Franchising

Consulting arrangements can do wonders for a business. They can provide a boost to your business by utilizing a consultant’s focused expertise and their years of experience in similar venues, and they can give a business a good old-fashioned shot-in-the-arm.

Consultants are distanced from the daily politics of your business. They can provide you with unbiased opinions and fresh perspectives. The thing is, they can only do this if you allow them to do it.

I’ve done the consulting gig for years. In the process, I observed and experienced clients using my services well and not using my services well. I have listened to associates’ stories of how clients work with them, too. Sometimes the clients get great value for their money, and sometimes they get less than that.

How to Make the Most of Your Consultant Dollar

Isn’t the most important thing about working with a consultant that you get valuable results for your money and build a meaningful business relationship at the same time?

In order to do this, you must go into a relationship with your consultant with ‘collaboration’ in mind. The two of you must work together in order for the consulting relationship to work. As the client, you must be a willing participant in the business relationship with your consultant.

In order to get value for your consulting dollar, you must allow your consultant to learn and know about many aspects of your business.

If you go to a doctor with a pain in your side, but then refuse to let the doctor look at it and test it because you’re too modest or afraid of what he will tell you, the doctor won’t be able to help you.

Several years ago I consulted at a company to help them use software to create reports they needed. They did not want to show me their existing reports, however. How could I help them create the new reports if they refused to show me the existing reports? Like a patient who was afraid to show the doctor the pain in his side, this client was afraid to show me their reports. Two people at this client actually clutched the reports to themselves like patients holding their hospital robes closely.

After some explanations and coaxing from me, they finally let me see their pain and allowed me to help them. (Just for fun, I’ll tell you that this company is an underwear manufacturer, and leave it at that!)

A consultant’s role is to give you business information that you need in order to make informed decisions. They do not have the responsibility to make your business decisions, nor do they have the control. The responsibility and control (which go hand-in-hand) are yours.

Before You Decide to Work with a Consultant

First of all, know what you want. Define it before the consultant agrees to work with you. Write it down. List quantifiable and/or tangible objectives. Write out what you think you want the consultant to do.

What goals do you want to accomplish?
What is the scope of work?
What results do you want the consultant (and your business) to achieve?
What do you think is the timeframe?
What is your budget for this project?
As You and the Consultant Agree to Work Together
Discuss how the consultant works. For example, what methodology does she use to gather information, process it, draw conclusions, and make recommendations? There is no magic answer to this question. Most consultants, over time, will develop their own methodology to perform their work. Just make certain they have a plan that is the basis for their methods.

State the scope of work: what the consultant will deliver, when they will deliver it, and how they will deliver it.

State who will do the work (if there is a team of consultants). Also state where the consultant(s) will perform the work.

Agree on the timeframe, money, and invoicing.

List points of time at which you and the consultant will touch base to discuss where the project is at, how it is coming along, and if adjustments need to be made. It’s a good idea to schedule regular meetings or conference calls so that issues do not become surprises.

What Else to Look For?

“The worst consultants believe their companies are smarter than their clients, instead of recognizing that they’re extensions of their clients’ resources. Junior consultants in several well-known firms especially show this trait; it’s part of their firms’ core cultures,” writes Peter Keen of Computerworld. He continues, “Arrogant cultures make lousy partners and are in the rip-off business without realizing it. Because they believe they’re so much smarter, they make many mistakes that the more collaborative and respectful consulting firms don’t make.”

Look for consultants who want to form a collaborative effort with you and your business. Likewise, you must collaborate with the consultant in order to get the most bang for your buck.

Two More Do’s and Don’ts

Treat consultants as consultants, not as employees.

If you treat consultants as insiders rather than as outsiders, you will not receive the benefits of having them work with you. This is more of a mind process for you as the client. If you think of your consultants as an extension of your employee base, you may not be able to hear them when they tell you important information. Remember, as outsiders they are able to skip most of the politics and inefficiencies of your company in order to unearth diamonds in the rough. These are the hidden diamonds you are paying them to find. If you treat them as if they are employees, you will hinder that creative process for which you are paying them.

Treat consultants as adults.

Believe it or not, sometimes clients treat consultants as if they were children. This happens most often when consultants are told to not contact certain people for information, even though the contact and the information is important for the consultant’s work. I’ve also heard about consultants being scolded as if they were children.

On the surface, the reason that consultants should not be treated like children is obvious; no one wants to be treated like that. It’s humiliating. The deeper reasons are the same as for not treating consultants like employees: clients who treat their consultants like children will not get the benefits out of the consultant that they are paying for.

In Conclusion

Working with a consultant can be rewarding for your business. It’s up to you to define your goals, how you want a consultant to help achieve those goals, participate in a collaborative relationship, and let the consultant do their work in order to give you value for your consultant dollar.

Glory Borgeson is a business coach, author, and speaker, and the president of Borgeson Consulting, Inc. She specializes in working with executives in the “honeymoon phase” of a new position (typically the first two years) to coach them to success. Glory is the newly appointed executive’s Secret Weapon!. Top athletes have a coach; why not you?

As a manager many years ago when faced with my first challenge of selecting an external consultant, I found myself all at sea. Fortunately for me, I intuitively hit two of the three selection targets. The project was to produce a communication video, so it was relatively easy to see and compare what each consultant had previously produced. I had a number of consultants to choose from, but finally chose the one that I felt most comfortable with and whose work impressed me most. The project was successful and in the process, I learned a lot.

Since that time, I have had to employ a number of consultants, I have been a consultant myself for almost 20 years, and I have worked with many other consultancies both large and small. The following suggestions for selecting a consultant are based on my experience as a manager and in the consultancy field.

What are the three targets that one must hit to successfully select a consultant? (Note; I am using the term “consultant” to refer to either one person or a consultancy firm). Firstly and most obviously, the consultant must be able to actually do the work. Secondly, the consultant must be able to fit in with the people in your organisation and particularly those who will be working on this project. Finally, if the consultant is good, you should always improve your own knowledge as a result of the project.

1. Can the consultant do the work? Seems obvious, but there are some traps. For instance, I remember when starting out as a consultant in partnership with another (who was also new to the role), submitting a tender for a fairly large job and being selected in the final few for interview. Individually, we’d had some experience in the type of work, but not as a partnership, nor had we worked in the prospective client’s industry. We won the job. Why? The client saw in us some creativity and freshness that was not evident in our competitors. However, this was an unusual client. Normally, I would not suggest taking on a consultant (like us) who has not had the depth nor breadth of experience in the project. So, unless one of your criteria is “freshness”, in terms of selecting for experience here are some tips:

o What are your specifications? Be very clear on the outputs you will require in the project. These should always be measured in terms of quality, quantity, time and cost. Use these output criteria to compare consultants.

o Who has recommended this consultant? Check their references – ask for the contact of the last job they did. When checking references, use your above “output criteria” as a guide.

o Are you looking for someone to implement solutions to a problem you have identified, or are you looking for someone to help you identify and clarify the problem? Or both? Sometimes it can be useful to split the project into these two parts.

o In discussion with the prospective consultants, do they really give you the time to say what you want before jumping to conclsuons? If they appear to “have all the answers”, chances are they do not listen very well.

o Does their suggested solution appear to be specifically designed for you or is it a “one size fits all”? Be wary if it is not specifically designed to meet your project criteria.

o Do they explain the things they can’t do as well as those they can? This is always a good test of integrity, truefulness and reliability.

o Is their initial response to your request up to your quality standards, sufficiently detailed (but not overly so) to make a decision, and within your time expectations?

o Does the consultant have depth of expertise in the subject matter and breadth of expertise in its application?

o Ask the consultant what is unique about him or her? What makes them stand out from all the other consultants you might choose?

2. Secondly, will the consultant fit in with the people they will be working with? This is a critical implementation issue, as whilst they might be able to do the work, if they can’t work harmoniously with the people, the results will be less than optimal. For instance, we once worked on a major government project (total budget in excess of M$43) where the client continually kept us at arm’s length (for example, on a residential workshop, we were not encouraged to eat or mix socially with the client project leaders). We met the output requirements for the client, but had we been allowed to work more closely with the client, they would have received a lot more value added service. In this case, the client should have selected another consultant.

The following tips will help ensure you get the right client/consultant match.

o Is the consultant likely to be able to gain the respect and trust of your key stakeholders?

o Could you trust this person (people)?

o What is the process they will use? i.e, How will they work within the organisation? How will they be seen? Try to visualise the consultant working with you and the other people as they complete the project. Will it work? Is it likely to be a good partnership?

o Who specifically (from the consultancy) will be working on the project and what will be their role? For example, will the people you are interviewing be carrying out the work? Be wary of consultancies that have “front people” that win the jobs, then send in less experienced people to do the work.

o Ask the consultant to describe what a “good working relationship” looks like to them. Is the description the consultant gives you of a “good working relationship” likely to be, and to be seen to be, a partnership?

3. Thirdly, will you be able ot learn from this consultant? One of the reasons you hire a consultant is that you (or your organisation) does not have the depth nor breadth of experienece to successfully carry out the project. One of your aims should be to increase your own experience through this project. For example:

o Why did you decide to employ a consultant? What were the gaps you could not fill internally?

o What will you be likely to learn from this consultant?

o Will you increase your knowledge of both process management (how the consultant works) as well as content management (their area of expertise)?

o Will the consultant strengthen and support your role in the organisation?

Finally, if all of your criteria have been met and you cannot decide between two apprently equal consultants, consider setting them a small task or part of the project to complete as part of the selection process. For example, some years ago we were in competition with another large consultancy for a sizeable project with an initial budget in excess of M$1. The client could not decide between the two of us, so he asked us each to undertake a small project (for which he paid us both), which would ultimately become part of the larger project. When we each completed the small project, he had an excellent idea of both our capability and the manner in which we worked. After all, isn’t the final selection criterion is actually trying the consultant out?

Oh, yes. In case you’re wondering, we won the job!

Copyright © 2006 The National Learning Institute

Bob Selden has been a consultant since 1987. Prior to th