Consultant or prostitute, learning to say No.. Work the project at hand and learn to say NO... Be prepared to say no to a job/assignment. All these phrases equate to a single aspect of the client consultant relationship. That is Not all consultant/client partnerships are made in Heaven and are going to be smooth and likeable. If you sense you will not be successful for personal reasons that is as an important realization as it is for professional (technical or capability) reasons. You and the client don't need to like each other, it helps though when you are going one on one for success, but remember to maintain mutual respect for each other. If you can match and mesh your work habits and personalities you will go along way to achieving the involvement of the client and it's managers into the success of the project.

If the client starts off with an attitude of master/slave or if he uses the phrase "I can do the work but only need your help to get it done" you need to look very carefully at this project and the potential outcomes before getting involved. Better to not start than crash and burn in the process.

From the book "The Experience Economy" by B. Joseph Pine and James H. Gilmore  they note that hiring a big consulting firm is like going to your chiropractor for one hundred and eighty two visits and then finding later you still have to come back.  One would think that consulting customers aspire to become better businesses, and they should engage consultants that yield sustained results not sustained consulting contracts.

I am one-man firm with many associates and colleagues, who have strong client success motivation, are ethical, and have demonstrated skills. As such I am highly prejudiced to the small shop consulting approach. After all the cautions and negatives that have been demonstrated about large consulting firms they still win clients of all sizes, shapes, and needs because, I believe, of size. Often what all that is needed in a client situation is a fresh set of ideas or fresh perspective on a set of problems. I understand that implementation of complex and large scale processes and refinements requires manpower.

I often hear the complaint/refrain "we are paying for overhead we don't need in a consultant". But not often that translates to "lets use independent consultants managed in a team" or "lets use a project management consultant with many resources through contacts and colleagues". I am not "bitching" and I only wish to point out a fact of this business that many companies and their management do not wish to "risk" the use of a small firm. They therefore will spend considerable extra money for the perceived "security" or for "reduction of the perceived risk".

But often the issues facing a company, no matter how large or small, are easily identified by a savvy senior consultant or experienced team and can be broken into discrete/manageable issues, corrected, and then joined back together as a solution. Perhaps an oversimplification but, one should beware of the constant refrain of complexity requires numbers of people.

What makes the client's product consulting successful is for the consultant to identify and very quickly resolve the norms and commons (found in each consulting situation) and to work very hard to resolve the newly encountered aspects (differences). Thus using the years of his experience and "the smarts" learned from all products and firms he has worked with. This is what we are paid for.