I'm a young, hip and bloody good looking management consultant whose been in 'da game' now for nearly 5 years. All fine and dandy but I'm conscious that if I really do want to make partner I should start planning from now.The partners I've worked with seem to have similar characteristics: 1. Good operators who know have an area of expertise and know it well (either industry or offering)2. Quite good with people and smooth with words 3. Good at sales4. Bald (not all but big majority)5. At least 40My questions are: - is what are the top skills one needs to make partner? - can I make partner based on my good looks, charm and general blagging abilities?

work hard (as opposed to "work long hours"...) and learn your trade... be good at what you do and you'll get there.

you usually need a bunch of pebbles and a rock. accumulate box-ticking evidence for whatever values system your firm espouses and uses to rate people. these are the pebbles. then sell sell sell - while junior start off getting extra bodies onto your project, then win extensions, progress to converting leads and then to originating from thin air. that's the rock. you will in any case go bald in the course of this from stress.

Actually look more closely and you will find that Partners do not follow the expected trajectory i.e. they didn't work particularly hard, or were exceptionally smart, to get where they are. You cannot plan to make it to Partner because it all, essentially, boils down to one simple requirement.Endurance.Partners have simply stayed in the game longer, when peers are exiting for end user roles with better work/life balance, or hitting a comfortable plateau, or allow that tenure which was reassuring at 2 years to hit 5 or 6 years without a visible promotion to go with it. Learn as much as you can, be an expert in something, and (add a little luck) stick it out when the going gets tough for your peers. Last man standing in the room? Congratulations give us some money and you too can buy into the Partnership.

LOL I love that "last man standing" comment. It's so true. Basically just hang around long enough and by default you'll end up as the partner. Most people get fed up after 3 years; if you're still there after 15 then it's pretty much a given.

there's plenty of truth in that, but it doesn't distinguish making partner from ending up in one of the 'cul de sac' grades usually called something like Executive Director where you are grey haired and well paid but never going to make partner

Yes it does.Those 'cul de sac' grades are typically within corporates not Partnerships. A corporate can afford to have EDs floating around just below the revenue generation layer because it's shareholders who are being short changed, and they are being managed by the CEO who only has to account to them when making the analyst calls. In a genuine Partnership those EDs are a drain on drawdown from revenue for the Partners. There are some fancy Director titles bandied about to slow the progression to Partner of course, but they are really just a slice n dice method of keeping producers in the business for longer and extending the SM - Partner track to manage queues.

So to summarise:Two little mice fell in a bucket of cream. The first mouse quickly gave up and drowned. The second mouse, wouldn't quit. He struggled so hard that eventually he churned that cream into butter and crawled out and became Partner?!RC: You make a very good point: After all that churning how disappointed will the mouse be if he was only made Exec Director : what is it that ultimately makes the Partner a cut above the mustard?Is it a case of right time / right place and right skill?Is it about knowing the right people/being in the right club?Is it about how much money you can bring in?

So true. This industry is a game of endurance. Absolutely do well, become an expert in something and sell, sell, sell, but be prepared to send some of that credit up the food chain. Inside you know success is because of you, but that's not good enough. Endure making those above you happy. It’s like the mob. Everyone makes a cut and the money always moves up. The street trash feeds the captain, the captain feeds the boss and the boss pays New York. Figure this out and you become a boss.

[quote]Yes it does.Those 'cul de sac' grades are typically within corporates not Partnerships. ...[/quote]partnerships have certainly had them in the past - Andersen Consulting had Technical Associate, and at one time Andersen's Director was a cul de sac before becoming a 'tunnel' extending the path to partner. I believe the current EY ED grade is split between people who are still on track to partner and those who are by mutual agreement parked definitively. The latter often seem to be used as SMEs across multiple engagements, with lower revenue expectations. It's a perennial debate for consultancies what to do with senior people whose expertise is invaluable but who lack parts of the expected delightful partner profile.

Mars and rc - I have to agree with you both (although you are disagreeing!)You cannot become a partner if you cannot consistently sell consultancy services. Nothing else will matter if you cannot do this, and you will have to do it for 3-5 years as a "just before partner" level person in order to become partner.For those who CAN sell as described above, the number one reason for still NOT MAKING PARTNER is lack of endurance. Many people perform at partner level on occasion (even 18 months), but I know many who have been in the last 6 month "road to partner" and not made it because the revenue they were delivering was was cancelled by a) new government b) new CEO c) Lehman's liquidator, etc.Those were all star performers who were not fired - they were simply told "sorry, not this time, but don't worry, you can start again and maybe in 18-24 months you'll get in"-----------------------------------------------------------Knowing your industry is an ENABLER TO SELLINGBeing smooth and a good communicator is an ENABLER TO SELLINGBeing at least 40 is A SYMPTOM of the time it takes to develop sufficient industry knowledge and contacts to BE GOOD AT SELLINGBeing BALD is a SYMPTOM of males stress and genetics-----------------------------------------------------------Good looks, charm and blagging will get you to Accenture SM, Deloitte Director, Ernst & Young SM, PA Alumni - no further.

Of course when you do make it through those golden doors to the partners lounge, you'll be hugely disappointed to find that you are now the most junior person in the inner room and have to perch on a pouffe while the senior partners lounge on the leather chesterfield.How do you get to park your ar$e on the chesterfield?SELL SOME MORE!!!and if you don't, you'll find that post the Enron re-org, junior partner is not life-membership of the club like it once was.........true rc?????

Also, remember that partners themselves don't have to be the best sales people in the world. A partner (as in the proper meaning of the role, rather than what you see in so many large firms where virtually everyone is a "partner" even if they don't have any staff) is somebody who can run a business. Get yourself a decent team around you including people who can help you meet your targets - that could include a bunch of senior managers or whoever that are great at responding to tenders and doing sales pitches, or it could include somebody that is great at organising network events on your behalf, or somebody that is great at marketing/seminars and so on. Frankly it can also sometimes involve bringing the sociable blonde bimbo analyst to the sales meeting with you so that the pervy old men on the selection panel choose your company (for all the wrong reasons) rather than the other one that brought along half a dozen unhealthy looking men in suits. Sometimes it involves just staying out the way and letting your reports take the initiative and run with something. So in other words - work to your strengths, don't let personal ego or insecurity get in the way of bringing about the best in those around you, and also don't assume that you have to be a one-man band that does everything from rain-making through to delivery... you need to become the conductor of the orchestra rather than being brian may doing the electric guitar solo on top of buckingham palace.

yep Mr C, sell sell sell and not only do you get to sit on the Chesterfield but you can let reemerge all the flaws and foibles that you had to suppress during your values box-ticking period, as all that really matters is bringing in GREAT FILTHY PILES OF MONEY!post Enron you do have now to go further up the partner tree before you can take the more CEO-like role described in BEP's post - there is higher expectation now for considerably more hands-on involvement in delivery, retention of subject matter expertise etc.the nice places to be a partner are those that cordially let multiple senior bods count the same revenue :D the nasty places to be a pseudo-partner are the corporates that manage you to utilisation and revenue targets like a software house, with no double counting even against your directs, high personal chargeability etc :( sod that as something for the grunts to aspire to!

To add to what's been said (or written rather).....At partner level, you will need to sell. However, it's not as easy as it sounds - selling a consultancy service is not easy! I've also said this many times on here. Regurgitating, in industry, we have deals that easily run into hundreds of millions. It's not the same in MC.

Most consultancies these days are lucky if they can get deals worth hundreds of thousands! LOL

Thanks everyone for your responses, very helpful. What makes selling mc services so much more difficult than other typical sales?

the fact that nobody wants to buy them these days!lol, not entirely true, but clients are more capable these days than they used to be. There is often a feeling that they don't need/want to use consultants. Could either be due to budget or defensiveness... to some people, having the consultants in is scarier than having HMRC do an audit on them... plus some have been stung in the past or think that they've got google so don't need any expensive consultants