So, we've been out of town, busy cooking chili, and catching up with clients (hence the delay in blog posts). That being said, we've learned several things about client/consultant relationships and what works best between the two.

If you have a consultant of any kind, here are a few tips to keep their services valuable, saving you and them time and money.

1. When ANYTHING changes within the scope of services agreed upon by both parties, always contact your consultant immediately. This will prevent you from being billed for hours that go toward irrelevant tasks. Keeping communication open is key. However, it is important to realize that if you are billed for irrelevant tasks when it was your communication lapse that caused this, the consultant did the work as originally agreed upon and you should not punish them by withholding payment on these hours.

2. Have your information (whether it be technical information, history of your company, or other specific info that your consultant may not be privy to prior to working with your company) readily available and easily accessible. If it's not organized before the consultant is on board, perhaps it would be an excuse to put this information into a nice package for future use as well.

3. Be available. As #1 states, communication is the most important part of working with a consultant. You can't expect a consultant to read your mind just because you're too busy to bother with the project you handed off. It's better to either tell your consultant to hold off until you have time to discuss it (to reduce billable hours to your company) or to continue on the path that was discussed in the first place. No matter what, return all phone calls and emails within a reasonable amount of time.

4. Be open-minded. You hired a consultant because you either don't have the need or the budget to have a full-time employee to do the job. Trust that the consultant has the experience and the knowledge to come up with some great ideas/projects. Also know that the consultant will and should be 100% accountable for the hours billed. In a way, it's almost better to have a good consultant some of the time, where 100% of the billable time is going toward your project rather than a full time employee (no matter how well-intentioned) with about 65% of their time being utilized on pure work issues.

Think of your consultants as extensions of your company, very qualified, highly efficient extensions.

By following these 4 essential principles, you'll be able to get the largest return on your consultant investments.