Consultant. A job title available to anyone with, well… nothing much really. Tag it on to anything and charge a fortune. Right?
Let’s just take a moment to think about where the name tag comes from. In the medical profession you’ll typically spend 5 years at University, then about 8 years in practice before you’d ever get yourself a consultant position. By the time you get there you will have undertaken hundreds, if not thousands, of the specific diagnoses, treatments or procedures in which you specialise.
Now, let’s look at marketing consultants. What do you need? A few years as a marketing exec for a big name business. Or, maybe a stint or two with a marketing agency. Hell, maybe you knocked up a website or two for some mates, and you know what RT means… qualification enough for many these days. Even less if you want to call yourself a ‘guru’ – but let’s stick with the medical analogy.
Someone with the amount of experience many marketing consultants have under their belts wouldn’t even have completed basic anatomy yet. And, even a qualified doctor with a few years let loose on real patients is supervised by a senior member of the team. Except at weekends. At weekends, junior doctors are often left to fend for themselves whilst the consultants spend time on the golf course or with their families. What happens? People die.
The same is true of small businesses. When you choose a consultant to advise on the lifeblood of your business (getting and keeping customers = marketing), you need to do so with care. Many of the consultants (not all!) out there are barely equivalent to a junior doctor.
If it was your mother, your child or you getting critical advice, wouldn’t you want the real thing? Doesn’t your business deserve the same?
Oh, and the ‘kids get social media’ just doesn’t fly with me either. Just because the rookie doctor has been shown which buttons to press on a new bit of kit… would you have them oversee your whole treatment? Exactly.
And, yep – I’ll be following up with tips on how to tell the difference…
© Bryony Thomas
Bryony Thomas
Author & Founder, Watertight Marketing
Bryony is creator of the Watertight Marketing methodology and best-selling author. One of the UK's most influential marketing thinkers, she's worked with brands from Microsoft to Pancreatic Cancer UK, and was marketing director within FTSE 100 Experian following their £85m acquisition of the small business she was part of. Known for turning complex marketing into refreshingly clear thinking, Bryony brings warmth and insight to boards and conferences nationwide.
Your theme is a good one. The “people die” is a little over-dramatic. My daughter is a junior doctor and she does have supervision at weekends (and through the night!). The statistics are skewed by the fact that more serious cases are delayed until Friday so they can use intensive care at weekends when it is less busy. Good points, though…and another thing! Wet-behind-the-ears consultants rarely know the true meaning of “marketing”. They confuse it with promotion.
Thanks Jeremy. Lies and statistics, eh. Thanks for that. Although, I’d hazard that people certainly would die if someone who’d not completed their medical training were let loose, or if she didn’t have someone senior on call. The metaphorical juniors I’m talking about are completely on their own. Where’s the second opinion, peer review and right to redress for a small business that’s suffered marketing negligence?
An issue that gets me up on my pedestal too! I find that so often a new or uninitiated small business doesn’t know what they really need in marketing. So how do they know who is a good marketer? All around them people tell tall tales of ‘have-to’s’ (you know, social media, and before that, websites) so whoever pops up first with a recognisable label gets the gig. Sometimes would probably fare better in just speaking confidently to their customers about what they do well than hiring any one at all. Personally, I prefer to help them to understand how to own their own marketing and make it work for them getting and keeping and delighting customers. And surviving as a business. A note on your comment though – even among seasoned professionals, I’ve rarely seen marketers agree on a single approach, so peer review and determining where the fault lies in a situation calling for redress is not easy. Who determines blame? I expect there are clear cut ‘that’s rubbish advice’, but often there are shades of ego or lack of knowledge on both sides…
Thanks Bronwyn. I think there’s a clear distinction between strategic marketing, and marketing execution. And, often the issue is that small businesses ask a good implementer to set the strategy. It’s the Johari window thing… you don’t know you don’t know. The business owner doesn’t know that they’ve not asked the right questions. And, the junior marketer doesn’t know that they’re on the wrong course. I reckon a decent bunch of experienced strategic marketers could quickly separate the ‘downright damaging’ from the ‘might do it differently, but it could work’ – don’t you?
I’d also hazard that medics are not immune to ego clouding judgement… or is that just the medics I know 😉
As Bronwen says: “…All around them people tell tall tales of ‘have-to’s’ (you know, social media, and before that, websites)…”. Again, it’s that confusion between marketing and marketing communications. Reinforce the idea that small enterprises should own their own marketing approach and concentrate on getting, keeping and delighting customers.
So, how do we marketers help small business owners to tell the difference?
I’m with you on the get, keep, delight… though, I usually find that most businesses with an existing client-base are usually best off doing that in reverse order. If you start at the bottom and work up each improvement builds on the last. Otherwise, it’s effectively running expensive Taps into a leaking Bucket (knew I’d get the central analogy of my book in there!).
Interesting article Bryony. The words ‘consultant’ and ‘professional’ have been problematic for a long time. ‘Consultant’ probably has it’s roots in the Latin ‘consultare’ – ‘to take counsel’ i.e receive formal advice. Professional, has its roots it the Latin ‘pro’ – before and ‘fateri’ to confess, it was closely linked to joining a religious order.
So a ‘Professional Consultant’ is some who professes to give counsel – effectively a self declared title. Although I fully accept the medical comparison ‘Consultant’ has never been the reserve of just that profession. And ultimately different professions will have differing time periods before someone has accumulated the skill and the communication ability to consult.
I’ve been writing on the dangers of consultants myself in the last few days. So this post caught my eye in particular. We are in a tricky place in the Digital Economy, without a doubt the technology is new and expertise in its application is developing. So consultants, need to be upfront about their experience and source of expertise.
Moreover businesses need to start being wiser. They need to get past the dazzle and start asking about how any technology will support their underlying business objectives. It is crucial that digital becomes a strategic decision not a nice to have.
Thanks Stuart. Love the richness of our language. And, yes, of course the word and meaning goes back further. But, I do think professional services pinched it from the medics… I may have that wrong, but the association and analogy stands.
I do hope businesses can cut through the dazzle, as you say. I’m genuinely heartbroken when I go into a business to find they’ve paid good money for poor advice.