The Standard Chunk

Businesses stopped hiring for lifetime commitments some time ago, as markets change so rapidly and companies need to tune their workforce for changing economic conditions. Its time to move from traditional consulting to a freelance execution role as a hands-on interim professional or executive

Simply defining yourself as a specialist or professional minimizes a consultant role (think marketing specialist or staffing professional). Specialists and professionals are already seen as experts who do the work, rather than just make recommendations for others

Agreements based on projects to be completed, rather than an hourly rate, put the focus on quantifiable business outputs vs. time spent. For example, a marketing project would be the number of leads generated or ad impressions, instead of recommendations for improving the process

Leadership by example works at all levels of a company. It is not limited to the realm of the top executive or board of directors, who could bring in consultants for studies and analysis. Specialists today can justify their cost based on more direct return on investment calculations at all operational levels

A client relationship suggests that the consultant is in charge, whereas the customer designation recognizes the more modern model of the customer in control. It also highlights all aspects of required customer service, satisfaction, loyalty and referrals to peers

Many consultants today are hard to contact between scheduled meetings, due to their formal communication processes. Its time to adopt your customers favorite mode of communication, whether that be texting, phone calls or social media, and not limit responses to office hours