10 Steps to Get the Most Out of Your Consultants

Hiring a consultant means you are considering committing considerable organizational funds to make something important happen. Donors have entrusted you with their money to make something important happen. Your mission audience is counting on you to make that important thing happen. That’s a lot of weight. 

Here are 10 ways to make sure you hire effectively and keep the train on the tracks as the engagement progresses. 

1. Determine the Problem Your Need the Consultant to Solve

Hire your consultant carefully. When you have the thought, “I may need a consultant,” slow down. Fixate on what the problem actually is. A good way to help figure that out is to take pitches from multiple consultancies. The questions they ask will illuminate the problem. The threads they pull on during their questioning will help you understand what they think your problem might be. 

2. Confirm You Actually Need a Consultant

Once you have a handle on the real problem, consider whether a consultant is what you need. Some firms will dig far into your problem to help you understand whether you need a consultant, an interim staffer or a permanent placement. 

Some firms will not have this conversation without a contract in place, as they seek and are only able to place a consultant. In my experience, about half the time a client wants a consultant, what they really need is an interim or even a permanent staffer. 

3. Ensure You Can Work Well With the Consultant

Do you like the person with whom you’ll be working? Be careful here. It is shockingly easy to let our unconscious biases answer this question for us. 

If you wear your favorite pop-collared shirt to Zoom calls every day and the potential consultant does as well, that doesn’t mean they are going to be a great consultant. It means you have something in common. Once you get past the popped collar, likeability can change. Talk enough to get to the second or third layer of the person you’re going to have to spend a lot of time with. Effectiveness for the two of you as a team is important, and likeability is a part of that. Similarly, extend that “likeability” to “like our company in terms of culture.” They have to fit to be able to work with your staff. 

At the same time, slowing down will help you avoid inserting unconscious bias into your selection. By asking oneself, “Why do I like/dislike this person?” you can help avoid bias by triggering System 2 thinking (aka not automatic). 

4. Ask the Consultant What Your Staff’s Lift Will Be

Have the consultant define how much lift is required of you and your staff. Often, the constraints of the organization can slow down the work of the consultant. Interview your leadership to make sure their staff can handle the consultants proposed meetings. Do they have the bandwidth to respond in a timely and effective way? Will there be assignments?

5. Write the Contract

If a consultant is the answer, write a careful contract. Understand the consultant’s methods and the plans for the work. You want to know that culturally that method fits your organization. For example, if virtual meetings are de rigueur for your organization, and the consultant wants everything to be in person, that’s a problem. 

Understand the deliverables, the timeline and the payment schedule. There are unknowns to you and the consultant when the engagement starts. When those unknowns become known, what happens then? Who owns the work product? (It’s you, but make sure that it is in print.) 

Finally, how are you charged and when? Will fees be triggered by percent completion of a project, by hours burned, by month? Give the consulting team access to your strategic plan, and mission and vision statements to make sure they can align with your organization’s intent. Are there landmines the consultant needs to accommodate? Are there landmines you want the consultant to purposefully trigger?

6. Ensure All Necessary Details Are Included in the Contract

What deliverables do you expect? Are they defined to your liking? When should you get them? Imagine they are in your hands. Define two or three scenarios of what the deliverables might tell you. Imagine what you do next in each of those scenarios. Do those imagined scenarios make you want to change anything about the engagement?

7. Dictate Roles and Reporting Structure

Understand the reporting structure of the engagement and the meeting cadence. Who is the consultant’s point of contact? Does this person have authority to press on staff who may be unresponsive? Does the consultant have a work team? What happens if something goes off the rails? (It will.) Who gets involved? Know all players on the consultant’s side of the fence. Make sure their skill set and manner works for you. Ask, “Who else will my people be talking to?” This gets down to the project manager level. Make sure everyone on your side of the fence knows everyone on the other side, and what each person’s role is.

8. Request a Project Plan

Ask for a transparent, online project plan to which all have access and that is kept current. If there is hesitation to provide this, that’s a problem. Every project has a plan. If that plan lives in a consultant’s head because, “I’ve done this a thousand times,” that’s a problem for you. They may have done it a thousand times poorly. 

9. Decide If You Hired a Yes-Person

As the engagement goes on, is there an adequate level of disagreement? If there is no discomfort on your side, you hired a yes-person — who is there to take your money and not change your world. 

10. Check Your Gut Periodically

Before you release each payment, check your gut. Is it happy? If not, have a conversation. Your consultant wants you to be happy and wants to know if you’re not. 

The preceding post was provided by an individual unaffiliated with NonProfit PRO. The views expressed within do not directly reflect the thoughts or opinions of NonProfit PRO.

This is part of a two-part series. Check out part one, “3 Questions to Determine Whether Your Nonprofit Needs Interim Staff, Permanent Staff or a Consultant.”