Consultant’s Toolkit

I’m not big on New Year’s Resolutions. As one friend put it, “It’s not about changing. It’s about doing what worked for you and continuing to do it.”  I couldn’t agree more, but at the same time you have to change some things (the stuff that’s not working for you) in order to be successful.

When I reflected on the past year, I found I made work more difficult for myself because I took too many steps to accomplish tasks or I made things more difficult by trusting in systems that were outdated or inefficient. Ironic, because I’m a performance improvement consultant by trade and I should be willing to take my own medicine from time to time!

This year, I decided to commit to creating efficient systems to support the operations of my business. This way I can concentrate more on the work I do to earn a living and, eventually expand my business.

Almost all consultant’s have a pool of resources they draw upon to help them perform their trade. Books, websites, blogs - it can be anything. Like an auto mechanic who has their own toolbox filled with tools for their work, consultants should have their own toolkit of resources that is readily available to support the work they do for their clients. Last month I found some online applications I’d like to share with you that I included in my virtual “toolkit” to make my business run more smoothly. Perhaps these too will be useful for you.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have no affiliation with these services. I’ve simply used them and feel these are worthy enough to recommend to you, a reader of this blog.

• TSheets – This is an online time tracking application. While we don’t necessarily want to charge for our work by the hour, perhaps you have contractors you are managing who do. TSheets is a great all-in-one application to track hours on task, per client and is scalable to your specific needs. Even if you don’t charge by the hour, TSheets is a great tool to track time on task so you can have a record to base all future consulting bids on.  So, the next time a perspective client asks me how long it will take build a training program, I have data to back up my statement.
• Freshbooks – This is an online invoicing tool that allows you to generate electronic invoices, link to a payment gateway and gives your clients an opportunity to pay you online.  Some consultants have raved about how Freshbooks makes it easier to get paid sooner. Who can complain about that?
• ZOHO CRM – Keep track of all the people you meet through networking in 2010 with ZOHO CRM.  A customer relationship manager (CRM) is a database of your contacts met through work with clients or at networking events.  This CRM will allow you to track your marketing and subsequent sales, thus providing you with opportunities to make better business decisions. 
• ZOHO Projects – Also from ZOHO is ZOHO Projects, an online project management application.  Scalable and flexible, it gives you a view of your current projects and provides a central location for other people you are working with to keep track of which tasks need to be done in order to reach milestones and objectives.

Some of these applications are free services with paid versions containing more features and scalability.  Be sure to check out each service thoroughly before you commit to any of them.  It’s a good idea to try them on for size first, if you can, before you invest in them.  Some applications do not work for every consulting business, so you may have to look for other alternatives.

These are just a few applications in my toolkit. How about you?  Are there some applications you use to help make your consulting business run efficiently and create systems to support what you do?