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| When Consulting Works |
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Volumes, literally volumes, have been written on the subject of working with consultants. But I am going to share with you what I think are the most important issues relative to clients working successfully with consultants. This article is based on an e-mail I wrote to one of our clients.
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Dear Aharon:
Thanks for calling. Some of your comments got me thinking about working with consultants and the value that consultants may — or may not — bring to a client.
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 Goals. When you engage a consultant, you must have clear goals. Goals state where you intend to go. If you don't have goals, you won't know that you arrived at your destination — or that you didn't. Your goals and objectives must be clearly defined and absolutely understood by everyone involved.
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Trust. You don't need to completely trust your consultant from the first day, but if you don't find yourself quickly becoming comfortable with his presence and confident in his abilities and his opinions, get rid of him. If you don't trust him, you won't — you can't — make use of his research or his opinions. The fact is, consulting is a relationship business, and the relationship doesn't work at all without trust.
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Management and time. Many people at your company may work with the consultant, but only one person must be responsible for the consultant. Good consultants don't just require your money, they require your time. They can only do their work well if you are engaged. If they take none of your time, they are bad at what they do. Never hire a consultant and just wait for him to present a report to you. Know what he is doing and how he is progressing. Will he, can he reach the agreed upon goals?
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Metrics. And if you do set goals, you can develop metrics — a standard of measure. Did you achieve your goals or how close did you get? Did the consultant succeed or fail? Always establish a project schedule — with clear completion dates.
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Surprises. With trust, communications, and proper time commitments, you should not experience painful surprises. You should be meeting with the consultant — he should be spending time with you at your location and traveling with you (if that is part of the contract). Through this and interim reports, the "difficult" issues should arise naturally, and you will develop your own insights about your business and your people during the consulting process. If written reports are part of the consultant's set of deliverables, you should receive drafts for review, so that you can comment and they can be revised.
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Note that consultation and implementation are not the same thing. For instance, consulting on marketing strategy is not implementation — implementation is about doing the work. In our recent effort with your company, we did both. Relative to potential partners, we consulted on product pricing strategies and how to successfully work with representatives — that's consulting.
We consulted to you on both sales strategies and marketing strategies. We also were involved in marketing implementation: developing and drafting marketing materials with you. Sales implementation (often called "business development") is about identifying, contacting and selling to customers. Marketing implementation is about preparing marketing materials and doing research.
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The Trendletter team welcomes your comments.
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D. Todd Dollinger
Managing Director
The Trendlines Group
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