Consulting Skills
Course Specifications
Course number: 088996
Course length: 0.5 day(s)
Course Description
Course Objective: You will develop the necessary skills to be a successful consultant, by learning from the best: industry expert Elaine Beich. You will explore the basics of consulting and how it may affect your work and your organization. In addition, you will examine the ethics of consulting, marketing your consulting business, and how to interact with clients and other consultants. 

Target Student: This course is intended for business professionals starting out in any branch of the consulting field. 

Prerequisites: There are no prerequisites for this course. 
Hardware Requirements
•	At least 512 MB of RAM 
•	A Pentium® III with 500 MHz (or better), Macintosh® Intel-based, or PowerPC G4 (or better) processor 
•	A monitor capable of 1024 x 768 screen resolution and 32-bit color display 
Software Requirements
Each computer requires the following software:
•	Microsoft® Windows Vista®, Windows® XP (Professional or Home Edition), Windows® 2000, Windows® 7, or Apple® MacOS® X10.4 (or higher) 
•	Microsoft® Internet Explorer® 7 (or higher), Mozilla® Firefox® 2 (or higher), or Apple® Safari ® 2 (or higher), with pop-up blocking turned off 
•	Adobe® Flash® Player 8 (current version recommended) 
Course Objectives
Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to: 
•	identify what consulting is and recent industry trends that you can use to your advantage as you work in the consulting field. 
•	examine the importance of establishing and maintaining healthy client relationships, including how to conduct a successful first meeting with a client, and then how to continue to build that relationship into a partnership. You will delve even further into the topic of client relationships by identifying how to continuously improve your client relationships and how to manage those relationships after contracts end. Knowing how to expand your market will help you acquire new clients and build your customer base. 
Course Content
Lesson 1: The Basics

Topic 1A: Consulting Basics 
Topic 1B: Develop Skills for Success 
Topic 1C: Be Aware of Business Trends 

Lesson 2: Marketing, Building, and Expanding

Topic 2A: Market Yourself 
Topic 2B: Foster Healthy Client Relationships 
Topic 2C: Expand Your Market 
Topic 2D: The Ethics of Consulting 
Topic 2E: Exude Professionalism