For many years my business has been doing internet marketing for my own portfolio of web sites. In the past year I’ve expanded my business by providing SEO consulting services to the automotive industry. The transition to helping others has had a steep learning curve, especially since I’m used to calling and executing the shots. As a marketer, my job is to get my clients traffic, and do everything I can to make sure that traffic converts into an actionable lead. So, what happens after that lead is generated is now out of my hands? It’s up to the company to turn that lead into a sale.  Hey, it’s not rocket science I’m talking about here.  But, what do you do when you as a consultant provide spot on advice but that client doesn’t convert that sale for reasons beyond your control?

I’m a firm believer that caring about the welfare of your customer is the number one priority.  If you truly want them to succeed, you are going to do everything in your power to achieve that goal. That way you spend your time analyzing and solving problems, not just counting up billable hours. In my field it’s pretty easy since I treat clients as though they are part of my own portfolio. With this philosophy in mind, it’s hard not to look at your client and advise them in ways that are outside the scope of your job when the company starts to struggle. Needless to say, this is the absolute WRONG thing to do. For starters, the client pays you to fill a function and only that function. If you go beyond that, you run the risk of looking like a complete idiot since you as an outsider don’t understand all the ins and outs of their business. Because of the complexity of any business, you could miss the mark entirely.  Your advice, although well-intentioned, could be just plain wrong.  That’s especially awful if it’s your job to be the one with all the right answers. Even worse, implicating an individual or methodology as the source of the problem can cause some hurt feelings (that could be someone’s pet idea you’re trashing).  You are treading in an area where you aren’t the star and you can cause all sorts of problems that you aren’t capable of fixing. And finally, you aren’t getting paid any extra for giving advice in an area where you have a strong likelihood of being wrong.  You could be hurting your client and, even worse, you are spending your precious time without compensation.  If that doesn’t drive the point home, I don’t know what will.

So when it comes to consulting, care about your client, do what they hired you to do, but keep your opinions about how they should run their business to yourself. You’ll be a much happier and wealthier consultant.