Consulting Business Management – Organizing Your Consulting Business For Success, Part 2
Organizing your business for success is imperative — that’s why I’ve decided to list two more traps to watch out for:
1. TAKING A CLIENT OF QUESTIONABLE INTEGRITY
If you have trouble with “promises kept” at the beginning of a relationship, that is very unlikely to improve. Personally, one test that reveal to me how ethically and predictable a client is going to behave is how they handle time .. when our first telephone appointment, meeting or consultation is arranged, are they prompt and on time? If they cannot be respectful of my time then, they’ll be even less respectful during the relationship and a person who does not respect another persons time cannot, in my experience, be trusted in other matters either. I don’t want to be stuck trying to work with somebody who can’t even keep simple appointments.
Another thing is money. If the first retainer check is a problem, it’s suppose to arrive FedEx on Wednesday, but it doesn’t, then there’s a “story” about why it didn’t, then it comes in the mail instead of FedEx as agreed — look out! If you have difficulty getting the payment agreement honored at the very start, you can only expect more trouble later. And I’m just not interested in having to jump through hoops to get paid.
2. THE “KNOW-IT-ALL” CLIENT
When a client is hiring me for my specialized knowledge, I expect them to pay attention to it, value it, and act on it. Intelligent questioning is fine, but argument is not. Some people actually want their consultant to agree with them and stroke their egos. And you can actually get paid to do just that. But the relationship will be short-lived and is not based on real value.
Also, if your consulting compensation features commissions or royalties tied to results or similar arrangements, as some of mine does, then having clients who do not implement and follow-through is not only frustrating, it’s not profitable.
3. TAKING ON WORK YOU REALLY DO NOT HAVE TIME TO DO
Anyone who lives in the world of billable hours/project work –consultants, attorneys, accountants — is frequently tempted to agree to impossible deadlines, overload their plate, then respond to crisis while delivering everything late. It is an understandable temptation. We all get caught from time to time. But you should be very aware of your workload and commitments, realistic about the number of hours required by a project, and do your best to stretch out the deadlines and commitments in your favor. Keeping commitments is a “make or break” characteristic.