How to Use Consultants
The Englin Consulting team has a combined decade of experience as consultants to non-profits and political campaigns, so we’ve seen the gamut of consulting relationships. Before that we were “consumers” of consulting services on the client side.
From both sides, we know that some arrangements work better than others, and as consultants we know that we’re able to make a bigger difference for some clients than others. Now that we’ve rounded the bend into the second half of 2009 (Englin Consulting’s third year of operations!), we thought it might be helpful to offer some of the lessons learned from our perspective on how to structure the best, most effective consulting relationships.
Without further ado… Three Things to help put your consulting budget to its best use:
1) Clarify whether you need help on a project or with capacity. Designing a new website, migrating your content from your old website to your new one, and launching a new website is a great example of a project-based set of tasks. Building an email communications program, then implementing, measuring, evaluating, and improving it is not a project, it’s a core organizational capacity. Both are appropriate for consulting help, but the type of consultant and the structure of the consulting arrangement will be quite different for each. Be clear with yourself, your team, and your potential consultants regarding the type of help you’re looking for, and you’re much more likely to wind up with the right fit.
2) Use consultants to do what you can’t or shouldn’t do internally, even with more staff. Consultants are at our best when we can help you resolve a problem that requires an outside perspective. Perhaps your internal organizational dynamics prevent the best decision-making or stand in the way of clear-eyed assessment and reporting. Or, maybe the work you need done is far enough outside your organization’s core mission that it doesn’t make sense to spend resources building in-house capacity. In the growing “gig economy,” you can find true experts to fill gaps it wouldn’t make sense to fill internally; avoid thinking of consultants as interchangeable with temps – you’ll get much more bang for your buck.
3) Establish communication and reporting expectations up front. Some projects demand daily reporting, for others (and at different phases), a weekly check-in might be enough. You might be solely concerned with progress toward a specific goal, or you might also be interested in process metrics. Work with your consultant very early on to clearly establish a schedule of communication and progress reports, as well as the specific metrics and details you want to keep track of. There are few things more frustrating (on all sides!) than getting deep into a project or retainer and discovering we’re not on the same page regarding frequency and content for reporting. Work it out early and revisit it often to ensure you’re getting what you need.
While this could easily grow into a “Thursday Ten,” I’ll leave it at that and throw it to you – I hope it was helpful, and would love to hear your feedback. Ping us in the comments!
And, as always, if you’ve got Three Things you think the world should know, send us an email – we’d love to feature your ideas in this space!