9 Ways to Assess a Boutique Consultancy’s Expertise Reputation

“You should go see this guy. He is the best!” How many times have we all heard something like this from our family and friends when looking for recommendations—be it for a medical specialist, a mechanic, a kid's tutor, or dozens of other people we needed specialised assistance from for a particular need?

After hearing the name, we would often do a quick Google search, check out the reviews from past customers/patients/clients, and be reassured that this guy is indeed the best!

This is the power of expertise reputation, and it’s not very different in the B2B world. I urge boutique consultancies to make it a goal to be the best when it comes to resolving particular challenges.

Why expertise reputation matters

I always say that consulting is a credence business. Consultancies sell their ability to resolve problems for their clients. They can fix those problems due to their expertise – the type of expertise that clients do not have internally.

Getting a buy-in from a prospect requires creating trust-based relationships with that prospect. Consulting service buyers want to achieve maximum value with minimal risks. 

Many boutique consultancies fail to account for the relationship-building process between them, and prospects often start long before the first call, email, or meeting. It begins when prospects decide to take action on a specific need or challenge. 

They start Googling their questions, looking up consultancies, reading their websites and case studies, going back to their old emails to find a newsletter from that one consultancy that might be the right fit, asking their internal and external networks for recommendations, and so on.

Consultancies that instantly get a head start in this process are the ones that are highly visible for their expertise reputation. Prospects keep coming across these consultancies’ names: their thought leadership pieces and results-driven case studies, referrals from team members and old colleagues, insightful LinkedIn posts, etc.

Expertise reputation is the most powerful weapon in a boutique consultancy’s arsenal!

Assessing expertise reputation: The checklist

So, how can a consultancy assess its level of expertise reputation and, as a result, its business development potential? Over the years, I’ve developed a checklist to help understand whether the reputation hinders or facilitates the consultancy’s success. 

1. How do consulting leaders and their teams feel when pitching the consultancy’s expertise?

Are they confident in what they say and how their message comes across? Is it easy for them to explain the value that the consultancy can provide to clients?

Strong expertise reputation is built on the ability to deliver high-value results. This ability is generally developed through the process of repetition: completing the same types of projects for the same kinds of clients in a similar context. Over time, this allows consultancies to crystallise their offering to clients: what they do, how they do it, what results they can confidently predict, what it would entail, and what the first step is to getting started.

As a result, leaders and team members in such consultancies feel confident in their offering when pitching a prospect. They are clear, concise, and systematic.

Recommended reading: Why Repetition Is the Path to Becoming a High-Performance Consultancy

2. Do prospects see the consultancy as a vendor or as an expert when it pitches its services? 

There are two different types of consultancies—strategic advisors and order takers. Of course, these are the two ends of a spectrum, and for many consultancies, it’s not quite as black and white.

However, I invite boutique consultancy owners to reflect on their past client work. What are those projects and interactions like? Is it primarily based on the tasks that a client asks the consultancy to complete, or is it the consultancy offering clients high-level advice on strategy, implementation, next steps, etc?

If prospects go into the meeting telling a consultancy what they expect consultants to do, they most likely see the consultancy in an order-taking capacity. If, on the other hand, they come seeking advice, they have a certain level of trust in the consultancy's expertise and ability to resolve important pain points.

3. Is preparing a proposal targeted and effortless or a significant investment? 

How many hours/days/weeks does the team spend preparing proposals? 

I found that the more time and resources a boutique consultancy needs to invest in preparing a proposal, the more desperate it becomes to chase prospects for a positive response. 

In-demand experts, on the other hand, have easy-to-explain proposals (read: value propositions) and don’t chase. Because their deep expertise is built on countless similar projects completed in the past, it takes minimal changes to a template proposal before it’s ready to be sent to a prospect. They take great advantage of standardisation and process optimisation that comes with repetition.

4. Does the consultancy have a meaningfully different point of view, and do prospects connect to it? 

Boutique consultancies with a strong expertise reputation don’t need some vague consulting BS that hundreds of others in the market are producing. There is no “we build innovative solutions at the intersection of digital transformation and human creativity” type of meaningless messaging in their communication.

Consultancies with deep expertise and a strong reputation can accurately diagnose problems and propose targeted solutions that will deliver concrete results. They don’t need to impress prospects with big words. 

Recommended reading: Dump the Buzzwords: What Actually Persuades Clients to Hire a Boutique Consultancy

5. Is the consultancy able to charge premium fees? 

Boutique consultancies with a strong expertise reputation can confidently charge more than the market average. They don’t have to compete on pricing, pitching with unattractive rates or discounts to win projects.

“We don’t have the budget” is not a typical objection that high-performance boutique consultancies have to deal with. Prospects come to them because they believe in these consultancies’ ability to resolve critical problems. Prospects are willing to pay premium fees because of the high-value outcomes they expect to receive.

6. What is the consultancy protecting when pitching: its short-term income or long-term expertise reputation? 

Protecting short-term income first means a consultancy will take on almost any project. Protecting expertise reputation is about taking on suitable projects or clients.

I am certainly not arguing against the importance of short-term income. Without short-term income, there is no long-term income. However, I do urge boutique consultancies to strive to develop a system where financial stability is based on continuous work with long-term clients while growth is based on new client work. This ensures the consultancy doesn’t find itself desperately taking on projects outside its defined ideal client or zone of expertise, focusing instead on winning the perfect clients and projects.

7. Who does the consultancy deal with during the project?

Consultancies perceived by clients as order takers tend to be cc'd on hundreds of emails from low—and middle management. The client’s team scrutinises every detail, and every process move requires approval. 

Consultancies in a strategic advisory position, on the other hand, tend to work directly with senior executives. They don’t need to follow up with endless contacts. Instead, they offer recommendations, and it is then up to the client to put things in motion by assigning tasks to relevant teams.

Prospects often classify consultancies with a weak expertise reputation as order takers because they haven’t built sufficient trust in their ability to resolve high-value problems in collaboration with C-level executives.

8. Do clients respect the consultancy’s payment terms, or does the consultancy have to chase the client’s assistants for delayed payments? 

A healthy cash flow is as vital to a business’s success as a healthy blood flow to a human’s body. Any interruptions – especially avoidable interruptions related to delayed payments – put unnecessary stress on boutique consultancy owners and leaders.

Unfortunately, this is a common problem for consultancies seen as order takers – the ones with a weak expertise reputation. They debate with lower-level team members at clients’ companies over the ‘hours worked’ instead of ‘outcomes achieved’. Invoices don’t get prioritised.

This rarely happens to advisory types of consultancies, on the other hand. First of all, they almost never bill for hourly work. Their contribution is measured in the overall outcome, not based on the hours spent completing each individual task. Their invoices are unlikely to get lost in the shuffle because the client most likely would like to maintain a long-term relationship with the consultancy.

9. Does the consultancy constantly overservice and undercharge clients? 

This is a common trap that I see many struggling boutique consultancies fall into. In an attempt to win and keep a client, they continue to expand the boundaries of their support and project scope. They have the nagging feeling that if they don’t give in to every client request, they will lose this client.

This willingness to “go the extra mile” without adjusted remuneration usually comes from a place of insecurity—insecurity in one's expertise and the value it delivers, insecurity over the business's financial health, and insecurity in one's ability to win another project, a better-paying project.

A strong expertise reputation, on the other hand, significantly reduces those fears. It enables boutique consultancy owners and leaders to establish and ‘enforce’ strict work parameters.

Recommended reading: The Two Most Visible Indicators of a High-Performing Boutique Consultancy

In Conclusion

Cultivating a robust expertise reputation is essential for boutique consultancies aiming to thrive in a competitive market. 

As outlined in the checklist, a strong expertise reputation influences nearly every aspect of a consultancy's performance, from how confidently it pitches its services to the level of trust and autonomy it receives from clients. 

Ultimately, the path to building a strong expertise reputation lies in consistency and clarity – consistently delivering high-value results in a well-defined expertise domain and clearly communicating this value to prospects and clients. 

By focusing on long-term reputation over short-term gains, boutique consultancies can transform from vendors into trusted partners, ensuring sustained success and growth.