Nature Consulting - MBA Futures (From Top-Consultant.com)

I have regularly posted on Top-Consultant for 7 months. I challenged consultants and recruiters, I learnt so much and my confidence has grown. The only post that was deleted from the forum:


Nature Consulting, the best, fairest and most value add consulting on the globe!
We can offer you a varied selection of good looking consultants, or less good looking, with or without bricks, more or less funny, more or less cocky, more or less affectionate. The choice is yours. Nature Consulting is also a professional advisory firm that can support you in the strategic decision of your needs, to better fulfil them with the absolute variety and choice the world can now offer!

Was it too direct? Because I used the word cocky? I was back from Milan, where I helped my ex girlfriend setting up and shooting a TV program for the Discovery channel and I had exposure to the fashion world, I met the Italian director of the largest model management agency, I met a Russian model, an American stylist and many PR and press office people. I thought model management wasn't that far from management consulting afterall!



This is one of my favourite pieces. It was the time when the MBA marketing machine was really annoying too much:

Large consulting organizations have a big buying power compared to single consumers and the same could work for MBA seats. A large consultancy could identify a number of tier-2 fully accredited schools that are still not as expensive as Harvard but have the potential to grow in reputation over the next few years. They will then buy MBA seats for future years, lets take the year 2010 as an example. If an MBA at one of those schools cost 15K today, the large organization buying many seats in advance all together can get a price per seat of 10 or 12K for the year 2010.

These “Futures” can be then assigned to a number of new or existing employees as perks (like the Bupa healthcare or the pension). The employees will see the price of their MBA Future increase or decrease according to the business school reputation and the education market in 2010.

When the 2010 comes, after 3-4 years working with the same consultancy, the MBA Future can be disposed by the employee and either used, or sold in the MBA Futures market. Could this work?

Benefit for the Business schools is to get cash for investments now and create a bigger market for themselves, for the consultancies (knowledge intensive users) it is a strategic investment into the education market, for the employees it would be good to see there is going to be a prize for loyalty.

I am bored today and going through some of the stuff I wrote in the past. I picked this among the many:

Virtual Covering Letter


I am a Marketing & Business Development Consultant, working with global IT and Telecom organisations implementing market entry, account penetration and partner development strategies, as well as working with clients to evaluate the effectiveness of their marketing initiatives and benchmarking their positioning and performance against competition.

I have been working for a small consultancy for over 2 years and looking to do something new and progress my career.

I have an entrepreneurial spirit and would like to start up my own company but I need more experience first, 4 years business experience are a good foundation but not enough.. Well the reality is that I don't have the guts to go solo now!

I have recently done a business and financial plan for a staffing agency providing IT contractors to system integrators and final clients, it looks good on paper but the working capital is high and, again, I don't have the confidence to do that. I could even get a grant from the council or another public institution if I decided to open an office in Lambeth for instance and it would be very cheap to set up but… the factoring exposure and the risks involved are quite a concern!

I also thought about setting up a marketing agency that provides a converged, integrated sales and marketing service, combining in depth market research, lead generation and direct marketing, up to sales deal facilitation and closure.

The b2b sales and marketing service market is slowly converging. We traditionally have 6 main separate players offering different but complementary services: Branding and advertising, PR, Market Research/Benchmarking, Telemarketing/Lead generation, direct marketing-mailings, events and hospitality management. (Have I missed any other important one?)

The same service provider can carry out a market study profiling decision makers (market research) who will be targeted after the study by a “key findings report” (direct marketing) and subsequently followed up by a sales call (telemarketing). If the same company has got the capabilities of organising an event with the same decision makers the lead/opportunity generation is bigger, if the same company can also facilitate the rapport building between the decision makers and the client it’s proper consulting. The company could even help with proposal writing and after sales! Not sure there is such a company that can take a client from in depth market research to sales deal through a structured, multiphase business development campaign. (Please let me know if there are many companies that do this already!)

I have experience of structuring complex business development campaigns that open up new revenue opportunities. I can apply the same methodology and experience to any types of product or service sales. The basic structure of all types of sales is to study a given sector, market, account and decision maker to deeply understand needs and priorities with your service offering in mind, to structure a value proposition that fulfils or helps to fulfil some of these needs. Doing it, following a determined but flexible structure, can take the decision maker on a journey of discovery that helps him/her setting or articulating his/her needs and priorities. The journey itself is the sales process, and if the journey is a value experience, the pitching of the service will be simple to do.

I would like to work as an associate for a start-up or niche company, well backed and well run, in the area of marketing, IT consulting, new-media. Something creative and innovative but where the director has got a commercial and practical ability too, I think many early stages start-ups are too "creative" and not enough focused on the bottom line!

At the same time I am looking for a more standard job in the corporate world, or for an already established mid-market organisation. Some of my friends are telling me I am too young to join a start-up and the best I could do is to work for a Plc where I can get good training, get a better grasp of corporate culture and politics, more stability and security for 3-4 years, and then go solo.

What do you guys think would be the best option at this stage? I have four years business experience, after graduating in 2001. Please help!

Bye bye babe

I am single again, after almost 2.5 years of relationship, very rewarding for over 2 years. I ended it before Christmas and it was the right thing to do. It hurts a bit and feels a bit lonely now but 2006 will bring a gorgeous new amore, among everything else. I am back in the market, well it will probably take a while before it can feel right again, after such a long time with the same girl, but Spring is just around the corner... bring it on!

I will need a more structured and normal girl next time, no TV producers anymore. In love, as life, to follow your instinct is mostly the best thing to do, and to get into it with enthusiasm, dedication and passion is paramount to experience the real thing. The risk is to get hurt though, and it happens. Real love, and real life, similarly to business, isn’t for the faint-hearted. If you really go for it you make a big investment and expose yourself to others and when it works out is amazing but when it doesn't... But every time something goes wrong you learn, and you get older and better at judging people and situation and it gets easier, doesn’t it? I did learn quite a lot this time and I know what kind of girl I need now.

What sort of life do you want? And what sort of lifestyle? And what girlfriend?


People lifestyles and mood swings:


Normal People: Quite OK - OK - Quite OK - OK - Quite OK - OK - Up - Down - Quite OK - OK ...

(Mostly quite OK to bored and boring, these people are the majority, they enjoy some sporadic highlights but feel more comfortable not to risk too much and remain in mediocrity)


TV People: Very Up - Very Down - Very Up - Very Down - Very Up - Very Down ..

(My ex-girlfriend, living for today, intense experiences but too many problems, the risk of being burnt out quickly and lack of direction. Exciting but dangerous, good for a while but serious life restructuring needed after a few years - good luck babe).


My future girlfriend: Up - OK - Up - OK - Very Up - Down - Up - OK - Up - OK - Very Up - Down - Up - OK - Up - OK

(Not many people are like this, but I am ambitious. She is intelligent and dynamic, had some well solved troubles and real life experiences in the past, she is now looking for a more mature kind of excitement and greater challenges without being boring or belonging to the Opus Dei).


In the meantime I'll try to live the single life to the full, I am not ready to take on full time employment straight away and need to do some contracting so ... if you're up for something casual ... you'll find me in decent bars primarily in Fulham, Clapham and Central London, probably out with a guy who looks like me but he's not my brother. See you then!