The Bluffer's Guide® to Consultancy; Bluff Your Way® in Consultancy

by Nigel Viney

• ISBN13: 9781902825892
• ISBN10: 1902825896
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 1999-12-28
• Publisher: Oval Books
• More Book Details
• Purchase Benefits

Summary

A snappy little book containing facts, jargon, and inside information--all that readers need to know to hold their own among the experts.

Author Biography

Nigel Viney, having bluffed his way through a fruitful career in book publishing (with an interval in the oil industry) is now enjoying a new career as a Consultant. He insists his success in this field is solely because he realised at once that Consultancy is populated exclusively by bluffers, the most triumphant being those who succeed in bluffing themselves as effectively as their clients. Nigel Viney is only prepared to reveal all, in this Bluffer's Guide, because he is now well launched on a third career as a writer, having published several books about words, the writer's raw material. These include Magenta Marathon Mecca, a glossary of toponyms, and Amontillado to Yorkshire Pudding, a glossary of personal and place names in food and drink, subjects which, like Consultancy, are ever in demand.

Table of Contents

The Image	p. 7
Consultancy	p. 7
Publicity	p. 8
Self-Promotion	p. 9
Appearance	p. 11
Transport	p. 13
A Personal Chauffeur	p. 15
Stationery	p. 16
The Office	p. 17
Equipment	p. 19
Rules of the Game	p. 20
Making a Date	p. 20
Fixing a Time	p. 21
Playing Hard to Get	p. 22
The First Meeting	p. 23
Entertaining	p. 24
Fees	p. 25
Payment	p. 27
Invoicing	p. 28
Friends	p. 30
Tactics	p. 31
Objectives	p. 31
Research	p. 32
Secrecy and Codewords	p. 33
Jargon	p. 34
Making Use of Networks	p. 35
Meetings	p. 37
Table-turning	p. 39
Dealing with People	p. 40
Going Overseas	p. 41
The Importance of Anecdotes	p. 44
Specialist Consultants	p. 46
Recommendations	p. 48
The Report	p. 59
Appearance	p. 59
Contents	p. 61
Embellishments	p. 61
Essentials	p. 62
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

Dirty work
The essence of consultancy is simply stated, and you should never fail to bear it in mind. You are there to do the dirty work. It is therefore essential you never make the elementary mistake of supposing for a single moment that any of your careful recommendations will necessarily be put into effect. To believe that is to misunderstand the true nature of the consultancy business.

Expertease
Being a consultant means being an expert in a field which you have yourself invented, namely that of telling people who have been doing a job for years, that you know how to do that job better. A bluffer is somebody who pretends to do all this, which comes to very much the same thing in the end.

Invoicing
Take pains to split your invoices as much as possible. Invoices should be presented monthly, and it is always a good plan to invoice expenses separately from fees. This has the benefit of seeming to reduce the overall total.

Sound advice
Recommendations can be sweetened and made more acceptable if the new structures which are suggested provide a lot of people with appointments which have better-sounding names.

Fully booked
Always be hard to get. A blank diary must be made to seem full. Bogus meetings must be cancelled or postponed. You must always appear to have had to tear yourself away from urgent and important matters to attend to your client's needs.

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Excerpted from The Bluffer's Guide to Consultancy: Bluff Your Way in Consultancy by Nigel Viney
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.