The Big Question
Questions I get from consultants. And my answers.
I received a great question from a medium-sized consultancy asking for advice on best to reply to the typical prospect’s question: “Why should we hire you as a consultant”?
Let me warm you up a bit.
Ordinary consultants get asked: why should we hire you as a consultant.
Authorities get invited to solve a problem. They don’t get that question.
Consulting is a credence business
Prospects need to find, like, and trust us before they buy. Research says that 80-90% of the ‘homework’ is done before prospects contact consultants to discuss support.
A recent Source Global Research (specialized in researching professional services) study mentions that less than half of all consulting engagements seem to create a value that exceeds the fees paid. Wow, what a surprisingly low score!
See this recent HBR article (‘How to tell if hiring a consultant will be worth the investment’).
So, no wonder prospects will assess you: can this consultant or consultancy deliver value to us? It’s not a nasty, evil question at all. Getting the why-should-we-hire you question is a symptom of a lack of trust in you or your consultancy (or in consultants in general).
Don’t start arguing with the prospect
I’ve seen it way too often; most consultants’ mindsets switch into defense mode by getting the why question. They feel the need to justify, convince, and claim to have the expertise. Deep inside, they feel mistreated, misunderstood.
Unfortunately, you can rarely win by defending the why question because you might have lost the game already. And if you are trying to persuade the prospect, you will come across as either weak, desperate, arrogant, or maybe even a bullshitter. It’s a harsh statement, I know.
What should be your answer?
I learned this many years ago from the ‘Win Without Pitching Manifesto’ book and the articles of Blair Enns. Here’s what I learned to say: “I appreciate the question but I don’t consider it as my job to talk you into hiring me/us so why don’t I tell you why our clients typically hire me/us”.
Inevitably, that requires the immediate availability, top of mind, of transformative client cases or client feedback you can explain. And, of course, those cases should fit into the prospect’s ballgame. Hard-core social proof is the only way to address the why question hopefully. That’s why I’ve invested 80% of my writing time in the past in writing compelling, transformative case studies. Write or die.
Don’t (only) look at your competitors
When we lose a pitch, we tend to look at the competition. That’s OK. We should be fully aware of our competitors and why they win pitches. However, competition in consulting is not always what you think. What I’ve learned, more often than we assume, it’s about the buyer who’s not willing to change to you. Why? Because of a too low trust level and/or lack of transformative case studies from other clients in similar shoes. It’s about you. It's not (always) about the competition.
The ugly stuff: why did you get invited?
70-80% of the buyer’s homework is done before you get invited. So why did they invite you and ask you the why question? Poor homework? Not at all.
Here are some brutal consulting realities:
● you probably are #3 in the pitch (‘the benchmark candidate’);
● the prospect is ghosting you to get some free advice;
● the prospect is exploiting your (desperate) lower rates to negotiate with ‘the others’;
● the prospect invited you because they need 3 proposals to remain compliant.
The main takeaway
In general, the why-question is a symptom of a lack of trust in your expertise. If you get asked that question as a consultant more often, you are not an authority yet. The why-should-we-hire-you question is a measure of authority.
