CONSULTANCY

Consultancy



Consultancy

A "consultant" typically has multiple clients at a time, and it's more about a long-term relationship than it is about a specific project. There will certainly be projects in the course of a consulting relationship, sometimes big ones, but the general idea here is that you're an always-available resource they can call on for big matters or small. In a few cases, I am the IT department for several customers, and they use me so they don't have to hire a dedicated person for it.

Unlike the contractor, this involves a lot of juggling when the fluctuating demands of multiple customers comes into play. It's harder to get a deeper focus because of all the context swapping going on, but long term relationships are worth it in the long run. The single biggest surprise to prospective consultants is when I suggest that their technical skills will not be their biggest asset. Those skills are required, of course, and often help get you in the door, but the long-term customer relationships on which a consultant depends are built on one thing only:Your customer certainly has to believe you can do the job, but they cannot wonder if you're going to get back to them, or if you're going to do something stupid (again?), or offend one of their customers. Your practice is never more stable than when your customers trust you completely to take care of them.

I still have my first customer from 1985, plus several others since before 1990, and I've been asked to do work I was clearly not the best for, simply because my customer liked doing business with me.

The Client Relationship

This is a minor semantic point, but one I've stuck with for many years. A "client" implies that the consultant is superior, while "customer" suggests that the consultant is beholden. It's virtually impossible for a consultant to forget the technical nature of the relationship you solve problems all day long — but it's very easy to forget the customer service aspect. We want to avoid this as much as possible.

Medical doctors are notorious for getting this wrong: we've all had a doctor we really loved (The Warm Fuzzy Feeling™), but the office staff didn't measure up. We are a patient to the doctor, but a customer to her medical practice.

I've never heard of a doctor or a lawyer use the word "customer", but as a consultant I am proud to. I exist at the pleasure of my customers, and that means being easy to do business with.

Consulting maxim:

You are primarily in the customer service business, not the technical business.

Be exceptionally easy to find When I go into the bank and find a long line to reach a teller, it's of course frustrating. Mentally, I start a timer in my head, and the longer the timer goes the worse of an experience it is. What stops the timer? Leaving the bank?

Liberalization of the ICT sector and increased competition have led to new trends in ...