A staffing company sells hours. A consulting company should sell judgment, expertise, outcomes, intellectual capital, relationships, and problem solving. There is nothing wrong with staffing companies or staff augmentation. Sometimes a client needs an experienced person for six months, and that is exactly what should be sold.
But be honest about the business you are in. If someone’s employment exists primarily because they can be placed against a customer contract, structure the business around that and set expectations accordingly. What becomes dysfunctional is recruiting architects, strategists, practice builders, and subject matter experts, then managing them primarily as units of billable capacity. If the only thing that makes a principal architect valuable is a client charge code, you did not want a principal architect. You wanted contract labor with a nicer title.
The value of that architect is not limited to the hours you can attach to an invoice. Their judgment can improve a proposal, prevent an expensive design mistake, or help less experienced colleagues deliver better work. If none of that counts, the problem is how you have defined value.
This post is part of my 25 lessons from 25 years in consulting series, exploring what it takes to build a consulting firm that delivers for clients and supports the people doing the work.
From leadership and employee experience to sales and delivery, the series comes back to one idea: a consulting company should be its own best client.
Have a lesson of your own? Share what has worked, what hasn’t, or what you wish more consulting firms understood in the comments.