PARTNERSHIP SERIES - Marketing for Consultants Who Hate Marketing

**This program is organized by our partners in the Oregon ODN Chapter! Join our partners, alongside the Minnesota, Pacific Northwest, and Triangle OD Networks for an opportunity for learning and cross-regional connections.

Even if we can work wonders with organizations, for most of us marketing is our Achilles Heel. And for good reason. Marketing OD is unlike virtually every other professional service: Our clients don't know when to call us. They don't know what we might do for them. And they are not confident they can discern a good consultant from a bad one. So how do we market to clients who aren't even looking for us?

Or worse yet, our potential client has already decided what they want (coaching, team building, change management) and they come to us to "place an order" for a specific service. So we have the same status as a caterer or bookkeeper. If you're responding to a public sector RFP, often you can't even talk to the client until deliverables, cost and schedule are locked up in a contract. So how do we create the room to find the real problem behind the client's request?

And just to make matters worse, many of us are mildly allergic to "selling". So, this workshop is about how we can present ourselves to the marketplace in a way that supports our role as a consultant addressing often elusive and misunderstood problems.

Explore:

• The real purpose of marketing
• What clients actually want from us (HINT: It's not your services)
• The 3 basic planks of a sound marketing platform
• How to let the client do the selling for you
• Ways to get your first 10 clients

Presenter: Jerry Talley

Jerry started his 45-year career in Stanford’s Sociology department where he taught for 18 years. Leveraging his research and assessment experience, he moved out into corporate consulting. Over the years he accumulated over 450 client engagements with companies in high tech, higher education, manufacturing, construction, health care, banking, the military, entertainment, hospitality, telecom, city & county government, public utilities, consulting firms, aerospace, college publishing, pharmaceuticals, numerous not-for-profits, and one organic grocery store.

He is no longer providing client services; his practice is now focused on mentoring and coaching for the next generation of organization development consultants. He teaches courses on Unlimited Consulting, Marketing for Consultants, How to Think About Work, and Advanced Problem Solving.