The Five Skills You Should Develop To Build A Thriving Consultancy Practice
Use this scorecard to evaluate your current performance as a consultant and then make systematic improvements over time.
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What’s It Like To Hire You?
A Model For Evaluating Your Own Performance
Over the past year, I’ve hired a consultancy to guide us through the process of becoming ISO27001 certified.
An interesting side-benefit of hiring an independent consultancy is I get to go through the experience of consultancy and get a feel for what I did or didn’t like about the experience.
My biggest revelation is how much the tiny details matter. It’s never just about the deliverables but the person(s) creating those deliverables.
Are they warm, communicative, well-organised, and seem to genuinely care about the outcome? Do they really know what they’re talking about and seemed informed about me and my organisation?
I’ve recently been working on a project to standardise how we engage clients and provide a means for everyone on the FeverBee team to benchmark their own performance on each client.
You can find the model below.
DOWNLOAD THE RESOURCE: You can download this here for better resolution.
It’s simple enough to evaluate yourself - but I’ll highlight some of the key points below.
Key Factor 1: Expertise and Knowledge
Perhaps the most important thing is how much expertise and knowledge does the consultant possess.
By far the biggest factor for me was whether they had deep knowledge of the topic. We can classify this into two types of knowledge.
Book knowledge. Do they have both the deep theoretical knowledge of the subject matter? Do they know what should be done and are they familiar with what the journey looks like? Do they know the latest trends within that sector etc?
Experience. Do they know the issues which are likely to arise when implementing solutions? Do they know how organisations overcame those issues? Have they been through the journey and know what to expect?
My consultancy, for example, could provide the templates and resources which guided me through the entire process of creating my ISMS to the ISO27001 level. They could also provide advice from past clients about what the auditor would be looking for and how other organisations have implemented these policies.
Yet, they don’t just need knowledge about the topic - but they also need knowledge about the organisation. Did they take the time to research the organisation and the unique dynamics that exist within the organisation? It’s never a good feeling if you hire a consultant and you notice he doesn’t seem interested to learn what makes your organisation unique or the dynamics within the organisation.
Key Factor 2: Communication and Relationships
I don’t have an easy way of confirming this but I’d guess that 50% of the client’s perceived value of any consultancy project comes down to the strength of the relationship they build with the consultant(s).
If they feel they have a good relationship and the consultant genuinely cares about them, the perceived results are a lot higher than if they didn’t.
I’ve broken this down into three unique criteria.
Personality. This is essentially whether the consultant was a warm, friendly, upbeat person who improved the team dynamics or not. Consultants who are cold, prickly, and irritable obviously aren’t the people you want to be consulting with.
Collaboration. Is the consultant easy to collaborate with? Are they flexible as things change (which they always do). Can they adjust things on the fly and still keep the project on track?
Communication. Are they open, honest, and transparent in communications. The client should never have to chase up updates. They should always know what to expect and when to expect it. Are they able to adjust their communications to match the characteristics of each recipient?
This isn’t a comprehensive list - but it’s a good list of things to think about when you’re delivering a project.
Key Factor 3: Project Management
This is the ability of the consultant(s) to manage the project well. This is probably the easiest to do on paper but the hardest to implement in practice. That’s because you need to be impeccably organised.
I’ve separated this into four criteria.
Setting timelines. This is the ability to provide correct estimates for how long a project will take and adapt those changes as things progress. It also covers the ability to identify issues in advance and ensure they’re resolved in a timely manner.
Onboarding and invoicing. Can the consultant be onboarded quickly by the client? Do they complete the forms and have the documentation available to breeze through the process rather than face weeks (or months) of delays?) Do they send invoices when expected?
Meetings. Are meetings easy to set up and well structured? Do they have an agenda and are decisions and action points communicated to attendees and followed-up?
Delivery. Is the work itself delivered with enough time for consultation and iterations to ensure it matches the needs of clients?
The easiest way to undermine your work is to poorly manage a project. This is why you should embrace the practice of elite organisation.
Key Factor 4: Deliverables
We’ve covered how to create great deliverables before, but it’s worth highlighting them again here.
Aligned to outcomes. The obvious criteria for deliverables is they meet the specifications of the contract. If you don’t, you’ve got a major problem. You might also consider where you delivered beyond the expected value.
Flawless. Are the deliverables free from errors, accurate, and logical in nature? Do they incorporate the client terminology?
Uniqueness. Is it clear where the consultant added value to the project? Do the deliverables contain remarkably unique ideas, expertise, or game-changing insights?
Practicality. Are the deliverables fully thought through with clearly unique ideas and expertise with steps broken down and fully costed/analysed?
Design. Are the deliverables professionally designed and presented with critical information clearly highlighted from the rest? Do they reflect your branding?
Remember that for many people in the organisation it’s only the deliverables they will see.
Key Factor 5: Outcomes
This is where things get a little funny. It’s remarkable how rarely people actually utilise the outcomes created by the deliverables. It’s known that some clients for a wide variety of reasons never implement the recommendations of consultants. Yet outcomes is what lets you point to past work to gain future work.
We look at four things here.
Utilisation. Did the client fully implement the deliverables and have they continued to utilise and build on them?
Results. Did the deliverables drive or even exceed the results the client desired when they initially contacted you?
Follow-up. Did the consultant stay in touch with the client and provide ongoing support and information on a consistent basis?
Return on investment. Did the outcomes clearly achieve an ROI many orders of magnitude greater than the investment in the consultant?
All of these are interesting questions to evaluate. It’s not always possible to evaluate them as they take place after a project has ended. But it’s always worth doing your best.
I hope you’ve found this model and these questions useful to evaluate and systematically upgrade your own performance.
I’d suggest combining this with the independent consultant’s maturity model to continually and consistently grow as a consultant.
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Thanks for reading
A great read at the beginning of 2024! Thanks for sharing this topic!