To be a successful consultant, you need to hold a durable balance between brilliant working relationships and targeted offerings that meet current client needs.

It’s important to constantly enhance your service quality, but that might get in the way of maintaining deep, flexible client relationships. It’s likely that you have competitors, perhaps some big-name providers, with the resources and the time to woo (and wow) your clients. So, which route should you take to build sustainable revenue?

The “Trusted Name” Threat

Today, only 19 per cent of consultants (surveyed by BrightHR) claim they aren’t threatened by larger, well-trusted names. In a crowded market, the question ‘How do I choose to compete?’ is one of the most strategically important for every business. Forging dynamic relationships that create, build and lock in trust, above all, should be your go-to industry approach.

Aim for High Quality, Always.

As a smaller consultancy, you may not be able to compete directly with everything that a heavily resourced big name organisation can provide. What you can do is do the things you do at a quality that cannot be equaled. When you focus on the opportunities that your model provides, rather than the threat that others make, your lower cost base and personal focus allows you to stand out against more expensive, more generic offerings. You can obtain a niche audience that’s uncontested on the big stage.

Be Well-Rounded

On-site relationships are easier to maintain and perceived by the client as more valuable, relationship-wise, but working remotely can be much more cost efficient. If you are location independent, you’ll strike an important middle-ground where potential clients can value similar services as a big-name operator while getting a better relationship at a lower overall cost.

Foster Brilliant Work Relationships

Check in with clients frequently. As a smaller provider, it’s critical to stay on-point at every avenue. To spot, utilise and maximise new opportunities, you need to stay on top of each client relationship. Results from the BrightHR survey echo this, with consultants rating the ability to work quickly and delivering results as the most important factor in building client relationships. That means spending time doing background research and thinking about how better to support your clients that can’t be ‘on-the-clock’, yet it will pay dividends.

Other tools, like Skype, Zoom, or GoToMeeting can be used for discussions too, as that provides some opportunities for pseudo face to face engagement, which is helpful for 25 per cent of consultants who told us that working remotely was one of the biggest challenges in building relationships. All your interactions should help keep you and your clients close. Big-name contenders are too impersonal, and they often fail on services where immediate, direct responses are needed. So, be mindful of your client’s preferred communication method, and meet it.


Use Collaborative Tools

As a small provider, you have another excellent communication opportunity in collaborative tools. One of a remote worker’s biggest challenges is work efficiency. As a consultant, you can rewire your relationships by offering unbeatable accessibility. In our experience, technology works best when it’s an enabler, not the end in itself, and must be simple for everyone to use, with a short learning curve. A lot of innovative technology is hard to implement and doesn’t get engagement until it reaches a critical mass of users.

Be careful not to introduce a working method that’s dependent on a specific technology, as for some clients that may not be ideal. Being adaptable to clients’ preferences will often allow them to prefer small providers and achieve more dynamic relationships. In fact, knowing your clients’ preferences means that you can introduce technology into their business, if it will address a need and solve a problem.

They want to work together. In fact, a majority of online clients seek small consultancies to create partnerships, ongoing discussions and close relationships.

The Verdict?

Prioritise close client relationships first, and if you have to make a choice in where to put effort, choose the relationship over product development.

Your clients are already looking for close, one-on-one consultant relationships. It’s a smaller market, and that’s okay. Focus on building trust, flexible services and client communication. Foster a friendship with clients. Respond to requests as quickly as possible, and always resolve issues across multiple communication channels. Consultancy, above all, requires fantastic service and communication, both of which you are in business to provide. They are your biggest assets. By balancing your resources, prioritising the client and building consistent, interesting work relationships, you can redefine consultancy and become a go-to provider.

I recently worked with BrightHR to co-author the report ‘Better Relationships, Better Business’ in which we explored how consultants can build better relationships with their clients. To download the full Better Relationships | Better Business report for free visit https://pages.brighthr.com/betterrelationships-consultants.html