How to Maximize Value and Get Results When Hiring Consultants

I met an executive director recently who is new to the field. She asked, “What services should I be looking for to support my work?” In response, I found myself cautioning her on her consultant hiring strategy. I may have cautioned myself right out of a job! But, I couldn’t help it.

I didn’t want her to waste her limited budget, recreate the wheel or spend time interviewing and/or hiring consultants that ultimately would not help her organization move ahead.

That’s how this piece came to be. As a leader committed to improving the lives of young people, families and communities, you budget for and hire consultants–all the time,right?

But, how do you know that you are getting the value you could be getting through your work with consultants?

This has been a hot topic among the consulting community and I want to make sure that contracting agencies, nonprofits and businesses that hire consultants are brought into the know.

Executive leaders usually ask: How much should I pay our consultants? Here’s what I can tell you: Some clients place caps on the amount a consultant can bill, and most clients are looking for an hourly or daily rate. I’ve heard such lowball ranges as $40/hour to $1500/day as maximum pay (!) for consultants in our industry. I’ve even heard of agencies with such delayed payments that consulting firms may wait over a year to be paid.

The blame is shifted to funders, grant making agencies, bureaucratic processes…but regardless>>>

Not okay.

And while you will find consultants willing to work within such minimum conditions, I’m here to tell you a hard truth about how you budget for and pay consultants:

Just as seat time in a classroom does not equal learning, consultant time does not equal results.

If you are in the “payment in exchange for time” mindset, you don’t get your desired results. Without results, what value do you actually get? Um…not much. How do you maximize the value your consultants can offer? Here are six tips:

1. Check your view of consultants.

If you view consultants as people who “come and go”, “plug holes” or “tell you something you already knew”, you have been hiring the wrong people. If you are in a one-and-done mindset, you don’t get your desired results.

Consultants are an essential part of the youth development-education-workforce-justice-involved youth-higher ed ecosystem. They help you achieve the mission you are passionately committed to.

Let that commitment guide your hiring and budgeting for consultant support.

2. Get clear on the results you are looking for.

This sounds like: What are the RESULTS I want or need?

Examples include: More reach. Better programs and services. Stronger people. More students enrolled. More funding. More consistency across programming. Clearer direction. Happier leaders. Better messaging.

You will naturally consider: What is keeping me from these results? Like, why don’t we have the amount of funding we want?

You may have some ideas on the obstacles and challenges that keep you from reaching your desired results. Being a solution-driven person, you will naturally generate ways to overcome those obstacles. These are great to consider. File those in the back of your mind.

3. Do not focus on the solutions or services you think you need.

Go back to the results you are laser-focused on achieving. And move ahead from there.

Consultants who can truly help you will have many skills and solutions in their bag. They will ask you about your current situation, the problems you’re experiencing and the results you need.

They will diagnose the big issues and craft a course of action to help you get to your results. It may include services and solutions you never thought of.

It may be out of the box. That’s good. That’s why you need their help–you’ve been stuck in a box.

4. Look for consultants who will help you achieve your results.

Consultants are wonderful. Friendly. Supportive. Expertise-rich. They can be so easy to talk with. They ‘get’ you.

You need help. You need support. You need advising. You may want every service they offer. It can be difficult to decide what services to invest in.

Don’t let your budget dictate what you engage consultants for; Let your desired results help you set the course.

5. Quantify the value of achieving your results.

If you want more staff to stay, figure out what it is costing your organization to search, interview, hire and train new staff each time someone leaves. If you want more consistent programming, figure out what it costs your organization to have every site reinvent the wheel each year?

Get out your calculator and get a decent idea–estimates are fine– on what you are losing by not having the results you need.

A consultant worth their salt is going to help you calculate this anyway. They need to know: how big of a problem is this? And, if you collaboratively develop a solution, what value does that solution offer to your organization?

6. Plan for a larger investment than you thought.

There’s a great analogy I read in 10x is Easier Than 2x. It goes like this: A nuclear power plant was having an operational problem. Something was malfunctioning and the malfunction was slowing down energy generation and efficiency of the entire plant. The plant’s engineers spent months and years trying to fix it. They couldn’t figure it out.

Finally, a senior executive hired one of the nation’s top consultants on nuclear power plant engineering. The consultant spent several hours walking through the plant, studying dials and gauges, examining blueprints, taking notes and making calculations. After nearly a full day’s work, the consultant pulled a marker out, climbed up a ladder and put a big “X” on one of the gauges. “This is the problem,” the consultant said. “Replace this and everything will go back to functioning properly.” Then the consultant left and flew home.

The next day, the power plant executive received an email from the consultant’s assistant with an invoice for $50,000. Despite the fact that this problem was costing the plant hundreds of thousands of dollars every week, the senior executive was surprised by the fee and replied:

“How is it possible for less than a day’s work to be valued at $50,000? All the consultant did was write an X with a marker.”

The assistant replied: “$1 for the X, and $49,999 for knowing where to put the X.”

You need that level of expert. While the investment may be more than you anticipated. Don’t worry. Focus on the results and how much you’ll save in the long run. And how you will achieve your goal.

When you are committed to results, good consultants can help you do this work in phases. They see the big picture. They see you as a long term partner in a shared mission.

I know you’re in this work because you are committed to improving the lives of young people, families and communities. Let that commitment guide your decisions. If you want results, invest in results. If you hire consultants to do time-filling busywork, you’ll pay less in the moment and more over time …and may never achieve the change your organization is here to make. C’mon—you’ve got this. ❤️❤️❤️