Stay Cheerful!: 89 Things to do Between Consulting Assignments

By Cindy Tonkin

Inspired by a client question: “how do I stay cheerful between assignments”.
Here are 89 things you can do between assignments to improve your business, to keep your brain active, to keep in touch with clients, to make up for lost time culturally, scientifically and socially!
Priced so you can afford it when between assignments!
The 89 activities are categorised so you can easily find what suits your budget, time frame and penchant.
You will find free things to do, taking less than 4 hours a day, on the computer. Free things to do, taking less than 4 hours a day, away from computer. Things to build your business. Ideas to research online. If it's more your style then discover people-centred activities. Stay at the office and do things there. Or just maintain your mood.

The 89 things come under the headings of:
- Choose Your Attitude
- Consolidate Your Network
- Expand Your Network
- Consolidate or Expand Your Web Presence
- Create Intellectual Property
- Fix Yourself
- Break the Routine get some Personal Time
- Plan and Execute
- Train Your Brain
- Work On Your Business
- Walk a Mile in a Client’s Shoes
- Upgrade Your Skills
- Spring Clean.

And there's even a final section on what not to do.
If you're between assignments, then this is the book for you!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cindy Tonkin
• Release date: Oct 9, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310431401

Cindy Tonkin

Cindy Tonkin is the consultants’ consultant – specialising in working with people whose consultative skills differentiate their product and service. Managers, sales people and consultants. A qualified NLP-trained trainer she combines an extroverted, energetic presentation style with a strong understanding of what makes people tick. The results are fun, dynamic ways to make your sales force, your management team or your cultural change program work.Her solid background in consulting and training means she can design a change program with whatever change elements you need – coaching, training, workshops, action learning projects, whatever suits your organisation’s culture and outcomes!With more than 20 years experience in reengineering and productivity improvement, she has the project management skills to deliver your requirements on time, on budget and in the way you need them to work long term with your organisational culture and market. As a comedic improviser, Cindy can link anything to anything, and surprises often result.Her first book, The Australian Consultant’s Guide, was an Australian Institute of Management bestseller. She has written more than a dozen other books for consultants and managers since then

Book preview

Stay cheerful!

89 Things To Do

Between Consulting Assignments

by Cindy Tonkin

~~~

Smashwords Edition

Text copyright © 2014 Cindy Tonkin

All Rights Reserved

Discover other titles by Cindy Tonkin

Visit my web site at www.consultantsconsultant.com.au

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

How to use this book

The Ideas

What not to do

Sample Chapter: I want to be a Consultant

Introduction

Consulting is a growth industry

The upside of being an independent consultant

The downside of consulting you need to know about now

About the Author

Take the next steps!

Acknowledgements

How to use this book

So you’re between consulting assignments.

Maybe it’s the first time.

Maybe it’s happened before.

Don’t panic.

Of course you will do what you can do, market and find new leads to sell more work. But you may as well stay cheerful while it’s happening.

There are two key areas to balance when between assignments – your mood and your business activity.

My friend Sue and I Skype each week to talk about our businesses. She’s a corporate trainer and has been working on some online business ideas recently. Today she said I’m sick of sinking my time into developing magnificent resources and getting no return on my investment. On all counts I’m doing 9 out of 10, but on the monetary scale I’m at zero.

She’s been spending all her time between assignments creating clever and interesting training materials for her potential clients. She’s also speaking at local networking events. She’s doing lots, but the issue is that she’s not happy about it because she’s measuring herself against monetary criteria.

So that’s why you need to manage both. While you are not actually bringing in money, you need to measure your success by other criteria, and actively manage your mood.

This book contains 89 things you can do between assignments.

We can be between assignments for many reasons –a downturn in the economy, a major client having financial difficulties or a change in client procurement policies, for example. Sometimes it’s because of something you can change in your business: relying too heavily on a single client, neglecting marketing, or falling out with a client.

It may be 3 days, 3 weeks or 3 months since you had your last paid consulting gig, and you’re starting to wonder when your next one might be. It’s an uncomfortable and difficult place to be in. It may make you want to give up, get a real job, lose faith in your abilities or become a nail artist.

Don’t panic.

Here are 89 things to do!

This is the time to do the HQuadrant 2H activities as Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits for Highly Effective People described them. These are the important but not urgent activities – setting up systems, maintaining your assets and creating and maintaining relationships.

Whatever the reason, you can choose to put your energy into maintaining both your mood and activity.

You can go directly to the ideas.

There are 15 sections of ideas, and you can easily read from start to finish or dip into the pages as you see fit.

If you wish to start with the ideas, then please go straight there.

To help you choose where to focus I have broken all the ideas into these content-based categories:

Or go to a section that inspires you and start there.

• Choose Your Attitude

• Consolidate Your Network

• Expand Your Network

• Consolidate Your Web Presence

• Expand