What is the Value of an Accountant/Consultant?

I was recently discussing the present state of the consulting industry. The businessman that I was talking to offered this definition: “A consultant is someone who will steal your wallet and happily tell you how much money you had.” The businessman went on to tell of his experience with consultants. Lots of promises and they tell you what you mostly already know and then leave you with a plan you have to figure out how to implement on your own. Another businessman in the discussion stated that he had spent $20K to hear what he had heard before, but since he had spent the $20K, he decided to at least make a couple of changes.

Clearly, people don’t perceive consultants as providing much real value. 

And that’s what consulting should be – providing real, measurable value. Many business people require some help to improve and move forward. It is difficult to think about working on your business when you are up to your neck working on your business.

Consultants should help by providing knowledge and expertise to guide their clients toward independently viewing and prioritizing problems. The consultant, however, must determine the value of any improvements to the business, and know when an improvement isn’t worth being made. Then, the client can make a more well-informed decision about whether or not to proceed. The consultant must also assist with implementation to ensure the benefits to the customer are actually achieved.

Consultants must provide an integrated approach to better help clients bridge the gap between strategy and action. This will result in realistic, useful, sustainable business process solutions. Advice is great, but it is useless unless it is acted upon. A consultant’s greatest value to their clients is not just providing advice on how solve problems – but also helping them implement the solution as well. To help ensure the value of a consultant’s service, they should provide a money back guarantee. If, after one year, clients feel that they have not received sufficient value to offset the cost of the process analysis, they should get their money back.

Before hiring any consultant, follow these rules:

• Ensure from initial discussions that there is a reasonably clear benefit to the company of improving. (Determine a monetary value from your perspective.)
• Talk to the consultant’s references. (Ask about real benefits that the consultants have provided.)
• Ensure that the consultant can deliver. (Can they actually implement or help implement recommended solutions?)
• Get a detailed listing of requirements and issues with your value of benefits. (From the requirements and value you will be better able to evaluate and prioritize solution options.)
• Get a fixed fee for the engagement – it is a conflict of interest to bill by the hour. (Know up front how much and what the expected results are.)
• Ask for a guarantee of results. (Good consultants know if you can improve and should only accept jobs from businesses they know they can help.)

These rules seem simple, but they can help ensure your consultant will deliver on time and on budget – and actually solve your problems.