I hear this from team leaders all the time, “How do I get my team members to be more consultative?” It’s a great question. And just for clarity, let’s define what “consultative” means in this context. While it can mean slightly different things to different people, it’s usually about the following 4 elements:
- Ability to listen to, and understand, client needs in order to create powerful methodology recommendations
- Ability to work in a collaborative, partnership style with clients and/or partners
- Ability to convey credibility, confidence and expertise to clients
- Ability to develop meaningful findings and recommendations (no platitudes!)
Here’s the good news. In working with various market research & insights teams, I often find that many team members have at least a foundation in these elements. What they lack is the confidence to execute on them. Thus, if you want your team to be more consultative, a good starting place is to help them gain confidence by giving them opportunities to recognize and build upon their existing abilities. This could mean investing in some mentoring or coaching programs. Or it could mean training.
If your team has a Research Rockstar Backstage Pass, I recommend they sign up for the following upcoming course: Becoming an Insights Consultant Black Belt, with Chris Grabarkiewicz-Davis, Ph.D. Chris has presented on this topic at national conferences, including TMRE and AMA events. In this course she uses case studies and hands-on exercises, so students can internalize and apply the lessons to their work. This course starts on February 5th, and meets on 4 consecutive Tuesdays from 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM Eastern (also available by recordings), for a total of four, 90-minute sessions in our virtual classroom. No Backstage Pass? Sign up for the course here.
As a special confidence-boosting bonus, an optional fifth session is included: a 30-minute, 1:1 call with the instructor to review the student’s last assignment (a Stop, Start, Continue plan to kickstart their consultative skills action plan).
This is the course for team leaders seeking to kickstart a consultative mindset in 2019. In fact, I am so convinced that you will see an improvement from team members who complete this course, that I guarantee your satisfaction. If you sign up your team members for the course and they complete it, and you are not fully satisfied, I will refund the cost of the course.*
If you want to discuss this topic further, or for group discount options, please do contact me.
Sincerely,
Kathryn
Kathryn Korostoff
877-Rocks10 ext. 705
* Send your request in writing (email is fine) within 30 days of the last day of class. Backstage Pass customers: we will extend your pass by 30 days.
Any questions? Please contact [email protected].
