Many businesses share a common tale of woe known as ‘When it all went wrong with the external advisor’, a saga of how what should have been a straightforward project went horribly wrong, wasting time and money and causing enormous frustration and disappointment. And it was all the consultant’s fault! Whilst not wanting to absolve consultants as a group from responsibility for the errors and omissions they undoubtedly make (we are human after all!), closer investigation usually reveals that the project was almost certainly doomed to failure from the outset due to a number of factors. Prime amongst these are lack of clarity between the parties about the overall desired outcome(s), and failure to pay sufficient attention to the ongoing relationship.
The most rewarding relationships with external advisors occur where commissioning companies take time to follow a few simple rules of best practice. Time invested in these will ensure that the relationship is productive, both parties achieve the benefits they are seeking, and best of all – the company feels motivated and confident about employing other advisors in future.
No company, large or small, can be specialists in everything. Often, smaller businesses have simply developed from one person or a small group who had a good idea and saw a gap in the market. Later as they reach the stage of having a viable business, they realise they need specialist support if they are to continue to prosper and grow. Even those whose management is experienced in marketing and sales may find their businesses facing new challenges requiring them to seek assistance with new strategies and implementation.
Sometimes external advisors are used because businesses can’t afford to employ people with high-level specialist skills on a full-time ongoing basis, particularly when they are not sure about what they want or need them to do. Or, if they have in-house ‘specialists’, they can still have a need for ad-hoc advice relating to special projects, new product/service development or numerous other areas requiring expert guidance, a fresh eye and an impartial view. Alternately, external advisors may be needed simply because the in-house incumbents don’t have time to undertake additional projects or tasks and it is more efficient to contract them to an outsider.
External advisors can identify areas for change which those within the company may fail to see. Their ability to take a broad brush approach, analysing each company against the canvas of wider industry standards, customer expectations, and other agents of change, can be invaluable.
So, what is the best way to go about working with external advisors? Experience shows there are a number of guidelines which the commissioning company, regardless of size and nature of business, should follow:
We’ll consider each of these in turn.
Before seeking an external advisor you must try and clearly identify the problem that you want them to solve. This means isolating the reason you believe you need assistance, thinking through what you are prepared to pay to find a solution – in terms of time, money, manpower and emotional investment, and clearly articulating what a solution would look and feel like. For example, you may identify that the problem you face is poor sales to overseas markets. The solution you are seeking is: ‘to increase exports by 100% enabling us to increase our profitability by at least 50% so we can expand within the next two years and ensure a more rewarding lifestyle for everyone in the company’.
This stage is perhaps the most important because if you’re not sure exactly what the problem is, it will be impossible to solve, and you will never feel satisfied with the relationship with your advisor. However, two caveats apply:
Use the knowledge of what you are seeking to achieve as a basis for a written brief in respect of the work. This should include your objectives (as outlined above), information about your company, background to the project and what you think it entails. If it is helpful, you can also give an indication of what you don’t want. Ideally prospective advisors should receive this brief in advance of your first meeting with them so it can be used to focus your initial discussions.
The above exercise will aid your search for external assistance by enabling you to state clearly what you are looking for i.e. “We are looking for someone who can help us increase our exports by 100% and our profitability by at least 50% within the next two years so we can expand and ensure a more rewarding lifestyle for everyone in the company”.
Within the fields of marketing and sales there are numerous specialists and also generalists. There are also, unfortunately, those with little real expertise or experience who hold themselves out as advisors in this field simply because they feel that ‘anyone can do marketing or sales’.
Whichever category they fall into, the onus is on you to ensure you commission the right one to meet your needs. Perhaps the biggest criticism levelled against consultants is that they focus on identifying problems, then leave their clients without solutions. So you need to establish at the outset that prospective advisors are experienced in implementation - without this, you won’t be much better off.
Think in advance about what questions to ask in order to narrow down your search and ensure you get off first base with the right sort of advisor for your needs and your budget. The following may help get the ball rolling:
What do you actually do for businesses?
Are you experienced in working with businesses like ours?
How do you work with businesses?
How do you measure your results?
Personal recommendation is a good place to start, though you shouldn’t believe that simply because someone else is delighted with the advisor, the relationship will work as well for you. This aside, explore the obvious avenues – Yellow Pages, Trade Directories, networking contacts – and be prepared to do some research on the web into what prospective advisors have to offer.
If you want to take matters further, any advisor should be prepared to come and see you for an initial meeting, free of charge and this is undoubtedly the most important stage in the selection process. But show respect. Don’t ask to meet people until you’re clear about what you’re looking for; and don’t tell them, at the end of the meeting, “We’re seeing about twenty other contenders”.
Most marketing and sales problems don’t involve quick-fix solutions. So, in many cases you will need to be looking for an advisor who is prepared to take a long-term interest in the future of your business, even if their ongoing input becomes periodic after the initial stages. What this means is that you’re going to have to work with them and more importantly, trust them for a long time to come – so the personal chemistry between you must be right.
Whatever your business or your position in it, you will invariably know more about it than any outsider. However, you don’t know what you don’t know, which is to say that you may suffer from an inability to “see the wood for the trees” and take an unbiased and realistic view of the opportunities available to you. You may also be unaware of the many alternative solutions to your problem, or the many unrealised obstacles which stand in your way. However, as long as you are clear about what you want to achieve, you will have a good foundation for moving forward.
Even if you think you know what’s broke and how to fix it, don’t concentrate at the outset on specifying to the consultant how you want it done. You could be right, but most problems have more than one solution and as a specialist your advisor may be – and should be - able to suggest alternative, or more efficient and effective, methodologies.
Expecting an advisor to work productively when you have only told them half the story or failed to point out pitfalls which you know they will encounter, is totally counter-productive. If you don’t trust the advisor enough to be open and honest with them, then you shouldn’t commission them. Similarly, you must be open with your staff about what the advisor is doing, the outcomes you are trying to achieve and what they will be expected to deliver. Furtiveness and dishonesty will lead to fear, suspicion, non-cooperation and a very unhappy workforce – exactly the opposite atmosphere to the one the advisor will need in order to work productively!
Before commissioning work from a advisor, you should obtain - and carefully read - their Terms and Conditions of business. If you are unclear or unhappy about any points, you should discuss these with them at this stage. It should go without saying, that having agreed to their Terms and Conditions, you must ensure you work within them. Your own Terms and Conditions of Business should also be made clear to the advisor - if any deviation from them is agreed, this should be conveyed to them in writing.
It is essential that you indicate to potential advisors your budgetary constraints in respect of the work on offer. In their response to you following your initial meeting they should provide you with a clear statement of what the costs will be for each stage, and exactly what these costs do – and do not – cover. If it is not possible for them to provide exact figures at the outset, you must agree how they should notify you of on-going charges and when you will be invoiced. All initial and on-going estimates should be in writing. If in doubt, don’t assume – ASK!
If the work is time sensitive, timescales should be agreed at the outset. As part of their written response to you, the advisor should provide you with specific or estimated timings for each part of the job and you must jointly agree the consequences if either side should fail to meet these deadlines. Once work has started, if it becomes clear that you are not going to be able to meet a deadline, you must notify the advisor of this as soon as possible and discuss the implications.
Once you have seen the potential advisors, and – where necessary – received their further input and taken up references, you should be in a position to decide which advisor to choose. You should now have agreed a final working brief which will underpin your working relationship (although it can be amended, if necessary, by mutual agreement at any stage).
It can be difficult for an external advisor to accurately assess at the outset the speed at which you can move, or identify problems in your company which might form stumbling blocks to progress. But you have that experience, so be realistic when jointly setting objectives, particularly those which may damage staff morale if you fail to achieve them. Adopt the consultants’ mantra and aim to “under- promise and over-deliver”, particularly at the outset. Not only will it get things off to a flying, and morale-boosting start, but it should also provide a solid foundation on which to cement your relationship with the advisor. They advised; you achieved; everyone benefited.
When presenting recommendations, a good advisor will choose their words carefully and present a balanced view of your situation, focusing on the many positive points which your company and people undoubtedly possess. But there will be criticisms; he or she will draw attention to your failings, often at a personal level, and it’s here that things can go wrong.
First, you need to bear in mind that what they say is objective – it’s how you come across to them, as an outsider. So, it’s probably how you come across to others too – even your customers or clients. Second, you’re obviously not perfect – if you were, you wouldn’t have called in someone to help you solve what you’ve already identified as a problem. Third, you know in your heart that if they didn’t actually point out where you were going wrong, you wouldn’t think they were doing their job properly! So, bite the bullet, concentrate on listening carefully to your advisor and questioning what he or she has to say so you really get to the bottom of their perceptions. And trust them – they’re there to help you, not stab you in the back.
Always remember, you’re not in competition with your advisor; you’re on the same side; so for the duration of their contract they should be considered ‘one of you’. On their part this means that they have to fall in line with the same standards and cultural mores as the rest of the company and do things your way. For your part, you have to be inclusive, communicative, trusting and honest towards them. The old adage ‘two heads are better than one’ really is true if you work together and maximise the synergy that you generate from the partnership. If you simply work as two separate forces operating in parallel, the benefit will be severely reduced.
One of the commonest problems in the relationship can be the company’s failure to deliver what they promised to do. Even where the advisor is tasked to deliver the majority of the project independently, there will always be situations where they need the company to review options, make decisions, or implement outcomes. Failure to do so will restrict the advisor’s progress or worse, sabotage what has gone before. It can be the advisor’s greatest frustration. “I advised them what to do and they agreed. But they just don’t do it!” At this stage, the company is simply wasting time and money and should investigate their motivation and commitment. Often coaching and/or mentoring, individual or team, can be useful in order to break down the real barriers to progress (as opposed to excuses) and get things moving.
Company/consultant relationships often go off the rails because projects aren’t jointly reviewed until things have gone so wrong that it’s impossible to put them right. Marketing and sales are imprecise sciences where success often depends on a cycle of testing, piloting, altering, and re-launching. Effective progress can only be made if each stage is measured, reviewed and amended in order to keep matters on course. Building-in formal reporting, reviewing and monitoring processes which involve both the company and the advisor and ensuring they are adhered to, is an ideal way of regularly focusing on achievements, challenges, and new opportunities. With this type of control, problems are usually fairly insignificant and can be rectified.
Similarly, by periodically reviewing the ongoing working relationship between the company and the advisor it will be possible to rectify misunderstandings, improve communication, air differences and set new targets so that matters never deteriorate to relationship breakdown and the experience is viewed positively by all involved.
(c) Dianne Bown-Wilson, the M3 Consultancy
www.m3consultancy.co.uk