make around $8000 a year. The rest 50% work independently and make around $100 to $150 an hour.

The jobs for them are predicted to grow in the next 10 years because many companies will introduce devices and medications that have been approved federally or have been reviewed by the governmental agencies and in courtroom. An individual does need formal training in this career to practice, and several educational and training programs are offered by community colleges, universities and various public institutions.

It is very easy to start your career in this domain because you don’t need a BSN but just require a valid RN license. Also, legal nursing experience is also not required. There are many legal nurses who are practicing in US in both urban and rural areas. Taking up legal nurse consulting as a career will not only provide you a great growth but will also open up new career prospective.

Autism is a difficult-to-deal-with condition. It is not standardized and may not be readily understood. Thus, the expertise of specialists and behavior analysts always come in handy when it comes to handling patients who are diagnosed with autism.

So, what can autism behavior consultants do for you or for the patient?
From providing professional consultation services to creating plans to help parents and educators delay the progression of the condition, autism behavior consultants can be of huge help to parents and educators alike, not to mention to the patients themselves. These professionals can provide assessment of the condition, offer and even perform autism therapies, train you – as a parent or a teacher – to control the behaviors of the patient, and give you access to groups and people who would be willing to finance your patient’s treatments and therapies.

Where can you find them?
You can find them online and off. Respectable and well-established autism behavior consultants often have web presence which should make it easy for you to find them. The majority of them maintain websites that give a clear picture of their services, where they are located, their qualifications, and basically every bit of information that could help you reach them. For those who do not have websites, their names are usually found in websites that allow professionals to post their contact numbers and even resumes online. It is also a good idea to search in forums. Some consultants use these to reach out to patients.

If you know parents who have autistic children, they can also help you find consultants and specialists who can help your child. Word of mouth cannot be underestimated. When parents who are undergoing experiences that are similar to what you are experiencing, it is likely that their suggested consultants are worth your try.

Off line, you can find them in yellow pages, in the school’s directory of resource persons who are contacted by the school whenever they need an extra hand in handling autistic pupils or students, and by talking to educators who are directly working with these consultants.

What qualifications should you look for?
The qualifications of autism behavior consultants differ from one professional to another, and from one state to another. In general, you should look for the following:

Certifications and licenses – Depending on the specialist and your location, you should look for a certification or a license or both. If you are interested in a behavior analyst, you should check your state’s requirements.

Formal training – Again, depending on the professional, he should at least have a master’s degree, and preferably, a doctorate degree as well in his field of operation. If he is a behavior analyst, you should look for one that specializes in human service disciplines, psychology, or special education.

Other critical details that should be of prime concern are: Competencies, the professional and personal knowledge and involvement of the consultant in his field, his years of experience, his methods and strategies, and other less critical but equally important details like billing procedures, handling of paperwork, connection, and others.

These two items go hand in hand because you must listen to completely understand your client and their goals. Only with that knowledge can you appropriately explain the value you bring and how it will aid the client in reaching their goals. In addition to these fundamentals, here are a few tips to help land more consulting deals.

Communicate Effectively

To start let’s assume you already paid attention to the fundamentals. You know the client’s needs, goals, and where you can add value. Now you need to effectively communicate how you, as a consultant, will provide value. If you can’t effectively convey how your skills are going to aid the client, you won’t get the deal. To communicate well ensure you always think before you speak. I know it sounds simple, but think before you answer a question. Think about how the question is reflected for your client. Your client’s will appreciate your advice and begin to trust your answers.

When speaking with your clients stay away from jargon. Every industry has its own particular “language” – words, terms and expressions that are common to the industry but are foreign to people from other industries. Make sure that your client can understand what you are talking about; otherwise they will not know how you can help. If you try to impress them with jargon, you will most likely lose the deal.

When communicating with your client don’t forget to let them chime in. The best way to get your client involved in a conversation is to ask questions. By asking questions, you will begin to understand how you can help, and what the client feels is important. The more you know about the client the better. This will give you an upper hand to ensure you are hitting every point that is important to them.

Be Passionate & Personable

Your client feels passionate about what they do, and if you show that you are passionate and enthusiastic about providing them the consulting skills they need, you’ll get the deal more often than not. Remember, your consulting in a area that you love so don’t hold back. If your client sees that you are truly happy with what you do, they will feel better about working with you.

Build relationships with your prospective client. Learn about the company and the persons that work for it. Look for similarities that you have with your client. Maybe it is a sport, education, hobby, etc. that you both enjoy. Find ways to talk about more than just busy. If you show your client that they are more than just another big deal for your portfolio, they will respect you are many levels.

Remember that you need to sell to the client’s needs, not yours. Master this and you will land more consulting deals than you ever imagined.

Business consultants are specialized in helping organizations to improve their performance. They analyze the current business problems and come up with plans to resolve them. By hiring a consultant your organization can get multiple benefits – external perspective/ advice, consultant expertise for long term or short term, exposure to best practices, training – the list is endless.

It would be useful to know the advantages of going for a business consultant before you decide whether your business needs one. A consultant is typically objective in his/ her approach which means they can find a problem when it is there. They are trained to look for issues and know where and how to seek them out. As an owner you will pay a consultant only temporarily till the contract period or till he delivers his report and plan of action.

A professional consultant can impart some part of his expertise to your staff who can then manage your business better. A business consultant has experience in the industry concerned and there fore can come up with innovative solutions and ideas to problems. He can also give a peek at your business strengths and weaknesses.

Business consultants can help with making strategic plans, tactical plans and short term plans too. They can assist in bringing about changes by following change management techniques. They can help in implementing any given technology around your organization. Consultants can aid in achieving operational and service excellence.

Based on the above advantages and your business objectives you can think of hiring a consultant. It is important to choose some one with a sound reputation and proven track record. It is better to agree upfront on what exactly you expect from them in terms of some tangible results. This way you will know if your expectations have been met by them.