Hello,

I'd be interested in learning how folks who own their own PI consulting company position and sell themselves to potential clients?

If I were to hire a "High priced PI consultant" I'd want to know that performance improvement would, for sure, increase as a result. Is there a way, as a PI consultant, to guarantee performance improvement? Also, I'd be hesitant to pay a premium price tag if performance improvement did not occur in the end. Do some PI consultants wait and charge their premium price tag until performance improvement actually occurs? If so, does that consultant get a percentage of the revenue earned or money saved?

If not, and performance improvement DOES NOT occur in the end, then I'd feel that my investment in the high priced PI consultant and time was wasted.

Would love to learn best practices from PI professionals who do this for a living.

Thanks!

Hi Stetsonbu

As somebody who operates as a PI (Performance Improvement) consultant I'm happy to share my thoughts on the points you raise.

If a high priced PI consultant failed to deliver you'd feel your investment and time wasted. I'd go further and say that if you employed a low-priced PI consultant that failed to deliver, your investment and time are still wasted. You may have saved some cash but your performance issue will still be a mill stone around your neck.


I have 2 kinds of clients - those who know me and my work directly, and those who don't. Those who do are less inclined to ask me for guarantees because my track record with them todate demonstrates that I deliver.

For those who don't know me, there are 2 ways to improve their confidence in what I can do: refer them to existing clients, or prove I can deliver.

The first is easiest for me but carries less of a guarantee. The potential problem with the second is that for me to prove I can deliver, I need to do the first stage of my consulting job - working with the client to scope the project and clarify goals and outcomes, then analysing the current situation and determining root causes and capacity for improvement. If I do this, which is not trivial, then the solution becomes obvious. I'm not going to do this for free. What I can do is outline my approach in some detail and refer them back to existing clients. My methods are not proprietary so I happily provide references to my methods so the client can research them individually.

In terms of costs I typically find that clients are happy to pay a day rate. My fees are upper quartile. It's rare for clients to engage in some kind of gain share, for example giving me 10% of overall savings. The main reason seems to be that my improvements are often massive, my interventions are typically quite short in duration, and there's some discomfort in giving me a huge pile of cash for what seems like not much work in comparison. It's a shame for me in one sense, but as I said, my fees are upper quartile. And I don't discount. Where the client is particularly keen to haggle on price there is usually something else going on in the organisation that, in my experience, gets in the way of implementing what is needed to maximise the benefits to be had. I tend not to work with these clients until they've resolved these issues. Yes, it means I may miss out on business, but my experience is that I'm missing out on business that is disproportionately painful. Consequently I'm not associated with failures.

Let me ask this: would you want to be operated on by a brain surgeon who is offering a discount on his/her fee, or on a gain-share basis? I know I wouldn't!

In my early days I experienced projects that didn't get to deliver at first the full performance improvement. The reasons were either errors on my part which I corrected for free, and have learned from, or more often due to the client not fully co-operating with the project activities, either analysis, or solution implementation. These are facets I negotiate before hand with the client.

Best wishes,

Martin

Thanks for sharing Martin! Your best practices and experiences definitely help me better understand the whole PI consulting process.

Stetsonbu - you're welcome!

I'd clarify also - these practices are what have worked for me and my clients over the years, in the cultures I've operated in. Best practice is only 'best' when it works for you!!