Marketing

Consultants looking for fashion tips are in the wrong place here. Just keep it simple: well-cut suit, crisp white shirt, smart shoes. Ditch the novelty tie. You’ll be fine. Consultants interested in branding, on the other hand, should stick around. And judging by the conversations we’ve been having with people in consulting firms recently, many of you will.

By Fiona Czerniawska

“What would I advise a consulting firm to do? Spend more time on relationship development. We have a very, very good account manager: he sleeps, eats, and breathes our industry; he meets with us once a month just to have coffee and talk about the state of the business – it isn't a sales call, just something he thinks is important to do. And the people he brings with him are just the same.”

“You see, but you don’t observe,” Sherlock Holmes said in A Scandal in Bohemia. Having spent part of the last few days looking at client feedback surveys done by two different firms, I’m tempted to add that we listen, but we don’t hear.

Consulting firms are certainly listening. I don’t know a single large firm that doesn’t send out questionnaires to their clients or dispatch senior partners to have in-depth conversations with their key accounts. My question is whether they’re really hearing.