When Consultants Collaborate

When Consultants Collaborate

“Collaboration” with colleagues is too often a theoretical exercise that burns up time determining what would happen “if”: If a client came along. If you had a project together. If you combined your methodologies.

Collaborate (that is, work together on a project, sharing revenues) under these conditions:

1. One or the other of you has a client or prospect ready to move forward.

2. The project requires expertise, methodology, and delivery more than just one of you can provide.

3. It isn’t a sole matter of needing extra delivery, since quality delivery people are widespread and can be hired at a daily rate. (These are people usually unsuccessful at marketing themselves, hence, they hope for business from others.)

4. The value the two of you bring far exceeds the value just one of you would bring, In other words, one-plus-one must equal 80, not merely 2.

5. You don’t make it legal, simply situational. Legal partnerships are worse than bad marriages, and more costly to tear asunder.

6. You trust each other implicitly, allowing each to make decisions for the other.

7. You apportion the revenue with a formula representing your contributions to it (e.g., business acquisition is far more critical than providing methodology or delivery) and are both happy with it.

8. You can be honest with each other.

In 30 years of consulting, I’ve had three alliances, each one with specific markets or a single client engagement. Of course, I could simply be anti-social. Or, on the other hand, I could be really smart.

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.