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Six Greatest Ideas for Becoming a Consultant • 33

and my existing customers accepted it. New customers took a different view of me

as a £1150 a day person and it did my image no harm at all.

I suppose you can overdo it, but remember what you are bringing to a business

in terms of value. If, for example, you are brought in to arbitrate between two op-

posing camps backing different strategies for the company's way ahead and you

manage to find a solution that both sides find acceptable, you may very well have

stopped that company from facing difficult resignations or faltering without a sense

of direction for a long period of time. Now think of what that piece of work has been

worth.

There is no such

Idea 20 - Know which comes first, the product thing as a

product without

Or the CUStomer a market just
as there is no

There is no such thing as a product without a market, just as there is no such thing as a

such thing as a market if you do not have a product for it. So, think in market if you

terms of 'product markets'. do not have a

When you have been on your own for a while, and particularly if you product for it.

meet a lot of middle managers in your clients' premises, you will be sur- So, think in

prised how many people are thinking of doing the same as you, leaving terms of 'prod-

the big company and going on their own. They will speak to you about uct markets'.

their ideas and ask for your comments. Usually they take what I believe is

the wrong approach. They have, for example, thought of or developed and used a

management process or method of training that they believe could become their

'product'. They have computerised it and think that with a bit of investment and

work, that it could become marketable. And they could be right.

Unfortunately this gives them a product but not a product market. They do not

have a product market until they have a customer. So this becomes my advice.

Don't worry about products. There is a network of independent consultants out

there who have a process or a training course, or a piece of software or whatever, to