As part of the EU4Business initiative funded by the European Union, the Dnipropetrovsk Business Support Centre, supported by the EBRD, recently organised a three-day training on ‘Business Diagnostics for Consulting’, which was attended by representatives of consulting companies and individual consultants.
Consulting is a process of advising directors and managers on a wide range of issues in the financial, commercial, legal, technological, or technical fields, with expert advice and actions provided by external consultants to solve a particular problem. The purpose of consulting is to help the management system achieve its stated goals.
‘Develop your consulting business’, is a set of training courses developed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development that encompass the acquisition of key skills and awareness of resources and methods for effective and efficient consulting, as well as for successful advisory business.
"The training is based on the best international practices and in-depth expert knowledge. It is interactive and includes practical exercises and real examples. You will learn how to formulate your goals and objectives, analyze the client, even create his psychological profile" trainer and leading specialist Volodymyr Chernyavsky told participants at the start of the course.
During the training, the participants were trained in a variety of situations that they could expect during their consulting work with a customer. "In particular, it is extremely important that the consultant can correctly diagnose. Trust is no less important. When the client sees that the consultant is openly saying that we cannot help here or that you do not need this consulting right now, you do not need to spend money, it is trustworthy. The second rule is the reputation that has been developing for years. It never comes from scratch, the reputation of a consultant is very difficult to develop, as in any other business, but it collapses very quickly. The third rule is the results and value that you brought to the client," said Chernyavsky.
The participants of the training even tried themselves out in a kind of psychological game - in ten minutes each group had to create a portrait of one of the participants of the training (where he/she was born, what kind of education and preferences he has, whether he has a family and even what kind of food a person likes). In all three groups, the forecasts turned out to be very precise, and the participants successfully described an unknown person with 70-80% accuracy.
As a result of the training, the participants also received some homework - to create an individual step-by-step model of tools and skills for conducting business diagnostics. And only those students who have successfully completed this task will receive the certificate after the training.
The Dnipropetrovsk Business Support Centre is part of the EU-funded Network of Business Support Centres, which aims to improve the competitiveness and bankability of Ukrainian SMEs through the provision of business advice and capacity building. It also supports BSOs in 15 regions of Ukraine in setting up a network of EU4Business Business Support Centres (BSCs). At least 30,000 SMEs and entrepreneurs will benefit from the project.