As an executive, you’ve likely experienced the frustration of hiring a consulting firm that promises big results but delivers only a costly PowerPoint presentation. It’s a common experience, and it’s not unintentional. For many traditional consulting firms, going over budget and pushing out timelines is how they get paid and avoid accountability.
At these firms, consulting hours are burned up in lengthy strategy sessions, ramp-up periods, data gathering, fact-finding, presentations, and deep dives that freely consume the client’s project budget. This approach can push out timelines for actually achieving anything measurable and substantive. What’s worse is that often, what gets delivered in the end is a partial project with only partially working work product, leaving stakeholders angry and frustrated.
Unfortunately, the executive hiring the firm may not feel the full consequences of the failure, as the consulting firm name and reputation often shield the executive from perceived accountability. “These guys are VERY well known. Of course, I assumed they would deliver!” This calculated failure is end-to-end, with all parties colluding for a lackluster project performance rather than what it takes to achieve the goals.
However, at Free Agent Source (FAS), we believe that consulting should be simple, not dysfunctional. Our approach is different. We don’t have partners sitting above our consultants whose sole job is to take money out of the company. Instead, our consultants thrive on accomplishment and direct collaboration with the client company.
With FAS, there are no gatekeepers or middlemen. The relationship between client and consultant is direct communication, and the consultant is empowered to do what they love to do – get things done. Our consultants are more aligned with client executives than either consultant or client is aligned with traditional consulting firms. We don’t introduce proprietary processes, long data-gathering times, mandatory strategy consultation, unnecessary extra consulting team members, or forced rotations of consultants off the team.
Our approach ensures that projects are completed efficiently and cost-effectively, and tend to get done within budget and schedule, and more effectively. We believe that long-term trusted relationships with consultants preserve institutional knowledge and create a permanent network of professionals surrounding your organization. With FAS, our consultants thrive on accomplishment, and their success is measured by the success of their clients.
