Featured · Advisory
When a consultant beats an agency, and how to scope one
A consultant sells judgement. An agency sells delivery. Firms conflate them, hire the wrong one, and end up either paying a retainer for advice they could have bought in three days or paying a day rate for work nobody is going to do.
The distinction matters most when a firm is stuck rather than short-handed. If you know what to do and lack the capacity, buy delivery. If you have capacity and cannot agree what to do, no amount of delivery will help.
What a consultant is actually for
The useful engagements are short, narrow and end with a decision rather than a document. These are the situations where they earn their fee comfortably.
A diagnosis: enquiries have fallen, or never arrived, and nobody internally can say why. A week of somebody competent usually locates it.
A second opinion on a proposal, a retainer or a rebuild that a partnership cannot agree about.
A choice between options — practice areas to prioritise, whether to build or buy, which of three agencies fits — where the firm needs someone with no stake in the answer.
Setting up measurement, so that everything afterwards can be judged on evidence rather than assertion.
Training or coaching an internal hire who is capable but has nobody to learn from.
Notice that all five end. A consultant on a permanent monthly retainer is usually an agency with fewer people, or an expensive way of having somebody to talk to.
The other thing they share is that the firm has to act afterwards. A diagnosis nobody implements is the most common way this money is wasted, and it is not the consultant's failure.
How these engagements waste money
The failures are predictable and mostly on the buying side, which is encouraging — they are within your control.
Hiring a consultant when the firm actually needed hands. Advice does not publish pages.
An open-ended scope, which converts a diagnostic into a retainer without anybody deciding to.
No named internal owner, so the recommendations arrive and sit.
A deliverable specified as a report. Reports get read once; decisions get made.
Bringing them in without access to the data, the people or the honest history, and then receiving generic advice.
And the expensive one: commissioning the work without any intention of doing anything uncomfortable that it recommends.
Scoping one properly
A good consulting engagement is defined tightly enough that both sides know when it is finished.
Write the question you want answered in one sentence. If it takes a paragraph, you have more than one engagement.
Fix the duration and the fee before starting, and prefer days to months.
Specify the output as decisions and a sequenced plan, not as a report — and say who will own each item.
Give full access on day one: analytics, spend, enquiry records, the agency relationship and the internal history including the failures.
Insist they speak to whoever answers the telephone. It is the single most informative hour available and consultants who skip it produce thinner work.
Agree what happens next before they leave — who does what, by when, and when they will be back to check.
Book the check-in. An engagement with no follow-up point is one whose recommendations will quietly lapse.
And judge the engagement six months later on what changed, not on how good the presentation was.
The economics are usually favourable: a few days of the right person can save a year of a wrong retainer. But the value is realised by the firm afterwards, which is why consultants are the purchase most sensitive to how seriously the buyer takes it.
FAQs
What is the difference between a marketing consultant and an agency?
A consultant sells judgement and an agency sells delivery. If you know what to do and lack capacity, buy delivery. If you have capacity but cannot agree what to do, more delivery will not help — and paying a retainer for advice you could buy in three days is the commonest version of that mistake.
When should a law firm hire a consultant?
For a diagnosis when enquiries have fallen and nobody can say why, a second opinion on a proposal the partnership disagrees about, a choice between options where you need someone with no stake, setting up measurement, or coaching a capable internal hire who has nobody to learn from.
How long should a consulting engagement last?
Days rather than months, with the duration and fee fixed before starting. A consultant on a permanent monthly retainer is usually an agency with fewer people, or an expensive way of having somebody to talk to.
What should the deliverable be?
Decisions and a sequenced plan with an owner against each item — not a report. Reports get read once and filed; decisions get made. Book the follow-up before they leave, or the recommendations will quietly lapse.
Why do consulting engagements fail?
Almost always on the buying side: hiring advice when the firm needed hands, no named internal owner, incomplete access to data and honest history, or commissioning the work with no intention of doing anything uncomfortable it recommends.
End Note
The consultant is the cheapest senior opinion a firm can buy and the easiest to waste, because the value arrives as a recommendation rather than as work completed.
Write the question in one sentence, fix the days, demand decisions rather than a report, give them everything including the embarrassing parts, and book the return visit before they leave.
Key Takeaways
Consultants sell judgement; agencies sell delivery. Buy the one you lack.
The useful engagements are short, narrow, and they end.
Specify decisions and a plan with owners — never a report.
Give full access on day one, including the failures.
Have them speak to whoever answers the telephone.
