Why hire external consultants
It’s a funny thing trying to explain to my mom, who never finished elementary school, what I do for a living. “When are you going to get a normal job?” is a frequent question. After trying to explain what I do unsuccesfully for many years, I decided the best thing to do was to tell her the five reasons people hire me and my partners to do work for them.
Here are the five reasons people hire consultants:
1) * Have the expertise but need the bodies – These clients are sophisticated enough to know what needs to be done and to have people in house to do the work; just not enough of them. They buy hours or days!
2) * Need the expertise and the bodies – These group of clients have a need, recognize a gap in their knowledge, or the that they will only need it for a short term; They buy knowledge over time
3) * Need someone to tell the boss – These engagements come from many different levels of managers who want to pitch an idea upwards (their manager, VP, or even the Board of Directors) but need an outsider’s validation. They buy research and analysis projects.
4) * Need someone to tell the employees – Sometimes the management team needs outside change agents to introduce new messages and do it effectively. These clients buy change management and deployment initiatives.
5) * Need someone to blame – Many consulting companies have been fed to the lions because they did not recognize the reason they were being hired. Sometimes the client has to execute a strategy they know in advance will fail, or want it to fail and rather than risking their position, they hire a consultant to do it.