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Let me tell you a story:
In October 2015, I had decided to leave my day job by June 1st 2016. On my list of things to do was updating my website and getting professional pictures taken for the website and my social media profiles.
I live in New York, and I have plenty of friends who are in the creative and entertainment industries. So I asked a few of them for recommendations for a photographer. After viewing the portfolios of several photographers, I hadn’t landed on one I really wanted to work with.
A short time later, I was looking at my personal Facebook profile. I looked at my profile picture. It was from an event I had attended several months prior. I can’t remember if I was speaking or laughing at something, but I had an interesting expression only face. It’s one of my favorite pictures and I’ve gotten many compliments on it.
I didn’t speak to the photographer at the events but I distinctly remember her walking around and quietly taking pictures. And then it clicked.
I went back to the host’s event album and wrote down the name of the photographer, Jen Painter. I found her website and contacted her, sending her the link to my picture in the event album. I asked if she was available to schedule a session with me for later in the month. She shared her availability and pricing policy, and instead of booking half upfront, I booked the entire fee on the spot.
I met with Jen a few weeks later in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn for my shoot. She was nice and accommodating, and I felt very comfortable with her considering it was my first professional shoot. I enjoyed working with Jen so much that it was difficult for me to choose 5 pictures out of the many she’d taken of me for her to touch up. I found my favorites, and these pictures are the images you now see on my website, newsletter, and social media profiles.
“So, what does this have to do with hiring a consultant?”, you ask.
You see, a consultant can write a great proposal or work scope that fits what you’re looking for. They can even give their hourly or flat rate (which I’m beginning to see is a flawed way for clients choosing a consultant). But ultimately, none of this matters unless you have identified the value you’ll get in working with this person. So the #1 question to ask when hiring a consultant is this:
What value will I receive in hiring this person?
Knowing someone’s hourly rate or flat fee isn’t the most important part. Yes, you’re a nonprofit and budgets matter (though we all know that budgets can be moved around, so that’s not an excuse). Here’s why:
Before I knew Jen’s pricing, I already knew what the value would be in working with her. I liked the picture she’d taken of me, plus (and this was the most important) contacting her excited me and I wanted to get started with her right away. Lastly, I had faith in her ability to do a good job when I told her what my expectations were and how I wanted to have my pictures portray.
Before you spend time crafting a Request for Proposals, do your research. Look in your networks for referrals. Go to their websites, fill out their client questionnaire if they have one, and schedule a time to speak with them. Don’t just send out a RFP and hope for the best because you won’t have any control over who submits a response.
Before you speak with potential consultants, be clear about your project’s goals and needs and how you feel this person can address them. Identify what excites you about this project, and in potentially working with them on it. More importantly, know how do you want to feel when the project and your partnership ends. I can tell when a client is just looking for someone to take over tasks versus someone who really wants to have a mutually fulfilling partnership.
If you can’t articulate any of this, it will be impossible for a consultant to price you fairly. Because how you value the process is more important that the budget associated with it.
And I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’d be more excited to work with a client if they can tell me what their perceived value is in working with me. And you know what? Each client, after speaking with me, has told me “I feel good about this”. It may have had something to do with how I was able to understand their needs, but I’d like to believe that they felt good because they already knew the value they’d receive in working together.
“But budgets are important!”, you say.
Here’s my advice: First, articulate the value you perceive you’ll have in working with the consultant before there’s any mention of budgets. Once you get the perceived value down, then share your budget and ask them what can they realistically do with this budget. When you start off with money, there’s already the assumption that you won’t be able to work with them if they don’t fit into your budget, and that can become icky. Consultants wants to price your project fairly, plus we all know that a budget can magically increase if you really want it to.
Key Takeaway
Value is not just about budgets, hourly/flat rates and deliverables. It’s about knowing and articulating how you want to feel when working with this person. A consultant may fit into your budget, but if it doesn’t excite you to work with this person, what’s the point?
