World Institute of Scientology Enterprises • Effective Solutions for Today’s Workplace

More News · 23 September 2007
Consulting: My First Year

	Literally my first clients were "cut and pasted" from the on-line yellow pages.
	What's best for this client?
	Soon we had our first premises!
	Check out the view!
	Being there and communicating.
	Bigger premises! More staff!
	Meet my team.
	On top of the world.

It began in Yale Street Internet Cafe, downtown Vancouver. I'd made my decision, I knew the basics of LRH admin tech and now I needed clients. I downloaded a 30-day trial version of the contact software GoldMine and surfed the on-line yellow pages cutting and pasting together my first prospect database. I began promoting to them. Getting started was that simple. Within a year I'd have a team of staff, my own premises and a thriving consulting group.

In retrospect a career in consulting was always in the cards. I had first learned of LRH administrative tech as a client of Hollander Consultants, Inc., in Portland, Oregon. I attended an introductory workshop as a veterinarian—I was blown away. This management system made sense; it dealt with people and their motivations (or in some cases their lack thereof). I was looking for a system of management that paralleled my clinical thinking and here it was!

After I got trained on LRH admin tech it was natural to disseminate it; I started to help other business owners that came to my practice. It was exciting to have simple solutions to what for them were frustrating and difficult problems. It was then that I made a postulate to get into consulting. I was also lured by the income potentials I'd seen in consulting. All the major consultants were well up The Bridge, disseminating full-time and were not the effect of time and money.

To get my feet wet I started working with WISE-licensed consultants Measurable Solutions, Inc., in Florida. I began in the Sales area. I realized early on that the income of a consultant depends very much on his or her skill in disseminating to others. After some training and a strong intention to make this happen I started selling services. I realized that HCOPL 25 June 1978, COME-ON DISSEMINATION is a must for any consultant to know and apply—it works like a charm. In fact, initially I lost tens of thousands of dollars because I violated this policy.

I studied LRH admin tech courses on the weekend and soon got my own license as a consultant. I attended a WISE consulting conference aboard the Freewinds and it was here that I really put the postulate there to start my own LRH admin tech consulting company. Soon after, my family and I returned from Clearwater, Florida to Vancouver, Canada.

STARTING OUT

That's when I went out on my own and started Professional Business Solutions. It was the month of October and using the free Internet access of a local cafe I began to build a database of publics to whom I could promote. The market I went after were technical professionals, people like me who were very technically trained but needed management skills to survive (contractors, veterinarians, etc.). It was broader public than most consulting companies but I was able to pull it off.

CREDENTIALS NOT ESSENTIAL

Whenever a dentist or someone would ask me about my background, I responded that I wasn't going to teach them their profession, I would train them how to build and manage a business and live to tell the story. This handled 90% of objections.

At the end of October I had done my first introductory lecture to an association of contractors. A local WISE member introduced me to them and I made my first income.

I registered my company name and started looking for premises. I was soon joined by a trained, stable and inexorably uptone partner, we formed a team and never got into the one-man band trap—that was key. I searched the web for a local "rent-an-office-in-a-box" company and found one that supplied front-end secretarial services (phones, faxes, mail, etc.) and a nice boardroom. Soon after two more staff came on board.

In these first months, the hardest thing was generating enough income to have some reserves and be able to put some future there. Christmas was fast approaching and it was getting really tight (I had a family to feed and presents to buy). I made it go right by contacting an old friend who had attended one of our introductory seminars. He was vice-president of a trucking company and literally was in the middle of a rat's nest of suppression.

I drove out to see him mid December and did a standard registration interview and brought him up the Awareness Scale with regard to his business. I signed him up for a series of courses and consulting. He paid. I remember driving one mile away, pulling the car over and calling my wife—the relief was intense.

I started putting in LRH's policy Organization Program No.1 on how to build an organization with three or more staff. We found new premises—a professional office building with a choice of two sets of offices. We took the larger one with a boardroom overlooking the city, mountains and ocean. We decided: We'll make it go right—it would be perfect for seminar and training course delivery. By December 28, we had hired a part-time supervisor to deliver courses. Within seven days we were ordering and receiving our WISE course packs and on January 2 we began training delivery!

During this time I promoted my introductory seminars not only to new professionals I'd never met but also to my own personal database—people I knew from when I was a veterinarian. When I look back on it, my personal communication lines definitely helped to kick off the company.

"I love the freedom of the career—it's changing everyday and is a very fun game. ...I should have taken the 'plunge' and started five years earlier."

Throughout this time, we were selling and delivering services and in doing so I was constantly reminded that the professionals I was contacting did not have this technology and the lack of it was ruining their lives. One comparison really brought this home to me.

PEOPLE NEED THIS TECH

When I first trained on LRH admin tech courses many years earlier with Hollander Consultants, Inc., my bookkeeper came to me one very busy day and said: "Dr. Parker, I just have to tell you that four bank deposits have gone missing, and three have come back without the cash." I remember thinking "Now what the heck am I supposed to do with this!" I would rather have gone and spayed more cats! But who was doing this?

I called my consultant, and asked for help. His response: "Is there anyone who is critical of you in the practice?" As it turned out, there was a receptionist who had been rolling her eyes in disgust at me. When I looked into things, it was her initials on the missing bank deposit forms.

Now came the dilemma: I had to do something, however, this girl was the daughter of a very prominent local family. Was I to call the police and ruin this girl's life? I felt stuck between a rock and a hard place. My consultant directed me to the Introduction to Scientology Ethics book and the formulas for improving lower-level conditions.

I sat down with the employee and got her agreement to take responsibility for her actions. Using the lower condition formulas as our guide she walked up the conditions. She paid back all the money and worked extra hours for months to make up the damage. In the end she stayed with us for seven years and went on to finish her university degree. And she helped me start a second company. Now that's powerful tech!

I used this example at one of my advanced workshops to demonstrate the LRH datum, "IF ONE KNOWS THE TECH OF HOW TO DO SOMETHING AND CAN DO IT, AND USES IT, HE CANNOT BE THE ADVERSE EFFECT OF IT." One of the attendees originated that he had an employee who had embezzled $20,000 out of his practice. With no ethics tech and not knowing what to do, he had told his employee that she needed to work out how to handle this over the weekend. The employee, a wife and mother of one, couldn't confront this. She went home and shot herself. To this day, the business owner feels responsible. Don't kid yourself for a second, people need this tech like there's no tomorrow.

THE YEAR WAS UP

By the end of 12 months, I had gone from nothing to a flourishing consulting group with seven staff and smart premises. I'm disseminating LRH admin tech full-time and totally winning. I'm helping people and I love the freedom of the career—it's changing every day and is a very fun game.

To this day, I know that I should have taken the "plunge" five years earlier. To anyone considering consulting, I say: get trained and go for it! Don't leave it another day. Trust me!