[Advice] ABC for the Consultant

If you’re a consultant, you’re going to want to know the difference between selling and marketing.

So, let’s be clear here at HSCT.

Selling for the consultant is what happens when the client calls you back, signs the check and you deposit it.

Marketing for the consultant is what happens at every step before and after those three moments.

Now, some will say that you are always closing, in the manner of Glengarry/Glen Ross, but we here at HSCT would argue that you as the consultant are always marketing.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

Failure is Not an Option

It turns out that the most important trait for success for children is conscientiousness.

Conscientiousness now has become the third positive character trait for success in life along with grit and empathy.

Empathy is a core trait of emotional intelligence, in that it requires us to abandon self to try to get into the skin of others.

Raising children who are conscientious—even in this world—and who will find a way through failure without damaging others, is the only way to bring about the next great moon shot.

You know that place where failure is not an option.

-Peace Be With You All-

Unbundled Civility

Let’s have an honest talk about the good old days.

And, please bear with us. This is going to go a little long.

Civility and discourse seem to be on the wane as the instantaneous nature of communication becomes more and more ubiquitous in our everyday lives.

It appears as though society has traded civility, good manners, good breeding and other elements of moral and Godly character, for an increase in perceived authenticity, the freedom to air our “dirty laundry,” and unload embarrassing baggage, not only on social media, but increasingly in the workplace, the church and the school.

Along with this comes the exchange of grace and forgiveness for the freedom to judge any mismatch of words and deeds, to take measure and revel in spectacle.

Thus, incivility becomes a new form of pornography—briefly gratifying when we are being “true to ourselves” and emotionally “authentic” at the workplace meeting table–but leaving behind a wake of emotional, psychological and moral damage upon others.

George Washington diligently copied in school 110 maxims for proper behavior, that were initially hand written and passed down from Jesuit scholars in the 16^th century and were titled Biensance de la Conversation entre le Hommes (Decency of Conversation among Men).

They come from a time before the 21^st century, when social conduct was considered more than just a sign of good breeding. Proper social conduct then, was part of the pavement on the road to success, along with grit, conscientiousness and perseverance.

But what about now?

Culture is changing because of three things:

The speed of our communication
The irreverence of our communication
The disruption of long standing social mores

The conflicts of the 21^st century in organizations of all kinds, will be between the vocal minority (also composed of the silent majority) who will hold to the rules of civility in discourse, no matter what the platform.

And those who will appear to be the majority (who may in fact be in the minority) who will throw the rules out in favor of the illusion of freedom, authenticity and the easy path.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Advice] Designing a System for the No-Name Consultant

To develop as a consultant, digital marketing and using the tools of online digital content development are the most critical tools in your toolbox.

And, if you’re not connected to Booz Allen, McKinsey, or Boston Consulting Group, they you have only three tools in your box available to you, to grow your business:

Researching
Reading
Writing

These three tools serve as the cornerstone of all digital marketing efforts, and thus, as a budding consultant, with no name recognition, no building, no fancy cards and nothing but time, your best bet is to sit in front of the computer and grind it out.

Then, distribute your grind in a drip, by drip, by drip fashion throughout the social channels to which your audience flocks every day.

-Peace Be With You All-

Most Valuable Battleground

Is anyone listening?

Reading well, listening thoroughly and responding appropriately are the hallmarks of working through the minefield that is adult interaction.

However, our brains are changing demonstrably through intersection and interaction with the internet, social media and mobile devices.

The brain already processes information twice as fast as a human being speaks it, and thus attention wanders and multitasking becomes a way to keep the brain engaged and to avoid boredom, rather than to actually accomplish tasks of merit.

Listening well and maintaining eye contact is critical, but as face-to-face communication has degraded, eye contact becomes the hallmark of a valuable conversation.

The bunker that we have built inside of ourselves is cracked through eye contact, listening well and responding appropriately, but attention—true attention—becomes the most valuable battleground in the 21^st century.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

Christian Peacemaking in a Fallen World – Bully Edition

Bullies are everywhere it seems.

They are at school. They are at work.

Have they always been around or are we only now becoming sensitive to their presence and their impact?

From Donald Sterling to the workplace bully to the disaffected school shooter, modern Western culture seems to be turning up more and more of the disaffected and the dysfunctional.

Eventually, the societal call will come to violate the inviolable in order to ferret out and better address the impacts of bully pathology.

The conflation between the everyday bully and the societal scourge will become easier and easier as time progresses and peace will become harder and harder to attain.

There will be less understanding, less forgiveness and the road to reconciliation will be even tougher.

The hard work of #BuildingForTheFuture is just beginning…

-Peace Be With You All-

[Opinion] Grains of Sand in the Human Heart

A handful of sand contains one million grains.

How many ideas does that number of grains represent?

How much untapped potential?

The conflicts of the 21^st century will more pointedly focus on the conflict between potential and potential neither realized, nor accessed.

Real wisdom and leadership will come, not from designing more fancy tools, but from accessing old knowledge and applying it to, what will appear to be new challenges.

How many grains of sand can be contained in the human heart?

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

The Artistic Part of Marketing

Brands and corporations assume that consumers are either always listening to their bullhorn and noise, or are never listening at all to anything and thus must be shouted at via a bullhorn.

However, if that doesn’t work, then brands get depressed, defensive or melancholy and stop trying. And ultimately disappear.

Or revert to ever larger and more unseemly spectacle.

The reality is something much more mundane–and hopeful.

Consumers’ interest and attention ebbs and flows like a river. It is fickle, unfixed and ever changing.

The hard work for brands is to remain consistently interesting, engaging and relevant so that when consumer attention comes back, the brand hasn’t changed.

The hard work of overcoming the fear of being irrelevant tomorrow and the anxiety to just keep yelling today, is the artistic part of marketing.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Advice] Queen of the YouTube Selfie

Narcissism is the great modern diagnoses.

From philosophers to social scientists to political theorists, the erudite thought leaders have spilled rivers of ink (or created tons of bytes) by critiquing the rise of everything from social media to the “selfie” and positing that such developments spell the end of Western civilization.

For our money, the end of Western civilization may come about, but not because a few million people posted images of themselves on social media sites.

And here’s a prediction for the intelligentsia: If the candidates for President in 2065 don’t have at least a Youtube channel, we here at HSCT will be genuinely surprised.

After all, we hear that you can’t even get a book deal these days without having a platform and an audience first.

To join our email list, please, head on over to http://www.hsconsultingandtraining.com/hsct-offers page and sign up today. After you do that, download our two FREE offers: [download id=”2414″] and [download id=”2390″].

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

Why We Design Systems

The human brain seeks order out of chaos. It can’t help itself.

We create systems, cultures, organizations, traditions and stories to be able to make sense out of a world that seems inexplicable, where things seem to happen without reason or logic.

This ingrained need to create order has led to the creation of roads, bridges, governments and entertainment.

Conflict also results, because the universe (i.e. other people, circumstances, etc.) seems to also seek randomness and errors, both within and outside ordered systems.

Organizations, governments and cultures recognize and acknowledge this fact, and seek to smooth out the rough edges and patch over conflicts through a combination of punishment/reward and in-group/out-group sanctioning.

However, randomness, errors and conflicts present opportunities for change, not just opportunities to preserve the status quo and the even keel that our limbic systems have required since our time out on the Serengeti.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/