ACPM: Financial consulting

Transition to consulting: mindset, role and new opportunities

• 1.1. Glass ceiling and internal barriers to transitioning into consulting.
• 1.2. Mental barriers and limiting beliefs when transitioning into consulting.
• 1.3. Overcoming mental traps.
• 1.4. Workshop: how to overcome fears and doubts — impostor syndrome, fear of sales, fear of publicity, and fear of raising prices.
• 1.5. Transition from the role of a finance professional to the role of a consultant.
• 1.6. Market trends, niches, and financial consultant products.

Developing yourself as a financial consultant

• 2.1. Financial expert in consulting: a new context, the same strengths.
• 2.2. Rules of the game: what you need to know about trust, confidentiality, and reputation before the first client.
• 2.3. Entry point into consulting: what to enter with, what to develop, and where to grow.
• 2.4. How to choose your path: key recommendations.

Consulting practice: how a finance expert can get clients without becoming a salesperson

• 3.1. How to attract clients without becoming a salesperson: relationships that lead to deals.
• 3.2. How to build a client acquisition system: from occasional assignments to a stable flow.
• 3.3. The right client, the right moment: how to enter into relationships and assess opportunities.
• 3.4. Diagnosis instead of presentation: how to conduct a dialogue so that the client comes to the decision themselves.
• 3.5. How to formulate your offer so that the client understands the value and chooses you.
• 3.6. Pricing and Value-based pricing in financial consulting.
• 3.7. How to defend the value of your services: negotiations about price, scope, and terms.
• 3.8. From the first project to a stable practice: how to retain clients and generate new projects.

Fundamentals of project management in consulting

• 4.1. Planning consulting projects — Parts 1 and 2.
• 4.2. Risk management and communication management.
• 4.3. Stakeholder management: identification, analysis, and engagement — Parts 1 and 2.

Execution and monitoring of consulting projects

• 5.1. Project execution monitoring and control: KPIs, deadlines, responsibilities, and recording decisions.
• 5.2. Managing changes within a project: how to say no without conflict and avoid becoming a permanent operator — Parts 1 and 2.
• 5.3. Use of project management tools in consulting.

Completion and evaluation of consulting projects

• 6.1. Delivering results and completing contracts.
• 6.2. Project results evaluation: analysis of achievement of objectives and summarizing the results.

Legal fundamentals of working with clients in consulting

• 7.1. Contracts and legal security of a financial consultant.
• 7.2. Protection of clients’ personal and financial data: what a consultant needs to know.
• 7.3. NDA as a basic trust-building tool: contractual formalization.
• 7.4. Ethics and legal security in the consultant’s work.
• Additional materials:
• - Consulting services agreement template.
• - Contract review checklist.
• - NDA template.
• - Template letter for approval of publication of a case, testimonial, or logo.
• - Follow-up email template.
• - Consultation protocol template.
• - Consultant disclaimer template.
• - Ethical and legal checklist.

Financial consultant development strategy

• 8.1. Components of a successful financial consultant development strategy: laying the foundation for the long term. The economics of our business.
• 8.2. Client profile. Why is it dangerous to make a mistake in defining it? Building positioning around those we plan to serve.
• 8.3. Client trigger events that create a need to search for an external finance professional, and how to use them.
• 8.4. Positioning matrix: who orders what, when, and how.

Expert visibility in the market

• 9.1. Financial consultants’ market presence model and channels for self-presentation. Marketing infrastructure.
• 9.2. Expert profile: what to emphasize? How not to move from being an expert to show business.
• 9.3. Content and the purpose of its creation. How not to waste time on what nobody reads? Public evidence of expertise and its alternatives.

Client acquisition and practice development

• 10.1. Where can experts find clients outside social media? Overview of opportunities: other people’s audiences, referrals, partnerships, and paid promotion.
• 10.2. Offer — content — traffic: setting up paid promotion of services.
• 10.3. 90-day plan for developing your own project: daily actions that lead to the intended results.

Final assessment