A Refreshing View on Partnering with a Consultant

There are a wide variety of thoughts and emotions associated with the consulting industry. At JPorcari & Associates, we want you to know how we see, think, and feel about the work we do as trusted advisors to you and your organization. Our goal is not to sell you something; rather, it is to partner with you and do great things together.

We believe that when consulting is done well and with the right intentions, all benefit. Because of the diverse variety of experiences across different clients and industries, and continual exposure to new and leading practices, consultants have many positive and powerful things to offer an organization. And where the structure is in place to best leverage this experience, great things can happen.

So why can there be discomfort when contracting and working with consultants? To call out the elephant in the room, things get uncomfortable when it seems like a consultant is pushing a bigger solution than required, sending in “an army” to make progress happen when a smaller force would do, not delivering on expectations promised, or looking to expand scope and embed themselves for the longer than you feel is needed (to name a few). Trust can be challenged, and suspicion may creep in. This creates a counter-productive climate where the best solutions are mutually harder to achieve.

We see our first engagement with you as a privilege and an honor, and not as a “beach head” to find the next sale. We view every partnering opportunity as a permission to show you the value we add. In our experience, the high impact results we achieve often results in our clients desiring to partner with us for additional opportunities. We trust this is the best and most transparent way to build a productive and collaborative relationship.

We will meet you where you are, design a reasonable solution together, and propose and deliver only what you require to get the results you are looking for. We can provide one, a few, or a team of experts based on the solution agreed to. We can also equip your own people to do some of the work we do to allow the solution to be sustained in your organization long after our presence is complete.

To best serve our partnership, we will also offer observations and respectfully challenge points of view where we feel our experience is calling for that dialogue. Additionally, we will enjoy appropriately sharing stories and ideas from other client engagements where there may be something helpful for you to consider for your own situation.

As an intentionally niche consultancy, we do not need to fund a large business overhead as a part of our pricing structure, nor do we have a highly leveraged business model where we are required to “get people off the bench” and plug them into roles which may not be the best fit for you. Our flexible staffing approach provides a deeply experienced team who is proven and well qualified deliver high impact on our promises to you.

So that is what we think of how consulting should work. We hope you agree!