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n Whatever you felt good about they will promise more of when they
work for you.

n The proposal or sales pitch will show how those things that gave
you problems before will be avoided this time so that you can buy
their services with confidence.

n The good consultant will get as close to your ideal outcome as they
can without risking over-promising and under-delivering.

n As long as they can reasonably expect to do better than this
“practically possible” situation they can expect to have a satisfied
client at the end of the assignment.

If you are not very careful the consultant will do nothing other than ask
you a series of, sometimes relevant, questions in order to maintain control
of the discussion. In their delightful little handbook: How to Get the Most
Out of Your Consultant, Deloitte Consulting suggest that the following
should be thrown in by you to obtain essential information and to throw
the consultant off a well-beaten track. The publication of these questions
suggests that Deloitte, being a highly professional bunch, have well-
rehearsed answers at their fingertips, but the questions are still useful.

n What don’t you do well? Any consultant or consultancy that
proposes itself as being the ultimate in all the complex areas of a
business is kidding either themselves or their clients. We all are
stronger in some things than in others and self-awareness has
many virtues. However, the thoughtful consultant will pick an area
either far removed from your assignment or that is so esoteric that
you are never likely to require services in that area.

n Name a client that you wouldn’t give as a reference. Why? You
need people who are honest and have the ability to learn. That
means that they have recognized and learned from a mistake when
they have made one.

n How do you plan to leave at the end of the assignment? If the
consultant cannot show that they are planning, from the start, to
work themselves out of a job and go on to bigger and better things,
they probably are not very good at doing much other than imitate
a leech. You need to understand just how you will be more
autonomous at the end of the assignment than you were at the
beginning. If you don’t you may find yourself with an expensive
friend for life and little to show for it.

n If I don’t hire you which of your competitors should I hire and
why? This really is a trick question. The ill-prepared will avoid the
question. The stupid will blurt out an unnecessary
recommendation for a competitor. The smart may just take the
opportunity to convince you that they, and they alone, are the
people to hire.

218 Key management questions