As a management consultant, it’s important to aid your consulting customer to make decisions based on the work you do for her. Without your help in decision-making, the customer has an excuse to shelve your work and pass off the expense as a mistaken belief in your consulting expertise. To avoid such a scenario, here are the steps you can take to aid your consulting customer in decision-making.
Here’s something that took me longer than I’d like to admit to learn: your job isn’t finished when you hand over a report. The real work—the bit that actually creates value—is helping the client act on what you’ve found. A beautifully crafted analysis gathering dust on someone’s desk is worthless. Worse, it makes you look like someone who produces impressive documents but doesn’t actually solve problems.
The following decision-making strategies for business consulting will help you avoid that outcome.
1. & 2. Understand the Problem and the Customer’s Priorities
First and foremost, you must ensure you have a full understanding of the problem or issue you are being hired to solve. Don’t even begin to work on a solution without being sure you have full awareness of the issue.
Secondly, you should make sure you know exactly what the customer wishes to achieve by solving the issue. By understanding the problem and the goals to be achieved in solving it, you will be able to guide the customer with the right advice.
I’ve grouped these two together because they’re really part of the same discovery process. You’d be surprised how often a client thinks they have one problem when the actual issue is something else entirely. A logistics manager once hired me to help reduce warehouse costs. Turns out the real problem was an outdated inventory system creating phantom stock issues—the cost problem was just a symptom.
3. Provide Multiple Solutions
Always seek to give your customers a number of options for solving the problem. It’s perfectly okay for them to differ in terms of quality and robustness. Each option will have a different cost attached, as well as different pros and cons, but then the customer can decide upon the tradeoffs to be made. Far from making it harder to decide, having options aids your consulting customer to choose something, rather than to simply say yes or no to your proposals.
Three options tends to be the sweet spot. Fewer than that and the client feels boxed in. More than five and you’ve created analysis paralysis.
4. If Necessary, Make a Recommendation
Don’t be afraid to make a recommendation and explain why you believe it would be the best decision. Be prepared to answer plenty of questions from the customer about your recommendation. This will aid your consulting customer in making a confident decision that she can buy into and sponsor willingly.
The phrase “if necessary” is doing a lot of work in that heading. In my experience, clients almost always want your recommendation. They’re paying for your expertise, after all. Just be clear about separating your analysis from your opinion—something like “based on what we’ve found, I’d suggest option B, and here’s why” keeps things transparent.
5. Respect and Work with the Customer’s Decision
Whichever solution your customer decides upon, even if she comes up with her own which is not on the list you provided, you must respect the customer’s wishes and implement what is requested.
You may not agree with the customer and by all means, you should make your argument for a different course of action.
However, if you’re retained for the implementation, you must deliver what the customer wants, not what you think is the best solution.
This one can sting a bit. There have been times when I’ve watched a client choose what I genuinely believed was the weaker option. But here’s the thing—they know their organisation, their politics, their constraints in ways you never fully will. Sometimes the “best” solution on paper isn’t actually best when you factor in everything else.
Act in the Interests of Your Customer—Not Your Income
Finally, you need to give your customers the confidence and belief that you are acting in the interests of her business. This goes back to point number 3. If you at least provide a choice between a quick, inexpensive fix and a more ambitious, complex change requiring significant investment, your consulting customer can focus more on selecting the right option and less on wondering if you are working in her best interests or yours.
Your reputation depends on this. Word travels in professional circles, and if clients start to suspect you’re padding recommendations to extend engagements, you won’t last long. The irony is that acting in the client’s interest—even when it means less work for you—tends to generate more referrals and repeat business over time.