You hire a consultant because he or she knows things that you don’t know, but you still need to be smart enough to tell a good solution from a poor one.
You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.
This oft repeated quote has been attributed to Abraham Lincoln, but there is no hard evidence that he ever spoke those words. In fact, some have speculated that the phrase actually originated with the famous promoter, P. T. Barnum. However, no matter who initially uttered these famous words, they hold just as true today as when they were first spoken.
All of this leads me to what I would like to write about today – choosing a communications consultant.
Stick with me.
Having been in this industry for 30+ years, I have seen just about every kind of consultant you could possibly imagine. Some were truly brilliant and made me wish that I was half as smart as they were. On the other end of the spectrum, I've encountered a fair number that made you wonder just how in the world anyone ever decided to hire them. Thankfully, the real awful ones are few and far between, but they are out there, and for reasons that continue to baffle me, they continue to find clients.
In the interest of full disclosure, one of the many hats I wear is that of the consultant. Sometimes it's a paid gig and sometimes it's part of the sales process, but I speak with folks around the country about their current communications practices and recommend courses of action to upgrade, enhance, and transform them. While I don't claim to be truly brilliant 100% of the time, I do know a thing or two about unified communications and work hard to provide my customers with solid, actionable advice.
Having worked both sides of the aisle, I have strong opinions about the qualifications and role of a consultant. This is true in regard to the consultants I encounter out in the world and the one that I strive to be. So, for the next several sections, allow me to pontificate on my must haves and must avoids.
Independence
Over the years, I have read countless consultant-created RFPs (Request for Proposal) and I can always tell which ones have been written with the customer in mind and which ones were written to benefit the consultant.
Customer-focused RFPs solicit solutions that aren't tied to a specific manufacturer. I can't tell you how many times I've read a list of feature requests that were taken straight from the Cisco/Avaya/Microsoft/etc. playbook. This tells me that the consultant only knows a specific product line or that he or she has some vested interest in selling that product line (or perhaps both).
A good consultant must understand the industry as a whole. While some communications vendors may have superior solutions in some areas, it's nearly impossible to find one product line that is the absolute best at all things at all times. I am overjoyed when I encounter a consultant who understands the strengths and weaknesses of all the pertinent solutions vendors. A good consultant represents the interests of the customer and not the manufacturer.
Visibility
I used to think of Twitter as a toy for bored teenagers. Silly me. I now see it as a powerful tool to connect like-minded people with the folks that are anxious to learn from them.
A good consultant needs to be plugged into the much larger communications community. Personally, I follow a number of people and accounts that I consider to be the best in the industry and find tremendous value in what they think, say, question, and share. The field of real-time communications is changing faster than at any other time in my career, and I consider it to be a necessary part of my job to keep up with what's new and different.
Don't be afraid to see where a consultant fits into the larger community. Poke around his or her LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, etc. accounts and question the credentials of those consultants that aren't easily found.
Speak Out
In addition to being plugged into the online community for educational purposes, I look at what a consultant has to say about communications technology. What is he or she sharing with the world? Is there a body of work that you can refer to? Does the consultant write a blog, contribute to someone else's blog, or have a cache of whitepapers you can reference? The written word speaks volumes about the consultant's involvement and commitment to the industry. Silence is not golden.
You can have a job or you can live out a passion. Great consultants are completely immersed in this field and let their excitement be seen by others. Poor consultants either don't contribute or haven't bothered to learn the importance of sharing. Even worse, they are afraid of the tools and you don't want someone who is frightened of new technology or means of expression.
Tribal Connections
As hard as I try, it is impossible to know everything in my field. For example, while I consider myself networking smart, I would never pretend to be a network architect. I know enough about DHCP, DNS, and subnets to be dangerous, but I have friends and coworkers that I can turn to when I've reached my intellectual limit – which is somewhere between spanning tree and border gateway protocol.
A good consultant will never propose anything that hasn't been thoroughly researched. That may require reaching out to experts for information and solution validation. Look for someone who has the right connections and knows how to use them.
Experience Matters
It goes without saying that a good consultant has done what he or she claims to know. For instance, you should only hire a contact center consultant that has years of experience in the industry and has played with the various vendors' products.
Of course, it is difficult to have a long history in cutting edge technology such as WebRTC. This requires that a consultant be a curious geek who isn't afraid to get down and dirty with the latest and greatest.
As an example, let's say that you want to implement WebRTC in your contact center. Working with a consultant who has taken the time to learn JavaScript and HTML in order to write a working WebRTC application may give you a leg up when it comes to deciding how you will employ this new technology.
Smarten Up Yourself
The best way to shop for a new car is to know a bit about the car before stepping foot onto the lot. The same holds for communications. You owe it to yourself and your employer to learn the language of the industry before you engage a consultant. Knowing the fundamentals of a session border controller will greatly increase the value and relevance of your conversations and ultimate decision making.
You hire a consultant because he or she knows things that you don't know, but you still need to be smart enough to tell a good solution from a poor one.
Make it Happen
For better or worse, we increasingly rely upon technology to do our jobs and serve our customers. A good consultant can help you navigate the complexities of product selection, installation, configuration, and integration. A poor consultant adds cost and time to a project while potentially pointing an enterprise in the wrong direction. It is important to do your homework and select someone that adds value to you, your organization, and the communications community at large.
Choose wisely. My job satisfaction may depend on it.
Andrew Prokop writes about all things unified communications on his popular blog, SIP Adventures.
