Consultants - the newest endangered species?

Some of you may have seen this before, and I thought it was hillarious the first time I saw it.  Unfortunately, as in many things, life now seems to be imitating comedy.

http://www.despair.com/consulting.html

It seems today that anyone that is working on a project or contract basis uses the term "consultant" to describe themselves, but is this in fact accurate?

I might be considered by some to be old school, but I like to think I come from the Peter Block school of consulting (see book suggestion at end of post).  I use words like trusted advisor and customer success not because they are sales buzzwords, but because they are philisophical tennets upon which my consulting career has been built.

To me there are a few identifying characteristics of a true consultant:

1. They are acting on behalf of the client.  A consultants goals are tied to the customer's success, and though a consultant is often an outsider looking in, the perspectives and advice brought are provided while in the context of the client's environment.

2. They are there to help the organization grow and learn.  I approach consulting as a mentor, this is about building a relationship where at the end of the engagement there is a transfer of knowledge and the client is empowered or enabled to do more for themselves.  A consultant should not be becoming an indespensible resource in that the client would fail if the consultant was not around.  A good consultant understands that the relationship should yield new and different opportunities.  More on this later.

3.  They provide perspective based on having "been there, done that".  A consultant's value is in their experience either within the business domain, solution domain or at a minimum, the industry in which the client is working.  You are bringing expertise and insight based on prior success in similar (or maybe even identical) patterns.

4.  A consultant is an objective and trusted advisor.  A consultant must understand that it is their responsibility to give the best guidance they can based on their experience or research.  Sometimes this is unpopular or contrary to the client's strategy.  It is not a consultant's responsibility to give advice that your customer feels good about, it is your responsibility to give good advice that is in the client's best interest.  These will not always the same.

5.  The consultant moves on.  It is imperative that as a consultant you continue to be exposed to new challenges and opportunities in order to grow your domain of expertise.  Hint:  If you're there longer than the internal staff, you're not consulting anymore and you're certainly not providing that objective outsider's perspective.

Isn't that leaving money on the table?  I'm good at this, they like me and I could get renewed for years helping them with this...  Sure, you could.  It's just not in the spirit of consulting.  If you're doing the same thing for years, then what is your added value versus an internal resource or cut-rate contractor?

Instead, a consultant will have left at the end of the engagement with an empowered customer that has repeatable processes or a greater understanding of the problem and applicable solution that they can apply to similar patterns.  Ideally, the client will appreciate the value delivered so much that the next time they have a "new" problem they will ask you again to help.  You can be an invaluable to the client as a trusted advisor within an area of expertise, just don't be a crutch.

Consultants should be providing a deeper value and therefore be more highly compensated than you're typical plug-and-play resource.  In the software world, many "consulting" firms are now providing contract development resources under the guise of consultants.  To me, this is a disservice to the industry, the service provider's reputation and weakens the value proposition of true consultants everywhere.

Let's be accurate with our messaging. If you're a "consultant" that's working in a more aptly labled "contract position", then take it upon yourself to be a Consultant.  Your customers will appreciate it, you'll see your value grow and you'll differentiate yourself from the flock.  There is still a need for Consultants in this economy, perhaps more than ever.  

For more on consulting as a philosopy, I'd highly suggest picking up a copy of Peter Block's Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used (Hardcover)

Customer Communications - Your reputation on the wire.

The first step toward becoming a trusted advisor to your clients is ensuring that you have consistent, timely and actionable information going out to your customers.  It is key that you understand that the information you provide is going to be used as the basis for your customer's business planning.

A common mistake is to start to use this as an opportunity to spin or otherwise manipulate bad news or create a buying need.  This is about giving your customers information that they can reliably use to plan their own business activities. Here are my guidelines for  release management:

When developing your communications plan, start by planning the timing and content of your message.  A good guideline is: "say what you'll do, do what you say and then say what you've done."  

Say what you'll do:

If you're a salesperson, do not be tempted to sell futures.  Sell what is in the box or suffer the consequences of losing your reputation.  If your product isn't what the customer needs yet, they will respect you far more for being honest, than leading them down a path that creates risk for their project or programs success.  Enough customers have experienced this pain before and may very well be willing to stage their deployment into phases if they can be confident that they will be able to predict when they can expect each necessary function.  If you are finding opportunities that you must have (x featureset) to be able to close, that is your responsibility to communicate back into the product organization.  Remember, relationships are built on trust and you will suffer more if you are wrong ("you lied to me!") and have nothing to gain if you are right in the eyes of your customer.  You have a responsibility to be the advocate for your customer and that means proposing the best solution given the information that you have.

You must be conservative in what you promise.  If you have concerns that something about your release is on the bubble - scope, time, quality - then you absolutely must quickly and accurately adjust communications around those dimensions.  Customers, especially IT consumers have become accustomed to delays in first releases, unfortunately they've also become accustomed to additional slips.  Don't think that means that they'll tolerate them.

Give yourselves some time. You've probably had some past metrics to relate back to, if not find someone who does. Are you consistently late by 20%? Talk to your product team and suggest that a buffer be built in then.  Do you consistently chop major functionality to make your schedule?  Reduce the communicated scope based on the items that are least at risk. It's very unlikely you will be punished for delivering early or with more in the box if you aren't consistently doing so.  Conversely, if you consistently are way off your deliverables than your customers will already be modifying their expectations based on their history. Its all about predictability.  

Do what you say:

If things go awry, be honest.  Don't try to spin your way out of it.  Take responsibility and explain what is being done to correct the problems.  You don't have to tell anything gory and embarassing, but it will be appreciated that you are willing to provide greater visibility to your customers.  Again, this is about building trust and sometimes that means exposing your hand.

Stay on top of it. There is no excuse for missing a deliverable and not having communicated or at least planned for the communcations strategy in advance.  Stay in communications with your product team (provide feedback only, not demands) and become a trusted advisor to them as well. You are the face of the company to the customer, and you're the face of the customer to the company. It is important that inside and outside you are considered a reliable channel for communication that will not mislead or abuse the information you are given.  You should always try to maintain a positive attitude and be supportive in your interactions, but a duck is a duck no matter what you try to call it.  It is essential to maintain your integrity through out each interaction.

Tip: If your deliverable is truly providing value, there are customer activities that are being planned around your release (if there aren't you've got bigger problems), so remember a failure on your part to meet expectations is likely to be a failure on your customers part.  Your customer's success based on the products or services you provide is the best predictor of your success.

Say what you did:

Keeping this in mind, don't wait around to tell your customers (or market) what is delivered. This is an accomplishment and even if it wasn't pretty, you have delivered additional value to your customers. Let them know so that they can take action or plan to take action on it. Also, be sure to provide the value statements, this allows your customer to do their own promotions.  "See how smart we were to make this decision? Look at what we got!"  This messaging will be a little different from previous rounds, as you can now apply the polish.  Remember, history always looks more favorably on the victors.

 

An Open Letter to the Enterprise IT industry

Dear Corporate Strategist:

After 13 years working within IT in various capacities from developer to director, I see the same patterns repeating themselves. In this age of outsourcing everything but the sales team itself (or did I miss that too?), it is ever more important to remember the faces of our customers and ensure that we are front of mind as a trusted provider.

It's a cyclical pattern, the same as the economy on a macro level; build, stabilize (and get lazy), recede. Technology companies too often fall into the same trap. "Hey, this [insert shiny object here] is really great, the customers are starting to respond to the marketing we've used, so it's all about building more and more clients. We'll take care of the existing customers after we fill our pipeline." After a time, the momentum builds to climax and profiteering reins. Generally this manifests itself in the form of the needlessly gimmicky v-next release or the endless service release cycle that fails to meet schedule or business needs of the market. Sooner or later, panic sets in and the first thing to go is the supporting arms of the organization. "We can sell our way out of this. After all, our existing customers don't create as much revenue anyway. Who needs them?"

The really smart companies start to realize that continuing momentum requires maintaining successful and satisfied base customers, generally starting with the early adopters. They hunt down the big game, and then turn them over to the farmers to nurture them into reference accounts.

After a while, they realize that the focus accounts become harder to bring down and start to settle for the non-strategic accounts. They lose sight of building beachheads in target markets, go after any account they can get and stop focusing on the strategic customers that create a compelling value proposition within a vertical or horizontal solution space. Then the wheels start to come off.

Taking care of your customers, reinforcing and ensuring the continuing value of your offering within the organization and expanding into the enterprise is not a short term proposition. It requires diligence, continued investment and becoming a trusted advisor on behalf of your customers. It is really quite simple: Take care of your customers or they will find someone else that will.

You cannot survive; especially in times such as these, with the assumption that your [insert product or service here] will always be the clear choice. As economic and competitive conditions tighten, the differentiating factor is how your total offering (including goods and services after initial sale) has helped your customer make money, save money, or otherwise justify their operations. You should not be selling a widget, you are generating a unique value to the customer's business. Bottom line, if you make your customer contact look good for their decision to continue doing business or making purchasing decisions with you, they will continue to do so. Remember, you are fighting the alternatives: The "good enough" competitor, the internally developed replacement or the "we can live without" argument.

"Solutions spoken here, we provide a fair value for a fair price. When you have to justify spending, we are easy to defend."

It is essential that you continue to know your customer to understand how they perceive your value. You must be able to predict their changes in strategy, adapt and continue to prove that you have their best interests in mind. This is not the time to think you can staunch the bleeding by infusing new blood (new accounts) and afford to take losses in your base. It takes much less effort, time and investment to continue to till the soil of the fields you already have. Also remember the axiom that 1 bad reference is equal to 10 good ones.

This is not to say that it is not important to continue to pursue new business development opportunities. This too, is vital for your survival. There will always be attrition, but don't think your competitors will sleep while you regroup. Too often I've seen companies eaten alive as their existing customer lists shrink while the new customer list fails to outpace the losses. Your competitors will be all to happy to sell into your base and slowly but surely build momentum and market share as a result of your myopia.

Another thought, it is a dangerous proposition at best to think that you can enhance your way out of a downturn. "Shinys" sell when people are looking to spend, solid value propositions and barriers to exit are the only salvation when cuts are the pervasive trend.

Step back, plan, and execute. Don't let the fight or flight instinct overwhelm good business practices. Protect your existing investments, narrow your focus to strategic battles and cautiously choose your next targets. Always keep in mind that the key to your success as a enterprise provider lay in the success of your customers.

Ted Cochran