Why am I a consultant, and what does a consultant do?
Typically, after someone asks what I do for a living - which comes up most often during family holiday gatherings, the next questions are typically:
Exactly what does a consultant do?
Why are you a consultant?
So let’s start with what a consultant does. It’s going to be a challenge to be exhaustive here, because consultants can be found across many disciplines and seniority levels across most industries. Generally speaking, a consultant provides expert advice, opinions, analysis and recommendations to organizations, governments or individuals. In some cases, a consultant can be hired to also implement the solution that they have recommended e.g. a cybersecurity consultant might recommend a particular combination of firewall and threat detection software, after a rigorous process of analyzing the customer’s needs and matching it to the available solutions in the market - afterward, the consultant will likely be engaged to completely implement and configure the solution, or work with the customer’s technology team on helping them to install and configure it.
Beyond that however, hiring a consultant can be a cost effective solution versus hiring and onboarding a new full time employee. For example, imagine that you’re looking to redesign your brand or website - it doesn’t make sense to hire a full time team to research, analyze, recommend and execute that project because after 3 months they’ll have nothing to do. It’s much better to hire an outside consulting firm; leverage their unique perspective based on diverse experience and working with similar clients in the past; have them execute and then end the engagement
I tend to focus more on general strategy work. If I take a look at the type of work I’ve done over the past 5 years it falls into the following categories:
Go To Market - A company wants to launch a new product or service, and needs help on thinking about their value proposition, positioning and how to target those early few customers.
Product Strategy/Development - Thinking about a product from a customer perspective (i.e. jobs to be done) as well as competitive standpoint (differentiation relative to incumbents)
Strategic Alternatives - At the board / ownership level; if revenue growth has stagnated, helping them to explore strategic alternatives including diversification, doubling down on core activities, seeking additional private capital etc.
Private Capital - Either helping a fund (VC/PE) think about a specific investment (usually in fintech) or helping them to execute better at the fund level (e.g. improve origination and sourcing). Or I might help a startup think about their best fundraising options and make targeted introductions to help them.
I live for whiteboards (image courtesy Unsplash)
Ok Mark, but why are YOU a consultant? This is actually an easier question to answer - I consult with companies because I love to solve problems, and I love to think about problems by discussing them deeply with the client. When I can provide an insight to a client about their business which they never considered before, or I can suggest a new approach because of some quantitative research - it’s the best feeling in the world.
Also, it allows me to be exposed to many different problem types and industries, which, academically - makes me a better thinker, a better board member and a more useful shareholder (for the companies that I’m involved in). The more consulting work that I do, the more it improves everything else that I do. If I slightly modify Warren Buffet’s famous phrase , I am a better businessman because I’m a consultant, and I’m a better consultant because I’m a businessman.
Finally, my work gives me unfettered access to some of the largest companies in the region and allows me to observe their strategic development and execution process firsthand. The Caribbean doesn’t share the same culture as the US in terms of business stories and information being widely shared and published. This is mostly because there is a fear of copy-catting, but that’s a story for another time, but as a result of this - I value the time I get to spend with my clients observing how they conduct business successfully in the Caribbean even more.
Fin
