29.1 The marketing approach in consulting

In consulting, marketing is often thought of as a distinct function, a set of activities, tools or techniques, which cost time and money and which many consultants would prefer to avoid – if only they had a sufficient number of unsolicited clients. According to this view, marketing is an unavoidable evil, something that consultants accept that they have to live with, although they do not like it.

Fortunately, more and more consultants, as indeed other professionals, regard marketing as an inherent characteristic of the service concept. Marketing is not a supplement to a professional service; it is a professional service in its own right, needed to establish and maintain an effective consultant–client relationship. It identifies clients’ needs, reveals the clients’ mentality, defines the best way in which the consultant can be useful and puts the whole consulting process in motion. Service marketing does not stop when a sale is made. The consultant continues to market after the contract has been signed, while the project is being executed, and even after the project has been completed.

What is to be marketed?

The marketing of consulting is strongly affected by the intangibility of consulting services. As noted in Chapter 27, clients are not able to fully examine the product they are intending to buy and compare it with products available from other consultants. Even if consultants supply structured systems and methodologies, the tangibility can never be comparable to that of industrial products, or of many other products in the service sector.

What the consultant is selling is a promise of a service that will meet the client’s needs and resolve the problem. Why should a potential client buy a mere promise? Why should he or she take such a risk?

First, because the client has established, or feels, that it might be useful to get the consultant’s help. Second, because the client has no alternative – buying any consulting service (even from someone who is well known personally or whose work is familiar) is always buying a promise. What has worked in one company may not work elsewhere. Even an excellent and highly standardized consulting product (methodology, package) may not work in a given situation. A client who is not prepared to take this risk and buy a promise must refrain from using a consultant.

It is fully understandable that, in buying a promise, clients will wish to reduce risk. They will be looking for ways of evaluating what they are likely to