Professional Consulting Skills

Having developed your specialist or technical skills you may find that others start coming to you for advice in your area of expertise. Over time your role may become more focused on providing internal or external consulting advice.


Undertaking consulting work requires an additional set of skills to your specialist or technical skills. The ‘Professional Consulting Skills’ course is targeted for people who are new to internal or external consulting roles or who are established in consulting but want to enhance their client-facing consulting skills.


The course covers the fundamental knowledge and skills required to be an effective consultant. Given that many consulting skills are soft skills, this course places a strong focus on real world exercises and role plays, to allow you to practice the skills that you learn.


Like all Equinox courses, the ‘Professional Consulting Skills’ course is delivered by practicing consultants who apply on a daily basis the skills that they teach.

Duration

1 Day


Course Objectives

Following the completion of this course, students will:

  • Understand the role of consultants and be able to identify the qualities of a good consultant
  • Be able to use a consulting ‘statement of work’ to effectively manage the consulting process
  • Be more effective at communicating and working with, as well as providing excellent service to, clients
  • Apply critical thinking skills to work through client problems.

Audience

Anyone who is:

  • Moving into an internal or external consulting role
  • Seeking to balance specialist or technical skills with client-facing consulting skills.

Course Syllabus

Introduction


What is a consultant?

  • What do consultants offer?
  • What consultants do?

What are the qualities of a good consultant?


Managing the consulting process

  • Objectives
  • Approach
  • Scope
  • Deliverables
  • Assumptions
  • Reporting

Working with Clients

  • Communication skills
  • Asking questions
  • Dealing with politics
  • Managing conflict

Critical thinking

  • Evaluating evidence
  • Clarifying issues and arguments
  • Checking for consistency
  • Thinking methods

Client service

  • Understanding your clients
  • Client service

Key consulting skills

  • Sales and marketing
  • Meetings and workshops
  • Report writing and proposals
  • Time management

Additional Modules

Optional consulting skills modules that can be included in longer in-house courses:

  • Emotional intelligence
  • Presentation skills
  • Administrative skills
  • Building the business case
  • Basic accounting terms

Related Courses

Refer to Equinox's full suite of Business and Consulting training courses.


Prerequisites

None.


View printable course description
Course NameDurationPriceDatesCourse Status
Professional Consulting Skills1 Day$750Wellington 4/07/2012Scheduled
Auckland 12/09/2012Scheduled

All course prices listed by Equinox are in New Zealand dollars and exclude GST.