When to Avoid a New Consulting Gig
Lining up a new client whose business you find intellectually engaging, interesting and enjoyable is a great thing — especially when you’re effective, and making a discernible, demonstrative, positive impact on day to day operations.
In effect, you’re getting paid to have fun. You can’t beat that.
But simply accepting an offer in a vacuum is a bad policy, and short-sighted approach to consulting. To be effective in the realm of communications and content creation the individual with whom you primarily interface must not only be competent and skilled, but listened-to and plugged-in to senior management.
By their very nature, political campaigns and other enterprises where media and other externally-driven crises routinely threaten ongoing viability do not have this problem. If they ever do, it is short-lived, as the staff interface is quickly replaced or marginalized.
But this is not always the case in larger corporate or national association entities where a half-dozen “communications managers” or similar middle management staff frequently report up the chain to final decision-makers.
Organization charts don’t always tell the full story — nor should they. Due diligence on a consultant’s part is required. It’s not difficult to ascertain which staff control decision-making, internal information flow and external content deployment.
As a prospective consultant, I expect and hope to be carefully evaluated; the same should hold true in the inverse so as to make the best use of one’s own most valuable commodity besides skill and experience: time itself.
If the variables do not add up, respectfully suggest the fit is not in a potential client’s best interest from a value and budgetary context. They may not be accustomed to hearing that, but they’ll surely respect you.
It’s not always “just about the money” — it’s about being a professional with options who values their time.
