Applying a Client-Centered Value Strategy ◾ 83
research suggests that the 80:20 rule applies; 20% of consultants earn 80% of
the revenues.
Although revenues do not determine profit levels on their own, they
remain the predominant factor in profitability. It is vital in your consulting
business that you are able to expose the relationship between the two, to be
able to say, “I did X dollars in revenue this month, and I have a profit of Y.”
The Life and Times of 400 Consultants
A survey conducted at the TTI Success Insights International Consultants
Conference in Phoenix, Arizona, turned up some very revealing information
about consultant revenues and lifestyle. In the anonymous questionnaire, we
set out to determine how much consultants were earning, how they earned
it, and why they did what they did.
Here are the six questions and the answers given:
What were your personally generated revenues as a consultant last year?
Note that the question zeroes in on personally generated revenues as
opposed to revenues earned by the corporate entity. In total, that single
auditorium of 400 consultants generated revenues of more than $86 mil-
lion the previous year. That is an average of $216,000 per consultant.
Within that, the range of fees varied as you would expect. One consultant
took home $1.3 million, whereas at the other end of the spectrum, a new
entrant to the industry earned just $10,000. It is worth noting that eleven
consultants—3% of the group—had revenues in excess of $1million.
What was your biggest single fee last year?
The biggest single fee in the auditorium was $600,000, the lowest was
$10,000, and the average was $55,000.
How many years have you been in the consulting business?
The average number of years in the business was 10.3. One consul-
tant in the auditorium was looking back on thirty years in the business,
whereas one newcomer had only been in consulting for a single year.
What age are you now?
The average age was fifty-three years, with the oldest seventy-four
years and the youngest twenty-three years.
84 ◾ Odyssey—The Business of Consulting
How many car miles and air miles did you clock up last year?
Consultants frequently gauge their status by the mileage that
theyclock up. In terms of time spent behind the wheel, the average
consultant drove 15,000 miles the previous year, although one hit a
high of 80,000. The lowest was zero. The auditorium spent an average
of 33,000 miles in the air, with a high of 300,000 air miles and alow,
again, of zero. Best practice would suggest that your best client should
be within half an hour’s reach, to keep your time focusedon the busi-
ness of consulting rather than the act of getting there.
In one word, sum up your reasons for being in the consulting business.
This statement, which the consultants were asked to answer quickly
and instinctively, is perhaps the most revealing of all. In order of the
most frequent responses, the ranking is as follows:
1. Passion—being of service and making a difference to business and
sharing wisdom gained
2. Freedom—freedom from the corporate world to enjoy greater bal-
ance and harmony and control of one’s life and business
3. People—wishing to contribute to the growth and success of people
4. Fun—the opportunity to engage with many different kinds of busi-
nesses and people
5. Money—return on investment of time, knowledge, and experience,
or simply cannot afford to retire
6. Helping—the sense of fulfilment from helping others achieve success
These figures, although they may surprise you, are consistent with global
research into this area. Before you go on, think about why you joined the
consulting business. What drives you to fulfil your dreams and maximize
your potential?
Six Consulting Perspectives
The rapid growth of the consulting industry in recent years has seen a
dramatic expansion of the scope and nature of consulting business models.
As a result, it is important to understand these changing dynamics and be
aware of the differing definitions that exist. The Odyssey approach encom-
passes six separate perspectives of consulting:
Applying a Client-Centered Value Strategy ◾ 85
Perspective 1: The Generalist and the Specialist
“To be a generalist or a specialist, that is the question.”
The dichotomy between the generalist and the specialist represents a
common dilemma at the heart of consulting. You find specialists at all lev-
els of the corporate structure: industrial engineers, financial analysts, and
experts in a variety of disciplines. The management consultant, however, is
not understood to have a comparable specialization.
The argument runs that generalists lack the in-depth knowledge required
to fully understand and resolve problems, and provide little added value to
the client business. Your clients will add fuel to this debate by implicitly or
explicitly expecting that you be both a generalist and a specialist. The reality
is that the strategic objectives of an organization in this fast-changing world
require both generalists and specialists or a combination thereof.
For the consultant, the dilemma is that the more specialized your
approach, the more difficult it is to obtain sufficient business, and the more
generalist your approach, the less credibility you carry in the eyes of your
client. The Odyssey consultant’s position is as a generalist, but as a specialist
within a niche market.
Specialist or technical consultants tend to focus on business processes,
structures, systems, and technology in areas such as production, construction,
legal, finance, and accounting. The generalists tend to focus on the human side
of organizations, such as personal development, cultural change, strategic lead-
ership, and energizing and empowering people to performance improvement.
Although you may be a generalist in your field, your clients need to
perceive and believe that you are a specialist in their area of need. Imagine
yourself as a zoom lens, capable of taking the broad approach but retain-
ing the ability to zero in on your own particular area of competency and
the specific need of the client sitting in front of you. In a generalist posi-
tion, the consultant initiates the Odyssey Arrow and recommends a variety
of solutions, some of which may require other niche consultant expertise.
You become the coordinating consultant. For example, you might consult on
human resource matters, but bring in a finance or technology consultant to
implement other Recommendations.
Perspective 2: Business or Profession?
Is consulting a business or is it more accurately described as a profes-
sional service? Disciplines like medicine, law, accounting, and engineering
86 ◾ Odyssey—The Business of Consulting
have evolved into professional services over many years, during which the
vocational characteristics and competencies that separate the certified pro-
fessional from the business aspects of their activities have become clearly
defined and generally accepted.
For consulting, the boundaries are less clear. Some would say consulting
is a discipline, not yet a profession. At the same time, consulting is evolving
rapidly, extending its reach deep into those more established professions.
The reality is that your consulting business coexists very nicely with your
professional expert method of practice and service delivery. It is vital to
maintain that dual focus and to understand that while you are providing a
professional service, you must also operate a viable business. It is not credi-
ble to advise on the running of other businesses if you do not run your own
business successfully.
The central question then becomes, How do I take a professional
approach to management consulting, while at the same time making sure I
build a solid, profitable consulting practice? Odyssey consultants subscribe
to a code of ethics and strive towards a competency benchmark, while the
Odyssey Arrow guides protocol and processes.
Perspective 3: The Nature of Consulting
Although there are several definitions of consulting, it is helpful to think of
two basic contexts.
The first context is a broad, functional approach. Fritz Steele (1975) in
Consulting for Organizational Change defines it as follows:
Consulting is any form of providing help on the content, process,
or structure of a task or series of tasks where the consultant is not
actually responsible for doing the task itself, but is helping those
who are.
In his book Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used
(2011), author Peter Block states,
You are consulting any time you are trying to change, or improve
a situation, but have no direct control over the implementation. By
this definition, many executives in organizations are really consul-
tants, even if they don’t officially call themselves consultants. So, if
Applying a Client-Centered Value Strategy ◾ 87
you are a helper, or an enabler, or a provider, or even a manager,
you can assume the consulting role.
Consulting, therefore, is open-ended in nature, and far from being the
preserve of an elite, it is available to anyone wishing to “hang out their
shingle.” This availability helps to explain the application of the title “consul-
tant” to everyone from sales consultants to IT consultants and public image
consultants. In its broad definition, consulting is an approach or a way of
advising or telling others to do something they might not have done, or
improving on something they are already doing, and most likely charging a
fee for service.
The second context of consulting views it as a specialist profession with sev-
eral clearly defined characteristics. In Consulting to Management (1983), Greiner
and Metzger state,
Management consulting is an advisory service contracted for and
provided to organizations by specially trained and qualified per-
sons who assist, in an objective and independent manner, the
client organization to identify management problems, analyze such
problems, recommend solutions to these problems, and help, when
requested, in the implementation of solutions.
The International Council of Management Consulting Institutes (ICMCI)
defines consulting as follows:
Management consulting is the provision of independent advice and
assistance about the process of management to clients with man-
agement responsibilities.
The late Peter Drucker (2001), management guru, states,
Every consultant knows that his clients are his teachers, and that
he lives off their knowledge. The consultant does not know more.
But he has seen more.
In Odyssey, we believe the primary role of consulting and the consultant
is to create, share, and apply management and business knowledge, method-
ology, and processes for the benefit of the client. Although knowledge trans-
fer is a key aspect in consulting, consultants have the practical experience to
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