The Six Services You Can Offer Business Clients
The vast majority of business consultants offer one or more of these services - the key is knowing which deliverables match which kind of services.
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Six Pain Points Clients Need Consultancy Support To Resolve
Once you’ve selected your niche, you must determine which services you will offer (and for what fee).
Like many, I didn’t know what business consultants did when I became one. I had some nebulous idea that I’d be giving advice, but I didn’t know what form that advice would take.
I didn’t realise I needed to think carefully from my client’s perspective to translate my expertise into deliverables (products) I could offer clients to solve their problems.
It’s best to think about this from the client’s side. When will they call in external expertise to help their business? Generally, it’s when:
They don’t know what to do.
They don’t know how to do it.
They don’t have the ability to do it.
They want to do it better.
They want to avoid mistakes.
They aren’t sure if it’s working.
It’s essential that your services, deliverables, and messaging are aligned with these pain points above.
Select The Pain Points You You Solve For Clients
We can use the above to boil the vast majority of services consultants provide into six categories.
These are:
Strategic Decision-Making. Helping the client make the right strategic and financial decisions (i.e. what should the client do?).
Operational And Technological Implementation. Helping the client develop the plan to implement their decisions (i.e. how should the client do it?).
Organizational Development / Change Management. Helping the client improve their ability to execute their plan(s) (i.e. can the client do it?)
Process Improvements. Helping the client improve the execution of what they’re already doing (i.e. what can the client do better?)
Risk Management. Helping the client comply with regulations and mitigate potential mistakes (i.e. what are the risks?)
Performance Monitoring. Helping the client understand and how the results of their efforts (i.e. is it working?)
These aren’t mutually exclusive, but they will cover the vast range of services you will offer clients.
Select The Deliverables You Will Offer Clients
Once you know the pain points you will solve, you need to decide the deliverables you will offer clients to solve them. Each type of service has a different set of deliverables.
1. Strategic Decision Making
Many organisations hire consultants to help them make the right decisions. These decisions are often directly related to financial matters, but sometimes, they involve developing a few options and suggesting the right path forward.
When consultants talk about a ‘strategy’, they often do this. Helping the organisation make the right decisions in the key areas (often accompanied with an implementation plan - see below).
Typical deliverables in this stage include:
Evaluation of the current project.
Market analyses.
Competitive benchmarking.
Financial models.
Future trend reports.
Scenario analysis.
Case studies.
Recommendations
Cost/benefit Analyses
In my experience, this kind of work can exist both at the extreme premium end of the market (i.e. organisations might spend tens of millions of dollars on a consultancy to evaluate significant strategic initiatives) or with more minor strategic decisions (i.e. should we move vendors?)
2. Operational And Technological Implementation
These are the deliverables you create when the decision to take action has been made, but the client wants to know how to do it in accordance with best practices.
The work here focuses on planning, designing, and helping execute new systems for the organisation. It often involves implementing a significant new technology or strategic plan.
The typical set of deliverables here includes:
Process maps/workflow diagrams.
Implementation roadmap.
IT / Technology blueprint.
System integration plans.
Standard Operating Procedures (SOP).
Testing / Piloting Program / Reports.
Training Materials / User Guides.
This work is most commonly done by consultants who specialise in one particular platform (such as SAP). They have unique expertise in setting up these systems and can guide clients through the process.
3. Organizational Development / Change Management
Change management can be included within either of the previous two points. But given how often consultants are called upon to help, we’ve separated it here. This is usually either when a) the organisation is implementing a major initiative to change its culture at scale or b) when the organisation knows what to do and how to do it but now needs the ability to execute the plan.
The deliverables here can vary, but may include:
Change Management Plans.
Cultural Assessments.
HR Strategy Plans.
Organizational Design Recommendations.
Training Programs (on-demand courses, workshops, recorded training materials).
You will likely create these deliverables if you are working to change staff behaviour. Note: While training programs are listed last here, they are the most common in my experience.
4. Process Improvements
Clients often hire consultants to improve their processes.
The major difference between process improvements and strategic decision-making is resources. Strategic decision-making is frequently related to increasing or decreasing the quantity of resources for the project. Process improvements generally assume the quantity of resources remains the same, but you have to change how they are used.
Process improvements focus more on improving the day-to-day business functions than major overhauls or decisions.
This will usually include:
Customer journey maps.
Efficiency audits.
Operational audits.
Evaluation of processes against best practices.
Evaluation of staff.
Staff training materials / best practices/case studies.
Revised process recommendations.
Best practice playbooks and training materials.
The goal of these deliverables is typically to improve efficiency, reduce costs, increase productivity, or show growth in key metrics which matter to a department.
5. Risk Management
This comes to the fore when the organisation has implemented the plan but wants to limit the risk of mistakes.
A few consultants find themselves in the highly lucrative position of helping clients comply with external (or internal) processes. For example, we hired a consultancy to help us become GDPR and ISO27001 compliant (and it worked).
The deliverables here might include:
Risk register/heat map.
Mitigation plans.
Business continuity/crisis management plans
Compliance audits
Scenario analysis reports / Incident response plans
Insurance analysis/risk transfer strategies.
Internal controls assessment
Key risk indicators (KRIs).
You can review each of these to learn more about them. The key point is knowing which deliverables match which type of project.
I know of consultants who earn $500k+ per year, helping major organisations comply with regulations. If you can work your way to understanding complex regulations better than anyone else, you could be in a prime position to help organisations that want someone to solve their problems.
6. Performance Monitoring
Performance monitoring occurs when a consultant is hired to evaluate a project's success. In many types of government contracts, 20% of the budget must be set aside for evaluating project results, and consultants are often brought in to undertake this work.
My consultancy has undertaken several projects like this over the past few years with budgets ranging from $15k to $70k.
This often falls under ‘strategic decision-making,’ given that monitoring performance is typically undertaken to decide whether to allocate more or less resources to a project. To deliver these services, you need evident expertise in data analysis and statistics and the ability to work with a combination of major software programs (R, SPSS, Python, Tableau, BI, etc…)
The deliverables here might include:
KPIs and dashboards/benchmarking reports etc..
Performance reports.
Balanced scorecards.
Benchmarking reports.
Operational dashboards.
Employee performance metrics.
Customer feedback/satisfaction reports.
Forecasting models.
Performance improvement plans.
Financial performance analysis.
You can review each of these to learn more about them. The key point is knowing which deliverables match which type of project.
I know of consultants who earn $500k+ per year, helping major organisations comply with regulations. If you can work your way to understanding complex regulations better than anyone else, you could be in a prime position to help organisations that want someone to solve their problems.
Summary
A quick recap:
If you’re starting out, be aware that you must translate your ‘expertise’ into services and deliverables (products) you will offer clients.
Begin with the pain point you will resolve. This naturally connects to the six major types of service you might offer. These are:
Strategic Decision-Making (making the right decisions about what to do).
Operational / Technical Implementation (knowing how to do it).
Organizational Development / Change-Management (building their ability to execute the plans).
Process Improvements (improving what they’re doing).
Risk Management (mitigating any problems).
Performance Monitoring (showing results).
Select the deliverables to match the pain points you offer. Each service has a different set of deliverables you can offer.
Good luck!
Further Reading
Great summary Richard.
Besides your content I really like the layout and structure, very 'readable' and easy to understand.