Selling consulting services to a former consultant requires a different mindset than when pitching a project to someone who has never sat on your side of the negotiating table. APQC’s analysis of 72 organizations’ consulting procurement practices found some key distinctions you should be aware of the next time you find yourself selling to a former peer.
When bidding on a typical consulting project sponsored by a former consultant, expect the process to take up to three months longer (25.4 weeks vs. 15.9 weeks) than when selling to someone who has never been a consultant. Former consultants will identify the business case a bit faster (3.0 weeks vs. 3.6 weeks), but every other step will usually take longer.
In part, it’s likely that former consultants are more deliberate because they know that many projects fail because clients rush into an engagement without being fully prepared. Former consultants typically set aside more time to:
- Determine if the organization’s culture is ready for the change (1 week longer)
- Garner buy-in from senior management (almost two weeks longer)
- Establish buy-in from rank-and-file employees (more than two weeks longer)
- Write a RFP (almost one week longer)
- Form a short list (more than a week longer)
- Narrow the short list (more than a week longer)
- Negotiate final terms of the contract (almost two weeks longer)
- Receive final budget approval (almost three weeks longer)
Every seasoned consultant can share a war story about how a client skipped or sped through one or more of those steps only to have it come back to haunt them later.
Readiness assessments (whether it’s a measure of corporate culture or employee buy-in) should not be optional. Starting a project should be determined by how prepared the company is to accept the advice, not by budget cycles or availability of a consultant. But that doesn’t always happen.
We know that it’s always best to take one’s time with an RFP, thinking through every possible contingency. Yet how often have you started a project that wasn’t well thought out? How often were those projects optimally successful?
Forming and narrowing short lists are crucial, yet this step too is sometimes treated with a rubber stamp when an executive has a favorite. (Interestingly former consultants treat “personal relationships” with a lot more weight when forming a short list than do those who have never consulted.)
A prolonged negotiation often favors the client, enabling the buyer to work through the details. (For example, former consultants are far more likely to be concerned with pass-through travel costs than non-consultants.) Knowing this, former consultants are typically willing to spend almost a month on this stage of the process – almost double what those without consulting experience will invest.
Former consultants may also be more careful because they are generally given more purchasing authority than executives who lack consulting experience. Data shows that former consultants usually have at least one less rung of oversight than there non-consulting peers.