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Consulting Sales Rainmaker Coaching Program

“To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been
their finest hour.”

Winston Churchill

“We are going to mentor you. We will review your work and give you feedback. You will not be alone.

This program teaches you how to sell to senior executives with large discretionary budgets, even if you lack credibility,  have never sold before, or are relatively junior. We will teach you the specific initial project that you should sell, that is profitable, and that sets you and your firm up for a long-term relationship with the client. This project is designed to create numerous opportunities for future sales and afford you an opportunity to meet more client senior executives in such a way that they voluntarily tell you their most pressing issues, share privileged information with you, discuss their greatest pain points and rank them for you. This naturally, creates an opportunity for more sales. 

The goal in any client relationship, especially from the first project, is to build a long-term relationship that organically leads to more projects, where it doesn’t feel like you’re forcing yourself on the client since you’re building a relationship with a client where they’re drawing you into the issues. This could lead to any kind of project work, like relatively smaller strategy, operations, change management, or digital projects, or if this is what you are seeking, even larger projects like turnarounds, and transformations. What we’re focusing on is how do you set up that profitable first project that’s going to allow you to build trust with a client and overcome the rejections they have, and do it in such a way that they want to bring you into the company. We are going to use a technique that we have used many times across sectors, regions, and practices, and we know how it works. 

I became a partner in my late twenties and I cover that extensively in Partnership. Memoir and (Re)building a Consulting Practice. And I subsequently had to review nominations for future partners. You become a partner when the firm believes you have proven that you can convince clients to give you a predictable, sustainable, and profitable stream of revenue above a certain size, and you have the team to deliver the work to the required standards. The most important part is a predictable, sustainable, and profitable stream of revenue above a certain size. You need to have a system/machine that works for you not just for one year or two years, but as long as you want to remain a partner. We will teach you that system.

When I was younger and did not have my own clients, and an RFP arrived for a strategy study or transformation program, I would typically meet the client, but not pitch for the work they wanted to do. The project we would offer them is what we will teach you in this program because this project allowed us to build a better relationship with the client. When I was a partner and had my own clients, once every year I would do this same project, that we will teach you, for each client because it further strengthens the relationship and generated a list of their pain points to pursue further projects.

If you are an associate or manager, you may be wondering why you should worry about sales. The end goal of being an associate is not to be the best associate. It’s to get to the next level, and the level thereafter, and to the final level which is a partner. And to be a partner you need to sell. If you are in a boutique firm you need to sell to survive. If you cannot sell in a boutique firm, there may not be other ways to avoid retrenchments or bankruptcy. If you can sell earlier, you should sell earlier. Sales are about a process and trust. It’s not about the level you are at in a firm.  

There are specific mechanics and trade secrets to selling projects that lead to large positive cash flow sustainable projects. The methods cannot be found on the internet and there are few people who can and are willing to teach them. We can and will teach you the critical path. Securing large profitable sales is the heart of building a consulting practice and transforming your career. Firms value, reward, and protect rainmakers who bring in significant revenue. What would be the impact on your life, reputation, earnings, career, and family if you could sell major consulting engagements and grow your consulting practice? Picture your life and the fulfillment you could have. How much would you enjoy your life?

In my career, I rarely focused on what many would call lead generation. Lead generation is a high-volume, low-quality approach. I understand that sales leads are important, but I find there is a better way to do this. I literally set my sights on seven clients and served those seven clients as my primary clients throughout my career. Yet, I selected those seven clients very carefully with specific criteria in mind, and in one case, it took me nine months to secure a meeting with the CFO, and it was considered a significant achievement for the office when we built that relationship and started serving them. It also meant I deliberately choose not to serve some clients. I never pursued every sale that was possible and declined some work.

That planning portion is part of the training program. Focusing on leads implies some existing clients will be lost, and you need to replace them. It’s an acceptance in your mind of this churn approach, and you should not accept this. That model of consulting will lead to burnt hours to find clients, smaller engagements, and it’s just logical that there is less trust with newer clients. It also implies you may have a “flawed” approach if you need to churn through so many clients. So this program will show you why and how to pursue fewer clients and set up the relationship and studies such that the client does all the work to tell you what their issues are, the so-called leads, and how to pursue them.

What we found is a consultant’s life, career, business model, and I would say even happiness levels improve substantially when the focus is on the same clients over many years. The quality of work improves, the size of projects increases, and the amount of lost time chasing for leads drops substantially. So we will show you how to meet and build the right relationship with a new client, but the goal is to keep them, knowing that some churn of clients is inevitable but should never be the main part of the sales model.

This program is for our most loyal, serious, and committed clients. It’s a powerful skill and it’s meant to be a small group. You have to do the work. The results can be significant and if you are stuck in your career, this can radically alter your trajectory. We will teach you what we teach only our executive coaching clients, which is a >$100K program.

Michael”

consulting sales

Step 1: Read the full details below.
Step 2: Email us your application. 

A unique 3-part structure

THANK YOU to our FC Insiders and Legacy members for Your Feedback!

You asked to introduce a focused sales coaching program. You asked for mentorship opportunities.

We listened.

Here’s the 3-part structure we’re going to use to make the Sales Rainmaker coaching even BETTER than any program we ever offered …

PART ONE – LIVE SMALL PRIVATE GROUP COACHING SESSIONS (SPG)

  • We also call these sales clinics or results clinics.
  • Exclusively for CSR Members.
  • Guaranteed personalized attention from Michael/Kris.
  • Interactive SPG/touch-point with Michael/Kris 3 times a month over 4 months period, giving individual feedback to participants as they progress through the critical path outlined in the training program, with a goal of closing a sale.
    • You will complete each step of the critical path leading to a sale.
    • We review your progress/material submitted/your question each week, and provide personalized feedback.
    • You have an opportunity to get your individual question answered weekly.
    • Have a decision to make? You can get our perspective to help you make the decision. If you are stuck with not knowing the best approach to follow in the proposal, you can get guidance in the weekly SPG.
    • You can call in from a hotel room, airport lounge, or your home office. We will select a time that is the best compromise for the whole group.
    • Weekly SPG calls allow you to have consistent feedback as you are progressing through the critical path outlined in the executive coaching level training program.
  • Can’t attend some sessions live? Submit your question/work to review, we’ll answer it during the sales clinic session and you’ll get our feedback in the VIDEO REPLAY.
  • Watch us mentor other participants, and learn from them and alongside them.
    • You will see the feedback we offer them and see the progress they make.
    • You are not just learning from your feedback, but from all the members on the call – shorten your learning curve.
    • This is of greater value than you may realize and real breakthroughs often come from an idea triggered by listening to  feedback for another participant.
  • Troubleshoot your most pressing sales issues and goals.
  • Ensuring participants do not get stuck or stagnate. Clients said they need weekly interaction with us to use our formidable tools and methodologies to help them maximize the results they can achieve.

What are the Dates?

You tell US!

Vote on time and day of the week options. Approximately Saturday & Sunday,

so you can take the call in private and without stress. We will pick the best compromise time for everyone, including Michael.

$24,000. VALUE. Tuition fee for this program? See below

PART TWO – 3-MONTH VIDEO SERIES EXPLAINING THE ENTIRE SALES PROCESS

  • Sales critical path taught as video/audio modules/lessons within modules, to securing large and profitable consulting/professional services projects.
    • This has only ever been taught to our executive coaching clients before (>$100k investment level).
    • This sales approach/method/steps can be applied to all consulting from strategy to operations, to digital. Our executive coaching clients also very successfully applied our sales approach outside of consulting.
    • It’s a set-up for a larger project.
  • A clear outcome. Selling influential, profitable consulting projects that are tailored to lead to more sales.
  • Complete your work for each step and use small private group coaching sessions to accelerate your progress and results.

$25,000. VALUE. Tuition fee for this program? See below

PART THREE – DOWNLOADABLE RESOURCES

  • Downloadable resources such as a proposal template, client letter template, etc., to help you save time. Previously available only to selected executive coaching clients (>$100k investment level).

$10,000. VALUE. Tuition fee for this program? See below

SUMMARY

90 Days of Personal Mentorship with Michael/Kris to help you become

a sales rainmaker at your firm

(1) LIVE SMALL PRIVATE GROUP COACHING SESSIONS (SPG)/SALES CLINICS. 3X A MONTH OVER A 4 MONTHS PERIOD

(2) 3-MONTH VIDEO PROGRAM SHOWING THE CRITICAL PATH FOR THE SALES PROCESS

(3) DOWNLOADABLE RESOURCES

Like-Minded Community & VIP Support

… To help you get even Bigger Results and Faster Results…

SALES RAINMAKER MENTORSHIP PATHWAY

Small Weekly Private Group Coaching Sessions/Sales Clinics ($24,000)

Video Program of the Entire Sales Process ($25,000)

PLUS!

Exclusive Community (Priceless! At least $2,000)

Downloadable Resources ($10,000)

TOTAL VALUE

$61,000.00. Tuition fee for this program? See below

Why sales mastery will transform your career?

This is a note Michael put together when we were designing the Sales Rainmaker coaching pathway.

“Sales in consulting is the measurable outcome of having influence. It’s the metric of influence. If you want to know your true level of influence look at the sales that you personally generated, leaving aside credits. We want you to be influential. You may have the most powerful management idea in the world. Yet, that idea can only change the client, and hopefully, the world if it is embedded into the client via a consulting project. The consulting sale is the mechanism through which the idea influences the client and the world. 

Sales is the lead indicator of influence. Share on X

If you struggle to sell in a natural and consistent manner it’s virtually impossible to build a firm/office/practice, and it’s practically impossible to join the leadership of any consulting firm. Sales is not taught in consulting firms. It’s largely a sink or swim approach. Our long-term FC Insiders also expressed this pain point. Principals, partners and senior partners are left to fend alone as if they managed their part of the business alone. That is why it is scary. For the one skill that determines your true standing, reputation, and influence, there is no training, best practices or guidebook. Most consultants are scared to sell because they don’t know how to sell. They don’t know the mechanics of overcoming resistance and building trust.

This forces them into unhealthy and unsustainable tactics to hit their sales numbers.

Hitting your sales targets by collecting sales credits is one common approach. Yet, keeping meticulous tabs on your contribution to someone else’s sales gets tedious and tiring after a while. It’s easy to do it for a year or two, but then it’s just a drain on your self-esteem, energy, and morale to fight for the credit that you think you deserve. For minorities and females, this can be particularly burdensome. And it will always be a case of getting less credit than you deserve because -people generally don’t just give away credit. Too many consultants spend their whole lives developing a plan to gain sales credits versus becoming a rainmaker.

Not being able to sell, or sell enough to meet your targets, means you typically have to be working with a senior partner/rainmaker who can share his/her spoils. Even if you don’t like the work, the team, or the partner, you have to grit your teeth and just do the work. Imagine selling and managing tick-the-box compliance work for a bank just to earn the sales credits when what you really want is to help the bank with their major strategy and operations issues?

When I was building a consulting office or practice, be it in the emerging markets or a developed economy, I had to solve numerous growth problems. We had to figure out how to train our people while selling the engagements to keep them busy. We had to determine how to structure and staff the engagement such that we did what we promised the client with the lowest labor cost, in the shortest time possible without burning out the team. We had to build a standard approach to manage all engagements.

What I found is that the biggest hurdle was developing a consistent sales process that did not change between clients, and led to larger sales. Share on X

At first, I would develop very customized proposals. It worked at times but was not sustainable. This was a tedious and time-consuming process with little return, and it is not easy to get an associate to write customized proposals. This sucks up the partners’ time. I would try to show insights. This is a major flaw that is explained in the program. What this program will do is show you the standard sales process that I developed that generated bespoke recommendations for clients, and set up the firm for larger engagements. This was the key step. 

And note there are two parts. First, a standard sales process and second, setting up the firm for future sales through the first sale. Share on X

Using this process I developed the 7-5 model which allowed me to plan out and deliver sales in 7 months of the year with existing clients, and 5 months of the year with new clients or helping other partners. There is a specific reason to use the 7-5 model and not a 10-2 model and so on. There is great power in knowing what your year will look like before the year begins, versus reacting to RFPs. Being reactive and waiting for clients to have problems and come to you is not the best way to sell consulting projects. You need to go to them and show them what they need, by getting them to see problems they did not know existed before. This is what we will teach.

I applied this sales approach to the strategy practice, and then the operations practice, and thereafter other consulting practices. So we knew it works, and then to other offices, regions, and countries.

In the space of just 3 months in my late twenties, I was able to secure 4 projects each worth more than a million. These were not credits. One project was worth greater than 4 million with an additional incentive performance structure which we realized within 3 months. All were high-margin. I achieved this because I used the sales approach above. I was not a partner at this time, but clients treated me like a partner. CEOs and COOs wanted my advice and wanted my teams to lead the projects. I was invited to attend global partner meetings because several of my projects were voted as being among the most eminent and influential at the firm. Sales forced the firm to treat me like a partner. The firm had to make me a partner because clients were treating me like a partner. This is not to show off in any way, but to explain the power of the process. Clients of FIRMSconsulting will know all of this from Partnership. Memoir and Rebuilding a Consulting Practice.

Due to my real-world experience, and that of Kris and the other contributors, we can draw on this and many other examples to guide you on what worked best, reduce your trial and error and help you role-model our best practices. This is really the most important part. Role-model what we did that works. Each time you try an untested or broken sales approach at a client you could lose that client. There is a lot at stake in a trial and error approach.

We will teach you what worked for us, and executive coaching clients, when it comes to getting into the client, truly earning their trust, and building up to helping them overhaul their entire business. Getting the attention of senior clients such that they trust you, and allow you to influence them, is done in a methodical and thoughtful process. Published chapters and books were the pivotal changes in my career that truly transformed how I sold consulting projects.

If someone had given me the advice and shown me how to publish a book earlier in my career, and how to use it to generate sales, this would have changed my life. Share on X

The benefits are overwhelming as I explain in this program. Once the books were published, I no longer had to seek out potential clients. They sought me out. I had a global audience and was not limited to the regional geography where I was based. I had the most senior partners and senior clients asking for me. Other partners who took my book to clients, served as my de-facto sales team by introducing my thinking to their clients. The book also energized the practice since, at the time, no books where written for my practice. It rapidly accelerated my path to the partnership. In the program, we will discuss the book/chapter strategy, and what happens after the book opens doors for you, or you have secured a meeting in some other way.

(note from Kris: if you want to use this strategy and you don’t have a way to become a published author fast, cost effectively and at the right quality level, if I was in your place I would apply to join the Author program, which allows you become a published author with minimal time investment from you).

If you can sell and build a predictable, sustainable, and profitable stream of revenue above a certain size, you are almost untouchable in the firm, from the sense of charting your career. You decide what you will be working on. You decide the conversations you will have. You decide, or at least have a large say in, how to invest the profits in your team. Influence within your firm comes from being the guardian of a stable and recurring source of revenue on which the firm is dependent. Influence for a smaller firm is the same. The more stable recurring revenue your boutique firm has, the more confidence you have to fund growth and take the risks that come with growth. 

Once you have this book of consulting business you are effectively managing your own business within the overall firm. And you need to think like a business owner and not a consultant. Share on X

Consultants who struggle to sell will always fight for resources to build teams. Those consultants will not always get the best people. If you can sell critical projects to crown jewel clients you will attract the best people. Top-performers will want to be on your teams. Team building is easier, though you still need to have high standards, hold them to that and invest in your people. Inspire & require as Marvin Bower said.

This program is structured to help you learn many of the important lessons we have experienced in our careers. For example, never make the mistake of selling yourself as part of the delivery of the project, no matter the size of the billings. When you do this, you cannot build the business because you have to deliver the work. To be successful in sales you must (1) have a clear outcome, (2) find and role-model someone who was successful at sales, (3) 100% commit to using their process and immersing yourself in the process – this cannot be sporadic if you want a breakthrough in your life and career, and (4) commit to the process for a long time since mastery in anything comes from repetition – keep doing it for a year or more until you master it. 

We will show you how to role-model and use our sales strategy and process. Share on X

Across FIRMSconsulting we have always focused on the analytics and delivery of the work. Now we will teach you how to sell the work, which is the first building block to a successful practice.”

Who is a good fit for this program?

As you can see, the Sales Rainmaker coaching program is very similar to our executive coaching but offers more frequent coaching opportunities, weekly access to guidance from Michael/Kris, sharing of lessons from peers, community, more resources, and specialized training, at a significantly more affordable price (see price below) versus our executive coaching fee (>$100k).

This program is a great fit for you if you…

  • Lack a seasoned mentor.
  • Feel lost and suffering from fatigue from lack of results and costly trial and error.
  • Need coaching and guidance to help you meet clients, build relationships and generate credibility.
  • Need help to increase your sales to a substantial level.
  • Need help managing the inevitable sales conflicts with internal colleagues.
  • Understand that profitable sales is the engine to build a consulting firm/office/practice. The same is applicable for any other business.
  • Know sales is the next primary hurdle in your career growth.
  • Want to reduce costly trial and error by learning from those who have done it successfully.
  • Want to learn the unique sales methodologies we have used so effectively in our work, including in our studies on StrategyTraining.com and SCR-Advanced.
  • Need to grow your practice or consulting firm.
  • Understand that the primary way to partnership, and to remain a partner, is via significant sales.
  • What to become more influential with clients and within your firm.
  • Want clarity on the best approach to building service offerings that prospective clients are interested in.
  • Being a leader at work and a leader and home is challenging. You need coaching on personally managing the ins and outs of what you’re trying to do as a leader responsible for driving sales.
  • Would like to start coaching your team members on the program, as you’re learning. You know your focus must be on translating that learning into action/results with your team as fast as possible.

Tuition fee

The tuition fee for Sales Rainmaker coaching program is $61,000.00+ $29,997 per member for qualified and approved FC Insiders and Legacy members. Options for a further 50% discount are explained below for unique cases (special cases only: very few discounted spots are possible given the cost we incur to offer this opportunity).

Selected members must have an active FC Insider or Legacy member status throughout the duration of the Sales Rainmaker coaching pathway to remain in the program. An active FC Insider or Legacy member can apply for an exception to nominate their spouse to take this program.

This price does not reflect the value and ROI of this release.

  • What is the value of charting your own future?
  • What is the value of bringing in so much work that the firm cannot dictate your career?
  • What is the value of securing large engagements you want to deliver?
  • What is the value of being able to fund the development of your team, office, practice and/or firm?
  • What is the value of being truly independent in your career?
  • What is the value of securing a seven-figure engagement?
  • What is the value of being the go-to person for industry leaders to fix their most important issues?
  • What is the value of being referred by industry leaders due to the quality of your work?
  • What is the value of being promoted ahead of your peers?
  • What is the value of enhancing your firm’s reputation and brand?
  • What is the value of growing your firm versus closing your firm?
  • What is the value of skyrocketing your career versus being counseled to leave as a weak performer?

However, we are trying to make this accessible for as many FC Insiders as possible, specifically for FC Insiders and Legacy members who are based in DEVELOPING countries or have unique financial circumstances such as an ill spouse / loss of second income in the family etc.

There will be a 50% discount for a small number of spots only if the following condition is met. (special cases only: very few discounted spots are possible given the cost we incur to offer this opportunity and the fact that we are only taking a small group of clients so we can dedicate sufficient attention to each client to help them get results.) 

  • 50% discount is applicable for FC Insiders who have participated in FC Insider documentaries.

Discounted tuition fee is $14,997 per person.

Payment options are available upon request.

Limited spots

Access to the Sales Rainmaker coaching program is not available for application/purchase year-round. We may only run it once or we may be opening up applications to take part in the Sales Rainmaker Coaching Program from time to time (may be years apart).

We have limited spots for this opportunity for 3 reasons:

  1. This is our internal coveted sales strategies and processes to sell multi-million dollar engagements, that has been proven to work incredibly well.
    1. Moreover, it’s one thing to know about the sales strategy, it’s completely another thing to have someone show the ins and outs to implement the sales strategy step by step.
    2. For example, all of Michael’s colleagues could see the sales strategies Michael was using. But guess how many of them could actually successfully implement it? I bet you guessed correctly. No-one. It’s too hard to do without knowing the ins and outs, and it’s especially too hard to do so without help during the implementation from someone who knows the process very well.
    3. The program gives access to tools we have successfully used over decades to outperform peers and we continue to use them. We are only admitting a small group of our most loyal and most supportive members to access our best strategies and tools. You can understand why we would want to limit access to this program.
  2. It is an expensive program to build, maintain and continue investing in, and our costs depend on many variables, including the number of participants. This means we will have limited spots available.
  3. We intend to keep the group small so we can dedicate enough attention to each client so this further limits the seats available.

This program is not for everyone. It is for FC Insiders and Legacy members who are willing to invest their time, effort, and resources in themselves, which I believe is the safest and best investment one can make. I personally invest a six-figure amount annually in my personal and professional development. Just one of the programs I am a part of requires an investment of six figures. The fastest way to get where you want to go, and where you want your team to go, is to get help from someone who already achieved what you are trying to achieve.

Get reimbursed by your employer

Need help getting reimbursed by your employer? Click here to download a proposal template.

Most large organizations, and many smaller ones, will reimburse tuition for professional development.

Partial payment by the company and partial payment by you is also possible.

Reserving your spot

Please email [email protected], applying for this program. We may close applications earlier. In your email please let us know if you are applying for the full price or for a discounted price. If you are applying for a discounted price please provide more details on what necessitates the discounted price. We will try to approve every request for full price from FC Insiders and Legacy members in good standing who have a track record of supporting FC and a track record of good intentions and professionalism, while spots are available. Yet it will be a small group and not everyone will be admitted. It will help to explain your track record. If you will need to break the tuition fee into payments please let us know and we will provide more details.

We want to see your success story

This is a significant investment for us. But we feel we can do something unique. Think about us spending this amount of money, time, and effort building out the Sales Rainmaker coaching program. There are much easier ways for us to generate revenue.

The full disclaimer here: we want to see your success story. We want to see what happens for you. We want to show it to a marketplace: if you have the right coaching, step-by-step guidance, playbooks, templates look what these people can do. And so, we are doing this also as a highlight community. We want to see you become very successful and we want to highlight you and your organization across our platforms. We also want to see you making a meaningful impact for your organization. We want to see this group grow and succeed even though it makes more sense for us, from a revenue generation and personal time requirement perspective, to invest in other initiatives.

What does it take to get significant ROI from this program?

Each of our programs is designed so there is a potential to get at least 10 times to ROI vs. tuition.

What does it take?

Hard work, discipline, and showing up.

We can’t guarantee your specific results. But we can guarantee that we will show up and deliver. The Sales Rainmaker coaching program offers the tools to help you really stand out and to help you grow your career and business. You will have access to advanced strategies to make the next 12 months your year of growth.

Get yourself signed up ASAP. I believe if you can step into this opportunity and get somebody credible who can guide you with access to the effective strategies, templates, case studies, coaching and individualized guidance, you can breakthrough to the next level of your career/business.

There is a massive benefit in being in the initial groups. The initial groups usually get a lot more personalized attention and help shape the program based on their individual needs. This means you can get more personalized help in the FIRST group than in any subsequent groups.

The Sales Rainmaker coaching program offers unbelievable ROI potential. Its sales! The point of the program is to help you increase the revenue you generate! Now, Michael agreed to do this program in 2023. Many clients asked for it. If this program will be too time consuming or stressful for us to mentor, we will likely NOT take on more clients.

So this maybe your ONE & ONLY chance to be personally mentored by Michael & I                                                         

to help you become a rainmaker at your firm.

The successful people DO what failures WON’T.

Learn. Apply. Advance.

Kris

To apply email team@firmsconsulting.com.

Kindly note that our standard terms and conditions apply for this new coaching program.

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