"Ed was essential. He made us think about things we had not considered. He pushed us when things bogged down. And, most importantly, he turned the ideas we had envisioned into a reality that exceeded my high expectations." — Bernard Dagenais, Editor, Philadelphia Business Journal

If you're searching for a consultant,listen carefully.
You may be surprised by
What You Hear

Full-time consulting can be a tough business. There are the flight delays, the lonely hotel rooms, the long business dinners, the endless meetings, the pushy clients...

Feeling sorry for me yet? I didn’t think so. And I wouldn’t either, if I were you. There’s not one consultant I’ve met yet who really wants to be doing anything else.

But some consultants are just, well, downright arrogant. They have forgotten the lesson that real consulting lies in our ability to teach--and that the best teaching occurs when we learn from our clients.

Some day, you’ll work with a consultant—because a good consultant can help you to find the answers to questions that are critical to your work.

When you do, listen to the consultant—but also listen for those tell-tale sentences that let you know you’ve got a problem.

Words you don’t want to hear from your consultant:

“I’ll have that done in no time.”

“There’s nothing too big that we can’t handle for you.”

“Don’t worry about that.”

“You’re not ready for that level yet.”

“If I told you, you wouldn’t understand.”

“It’s more complex than you could appreciate.”

“This is worse than I thought.”

“If you had called me sooner, it wouldn’t have gotten this bad.”

“What made you think you could fix this without my help?”

“The answer is there—you just don’t know where to look.”

“The answer is easy—just look in your manual.”

“There is no answer.”

“I’m sorry—you’ll just have to wait until I get there.”

“You’re my most important client.”

“You want that when?”

“That’s not in our contract.”

“Let me think it over. Then I’ll tell you what you should do.”

“Why don’t you just leave that all up to me.”

“We’d have to add to your fee for that.”

“This is the way we’ve done it for all of our clients.”

“Why would you want that?”

“We’ve found that our method works best for all clients.”

“We prefer to do it ourselves. Then we can give it to you.”

“If we let too many people in on the project, they’ll just have too many questions.”

“The more we let people know, the more confused they could become.”

“Planning is not important. Training is important.”

“Training is not important. Planning is important.”

“Training is not important. Planning is not important. Getting this project done on time is important.”

“Getting this project done on time is not important.”

And this last one is my absolute favorite. Without doubt, the two words you never—ever—want to hear from a consultant are:

 “Trust me.”