Whether you are inside of a company or supporting a business from the outside as a contractor or even if you are building your network, there are three things everybody wants from you:
- Subject matter expertise
- Objectivity
- Bandwidth
At our monthly lunch together, I traded ideas around these concepts with my mentor-consultant, J Francisco Escobar, of JFE International. As a consultant to a number of clients in a variety of industries, he has seen it all.
“Most of us are hired because of our ability to understand a certain subject matter area,” Francisco said. “A company hires an employee or a consultant because of what they know.”
But there’s more. “Being an objective ‘outside’ observer also is a skill and need of the outside consultant,” Francisco added. “Because of your expertise, you get called on for your opinion. And that is very valuable to business leaders.”
Lastly, companies hire outside consultants purely because they need hands.
“But they know they need to hire knowledgeable, objective hands,” Francisco added. “It really is a balance of all three things. Coupled with how well you know the company and its industry and you can become indispensable to your client.”
Add knowledge to connectedness and you become valuable. Same goes in networking: if you are knowledgeable (the go-to guy), objective (see things fairly without bias in recommending new connections) and have the bandwidth (participate and refer people from your network) than you become an indispensable networker.
Relentless
