Marketing

Aby Robert
Consultant’s
Buday
Comeuppance
From the Magazine (February 2003)

It was cold in the luxury box at Shea Stadium, but otherwise the
autumn Saturday was clear, sparkling, and perfect. The Mets were
ahead 5 to 4 in the bottom of the eighth, and Edgardo Alfonso had
just nailed a line drive with bases loaded. Life was good. Jeff
Patterson and Bill Holland jumped from their seats and yelled
their approval as each of the Mets crossed home plate.

Aside from being Mets fans, Jeff and Bill were old friends. The
annual ball game had been a feature of their relationship for the
past ten years—ever since Jeff’s firm, Flynn Fuller Consulting,
had worked on its first project for Bill’s company, the financial
services giant GloBank. An afternoon at the ballpark always
provided an excellent opportunity for the consultant and his
favorite client to catch up on personal news and talk shop in a
low-key way.

“Thanks again for writing that recommendation letter for

Jessica,” Bill told Jeff. “My poor daughter has never been able to
make up her mind. Now she can’t decide between Harvard and
Stanford, but I’m sure it will help her get into one or the other.” In
Jeff’s mind, Jessica had deserved his praise. She’d proved herself
more than competent during her summer research internship at
Flynn Fuller, where Jeff headed the firm’s financial services
practice. And, of course, the favor to Bill and Jessica was trivial
when compared with the consulting work GloBank had given
Flynn Fuller, whose fees had totaled more than $80 million in the
past decade. In fact, Bill, who headed GloBank’s retail banking
unit, had more good news on that front.

“The strategic analysis your team just did was excellent,” Bill
remarked. “It really sharpened our thinking about which retail
services we should keep investing in and which we should
consider pulling out of. We could really use that kind of analysis
on the next piece of the puzzle. We need to develop an acquisition
strategy and assessments of potential insurance company
acquisitions, and we could use some help. I’m guessing it would
be about a $1.5 million project for you—assuming, of course, it
gets the go-ahead from the new CEO. Safe to assume you’d be
interested in the work?”

Jeff, grateful that he hadn’t had to bring up the topic of follow-on

work, said “Absolutely, Bill. I’ll keep the team intact and ready to
go whenever you say.”

Despite this show of confidence, Jeff had misgivings; no one

really knew yet where the new CEO would steer GloBank, whose
business, like everyone else’s, had faltered during the past two
years. The new CEO was still a cipher, even to Bill. According to
press and industry reports, H. Frank Maloney III had a reputation
as an efficient manager, strong on both vision and execution, who
had done a good job of pulling another large financial-services
firm out of a difficult postmerger slump. Bill had also said that
Maloney had spent his first two months hunkered down,
familiarizing himself with GloBank’s business and “spending a lot
of time behind closed doors with the CFO.” Bill himself had not
gotten much of a read on his new boss yet. “Businesslike,” was
about the best that he could offer Jeff. “He’s the kind of person
who expects you to be totally prepared with answers at all times.”

Privately, Jeff knew that “keeping the team intact” wouldn’t be a

big challenge. With no major new projects in the pipeline, those
consultants would probably “hit the beach” for a while anyway.
Business at Flynn Fuller, whose revenues had topped $500
million last year, was down substantially. Like the rest of the
management consulting industry, it had been pulled down by the
powerful undertow of the recession and the terrorist attacks of
September 11. The firm’s $50 million banking practice had already
shriveled by about 20% this year. And there were few signs of
relief. Flynn Fuller—and Jeff’s team—needed the work.

Marshaling Maloney
Eating lunch the following Monday at his desk on the 35th floor of
Flynn Fuller’s headquarters, Jeff gazed at several skyscrapers
whose occupants he had come to know well in 25 years of
consulting work. These were his clients. His practice had helped
them navigate the rapids in the financial services industry—
dealing with the threat of brokerage firms siphoning off bank
depositors; the forays of industrial giants like GE, GM, and Ford
into the lucrative auto loan business; and the attempts by Sears
and others at one-stop financial services shops.

“Maybe we got a little exuberant with the whole dot-com thing,”

Jeff thought to himself. His firm had advised financial
institutions to spin off their Internet businesses and take them
public during the heyday of 1999. Good thing none of them did; in
hindsight, the advice was off base. Retail banks need a “clicks-
and-bricks” capability, a separate Internet unit would have made
that more difficult. Recently, Flynn Fuller had stopped placing its
publication advocating spinoffs near the reception desk.

But that misstep was an exception to Flynn Fuller’s overall strong

track record with financial institutions. It hardly seemed fair that,
after so many years of receiving sound advice, those companies
were now forsaking him. The late-1990s consulting boom felt like
it had happened a century ago. Thank God, Jeff thought, for Bill
and GloBank. If it hadn’t been for them, and the promise of new
work, the outlook would be even bleaker. Jeff finished his tuna on
wheat and then crumpled the wrapper and tossed it in the
wastebasket. He swung around to check his e-mail. The first
message in his in box, flagged with an “Importance: High”
exclamation mark, was from Bill:
Jeff: I need to alert you to something. This morning we got word
from the CFO that substantial cost reductions are required. Every
division head has to come up with proposed cuts on the order of
10% to 15%. I don’t know what it means yet for the project I
mentioned. Hopefully, nothing. But we may need to rethink the
scope, chop it up into phases, or something. In any event, the
order is coming from the top. Will keep you posted.

Best,

Bill.

Jeff didn’t have to ask what “from the top” meant. It was clear the
directive had come from Maloney. He tapped out a reply.

Hmm. Thanks, Bill. Let me know what you hear as soon as you
can.

—Jeff.

Jeff leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath. He tried
putting the news into its best light. Perhaps Maloney’s business
review and cost-cutting directive meant that GloBank would
outsource more work to consultants and seek the advice and help
that Flynn Fuller had provided for many years—especially to its
retail business unit, which had done better than any other unit in
that time. Later, as Jeff was about to leave for the day, his assistant
Pam let him know that Bill Holland was on the phone. “Jeff, I
know I practically gave you the green light on that second
project,” Bill said in an apologetic voice. “But the light just turned
red. It’s on hold.” His words felt like a punch to Jeff’s stomach.

That afternoon, Bill explained, Maloney had called him and seven
other divisional presidents into the boardroom. The CFO was
there as well. Maloney and the CFO circulated a “state of the
bank” report, and the news wasn’t good. It looked like the bank
would lose money for the second straight year. Most divisions
were losing market share, and costs were spiraling out of control.
The reason the firm’s stock price was at a 15-year low, Maloney
said, was that GloBank’s commercial lending business was out
hundreds of millions of dollars from bad loans after a decade of
decentralized lending authority. And Wall Street knew that there
were more bad loans on the books.

Each president was given 15 minutes to talk about his or her

division, explain the reasons for its performance, and discuss
plans to improve it. Toward the end of the meeting, the CFO
mentioned in passing that GloBank was spending $14 million on
consultants this year. Maloney jumped on the topic and asked,
“Can anyone tell me why we’re using so many consultants here?”

After getting no immediate responses from his division leaders,

Maloney issued an edict: Each division president would have to
justify every major consulting project—that is, those costing more
than $100,000 per year. “Have your consultants prove to me why
we need them or else get rid of them.” The consultancies’
meetings with Maloney would begin next week.

It wasn’t clear, Bill told Jeff, whether that demand came from any
particular concern with consultants or just the heat of the
moment. And certainly, Flynn Fuller wasn’t being singled out.
Maloney was calling on the carpet every consulting firm doing
work at GloBank. “Jeff, there are at least six other consulting firms
doing work in other divisions, and I’m sure you guys have a better
story to tell than most of them.”

In a state of semishock that his relationship with an annuity client

could evaporate in a single week, leaving ten consultants without
assignments, Jeff flailed. “Do you have any idea what kind of
story that should be?” he asked. “I mean, what kind of
information is he looking for?”

“I don’t know, Jeff,” Bill said. “The only thing he told us was, ‘I’ll
give them each an hour to justify their existence here.’”
For the first time since they met ten years ago, Jeff heard fear in
Bill’s voice. It dawned on him that this confident and competent
banker might also be worried about his own position. What Bill
said next confirmed it: “All I know is, you guys can’t embarrass
me. You gotta make me look like Einstein for bringing you in all
these years.”

The War Room

Warm with the aroma of freshly brewed coffee and Danish, the
conference room at Flynn Fuller was like a second home to Jeff;
he’d spent many long days and nights diagramming client
strategies and outlining deliverables on its white boards. Now he
was here with five colleagues: two senior project managers from
the GloBank account, the head of business development in the
retail bank practice, a consulting service development director,
and the practice marketing manager. “We’re here this morning
because our GloBank account may be in trouble,” Jeff announced
from the head of the oval table. “And I need your help to save it.”

Though the team had been apprised of the corporate

management change at GloBank, Jeff spent a few minutes going
over everything he knew about Frank Maloney’s reputation and
prior work. He relayed the message from Bill Holland that each
consulting firm would have an hour to make its case. Their
session was scheduled for 10 am the following Thursday.
Including today, the team had nine days to prepare. “I’m not
exactly sure how to use that time,” Jeff confessed to his group.
Truth be told, this was the first time in his career that he’d been
asked to “justify his existence,” as Bill had said. It wasn’t exactly
the kind of beauty contest that Flynn Fuller was usually involved
in when competing to work for a new client. And it certainly
wasn’t just a progress report. Jeff understood the right of any new
CEO to do cost justification, especially given the current
challenges in the banking industry. But it seemed like Maloney
was looking for some more general understanding of what value
consultants bring.
 Truth be told, this was the first time in
his career that he’d been asked to
“justify his existence.”

“Why don’t we start by just going around the room and briefly
outlining what we think should be in the presentation,” he
continued. All heads nodded. Glancing at the head nodding the
hardest, he said, “Alex, why don’t we start with you.”

Alexandra Manning was a principal consultant at Flynn Fuller,

one level below partner. She had been working on GloBank
projects as Jeff’s day-to-day “person at the client” for the past four
years. “We can’t go wrong if we use the time to bring him up to
speed on all our past successes with GloBank,” Manning began.
Maloney, she noted, would most likely have heard about some of
the work in which Flynn Fuller had been involved. “The funny
thing is that some of the projects that get talked up the most
around there aren’t ones we regard as big successes. Our counsel
just rubber-stamped what someone wanted to prove—even
though we didn’t know that in advance.” In fact, she reminded the
group, some of the work they were most proud of yielded advice
that GloBank ultimately chose to ignore—for example, the
questioning of an acquisition target and the counsel to make an
unpopular divestiture.

“Even though I know we were right, those projects won’t be

viewed as successful because not having listened to us will put
some people in a bad light,” Manning said. “So, unfortunately, we
won’t be able to bring up those projects. But we can still point to a
lot of good decisions that were made on the basis of our analysis
that Maloney might not know to give us credit for.”

Mark Tannenbaum, the other project manager, took another tack.

“I don’t know how strongly we want to associate ourselves with
GloBank’s recent performance,” he said. “After all, Maloney isn’t
giving it much credit at all. He’s looking to the future.”
Tannenbaum pointed out that Maloney had been in financial
services for 40 years, so Flynn Fuller needed to demonstrate its
industry expertise. “He’s probably seen a lot of consulting firms
that are an inch deep in real knowledge about how the industry
works, even if they have dedicated financial-service consultants,”
he explained. “That we have 150 consultants in this practice,
many with at least 10 years of bank experience, is impressive.”

Perhaps, Tannenbaum suggested, the team should spend the next

week pulling together a “future vision for the financial services
industry”—a highly informed look at three to five compelling
scenarios based on trend lines from the past 30 years. This, he
urged the group, would show that Flynn Fuller offered some
critical insights that Maloney lacked—and needed—to chart a
new direction.

“Okay. Two conflicting views,” Jeff said. “But, great. This is

exactly the discussion we need. John?”

John Castle, the head of business development in Flynn Fuller’s

retail banking practice, noted that every consulting sale is a
relationship sale. “A client at this level isn’t comfortable bringing
in a certain firm unless the right chemistry with the key members
of the consulting team is there. Jeff, look at your relationship with
Bill Holland. You guys are pretty tight. You know what sports he
likes, what whiskey he drinks, what magazines he reads, where
his kids go to school.

Every consulting sale is a relationship

sale. A client isn’t comfortable unless
the right chemistry with the key
members of the consulting team is
there.
“We need to know what this Maloney guy is all about far better
than we do right now,” Castle continued. “Where’d he go to
business school? Maybe the same place you did? Or maybe he is
close friends or golf buddies with another of our banking clients.
All I know is, if we don’t appeal to this guy in some way on a
personal level, we’re not going to connect with him. What I’m
saying is we need a whole personality profile on him.”

“It’s true enough,” said Jeff. “I’d have a much higher comfort level
about this if I knew more about him. What do you think, Jane?”

Jane McCreary was the practice’s director of service development,

a weighty position that involved identifying best-practice
methods developed in individual client engagements and
embedding the most promising of them into companywide
methodology and training programs. “I believe one of the things
we’re missing here is showing Maloney how we do our work,”
McCreary said. “This is what clients pay us to do. How can he
make a decision about whether to keep us unless he understands
how we’re different from the other consulting firms? I would focus
most of your presentation, Jeff, on our approaches.”

The final person to speak was Jim Whalen, the practice’s

marketing director. “I feel I need to take the role of the skeptical
client,” he said. “GloBank has spent—what did you say, $80
million?—on us over the past ten years. If I were the CEO, I’d like
to know what the ROI was. I know it’s very hard to pin a dollar
sign on a lot of our consulting work, but I think we have to try to
sum it all up—”

“Maybe,” Jeff said, cutting off Whalen. “But how could we

possibly come up with that number? I’ve seldom had to make a
hard financial case with a client on the value of our work with
them. If they don’t fundamentally trust that Flynn Fuller is doing
them some good—more than what we earn in our fees—then
they’re not going to be our clients for the long term.”
By the time the group had finished hearing out each other’s ideas,
it was already noon. Jeff told them to assemble the data that they
believed would make a compelling “deck.” The following Monday
morning, they would lay all of their information on the table and
develop the presentation to save the GloBank account.

Presentation D Day
At 9 am on Monday of the following week, the team convened to
spend the whole day “storyboarding” the presentation. Jeff, John
Castle, Alexandra Manning, Jane McCreary, Mark Tannenbaum,
and Jim Whalen sat at the same places around the table, stacks of
paper and rough presentations in hand. A graphic artist who
specialized in overhead presentations joined the group so the
team’s work could quickly be put into production.

“Welcome back, everyone,” Jeff began. “I’m eager to hear how we

can make this a great presentation that will knock Maloney cold.”

How should Flynn Fuller resell its value to GloBank?

P. William Bane is a recently retired vice president and director

of Mercer Management Consulting, a division of New York–based
Marsh & McLennan.

Jeff Patterson and his team should face the following realities:
The number of consultants GloBank uses is about to drop to one
or zero; Jeff’s friend Bill Holland is in serious trouble; and critical
time has been dithered away, perhaps fatally. Thus, Flynn Fuller
has only one choice. The team should pitch GloBank as though it
were a new account, which involves taking some risks and raising
the consultancy’s sights from a divisional to a corporate
perspective.

To stay in the game, Jeff and his team must immediately establish
credibility and trustworthiness. In their preparatory sessions, the
consultants must directly, personally, and intellectually take on
Frank Maloney’s challenge of quickly reversing GloBank’s
financial and market-share losses. Realistically speaking,
Maloney has only about six to 12 months to improve GloBank’s
performance before organizational openness to change
disappears and disappointment with his performance sets in.

CEOs in his situation desperately need—or, at least, deeply

appreciate—clear, reliable, unbiased help in identifying,
confirming, or refuting hypotheses about the challenges they
face. Maloney may welcome consultants who are willing to say
the brutally honest, politically incorrect truth. At the same time,
it’s obvious that Maloney harbors serious doubts about
consultants, so Jeff must prove his worth, despite feeling that
having to do so is unfair.

How, then, do Jeff and his team show themselves worthy of

Maloney’s trust? In short, Jeff must review his firm’s decade of
projects and demonstrate past and prospective value creation for
GloBank with six slides that will easily cover the one-hour
discussion.

The first two slides should consist of a table listing projects in

rows and accompanying columns of recommendations, qualified
and qualitative earnings, growth and sales results, issues or
problems, and hindsight comments. The main point of this chart
must be that GloBank has received its full $80 million of value, as
demonstrated through increased profits and top-line results. The
secondary purpose of this chart is to show Maloney that Jeff is a
straight shooter from a practice that recognizes and acknowledges
its own mistakes. Both of these goals must be achieved in the first
15 minutes of the presentation.

Next, Jeff should follow Mark Tannenbaum’s advice and offer

very brief conclusions about how GloBank fits within the likely
evolution of the industry, again illustrated with two slides. Jeff
must try to identify and focus on a few actions that GloBank can
take in response to industry change. At a minimum, he should
offer a set of ideas for improving results. These ideas should be
known and supported by most of Jeff’s GloBank clients,
especially Bill.

It appears that Jeff and the team have given little thought to
customers’ view of GloBank’s services or to alternative
competitive approaches GloBank could adopt, both quite critical
to this discussion. It shouldn’t be too hard, however, for Jeff to
synthesize customers, competitors, and ongoing GloBank
activities into a short, but powerful, priority action list—again
displayed on two slides. This list must be stated from Maloney’s
perspective and grounded squarely in GloBank’s potential to
boost financial performance and market share. If Jeff has been
doing his job well, his priority list will match Maloney’s own,
perhaps private, list. Jeff will strike out only if he doesn’t hit on at
least one idea out of three that interests Maloney.

Finally, I’m not entirely convinced that Jeff hasn’t dropped the
ball, or at least become a bit “flat.” In particular, few of Jeff’s
colleagues would or should accept Jeff’s tardy preparation for the
new CEO and his “surprise” discovery that the new boss cares
more deeply about near-term results than relationships. If I were
Jeff’s boss, I’d insist that Jeff bring into the process a peer who
would inject new ideas and challenge the way things are done. I
would insist that this peer accompany Jeff to the presentation to
act as an alternative, potentially less tainted, adviser to the new
CEO.

I’m not entirely convinced that Jeff

hasn’t dropped the ball.

Tom Van Berkel is the president and CEO of Main Street America
Group, an insurance firm headquartered in Keene, New
Hampshire, with executive offices in Jacksonville, Florida.
Consultants are like locomotives. Once they start chugging down
an organization’s tracks, they begin to pick up speed. Sooner or
later, no one can stop the trains, and they wind up running over
everything and everyone in their paths.

It’s amazingly easy for organizations like GloBank to get hooked

on consultants, particularly when times are good, the company is
growing, and money is abundant. After all, consultants are
seductive: They’re smart, they bring an outsider’s perspective,
and they’re free of internal organizational baggage. They offer
services you think you can’t do without, or that you don’t have
time to perform yourself. Pretty soon, you find yourself relying on
them more and more.

Consultants are seductive: They’re

smart, they bring an outsider’s
perspective, and they’re free of
internal organizational baggage.

I witnessed the locomotive effect firsthand in my own

organization when we were combining a few functional areas into
one. The heads of the merging areas brought in a consultant to
help them plan the reorganization. After a few months, the
managers called a meeting to present the reorganization plan to
senior management. In that meeting, the consultant did all the
talking. In fact, it was clear that the department heads had ceded
all responsibility to the consultant. I didn’t know who had had the
original ideas, who had led the discussions, and who had bought
into the plan. Indeed, I didn’t even know who was running the
new organization—the people I’d hired to do the job, or the
consultant.

GloBank’s new CEO is right to call these expensive consultants on

the carpet. He’s probably spent his first two months at the
company taking a good, hard look at the business fundamentals.
In his closed-door meetings with the CFO, he’s likely taken apart
line items like travel expenses and computer equipment, and,
odds are, he’s seen an enormous amount of company money go
into Flynn Fuller’s pockets. He’d be irresponsible if he didn’t ask
tough questions at a time when his company’s fortunes are sliding
and margins are narrowing.

Still, Maloney is approaching the entire Flynn Fuller problem the

wrong way. Before he hears from the consultants, he needs to talk
to Bill. Bill may, in fact, have very good reasons for having relied
on Flynn Fuller’s advice for so many years, and if so the CEO
should hear them. In addition to explaining what Flynn Fuller’s
brilliant insights have done for GloBank during the past decade,
Bill should explain why nobody on his own staff, including
himself, could come up with these ideas on their own. After all,
Bill presumably was hired to bring his knowledge into the
organization and to keep up with industry changes on the bank’s
behalf. As a GloBank employee he is an internal consultant. If, by
some incredible stroke of luck, Maloney actually has confidence
in what Bill says, then he should give the consultants an
opportunity to make their case. But if, as I suspect, Bill is simply
lazy and has devolved his responsibility over the years to the
consultants, Maloney should tell Bill he’s out of a job, effective
immediately, and that Flynn Fuller is out of a client.

Of course, it may be that Flynn Fuller has unique, very specific

knowledge that no one in the company has. Then it makes sense
for GloBank to tap into that expertise on a temporary basis. For
example, if GloBank wants to do business in a new country with
very specific laws, it makes sense to hire consultants who
understand those laws to help set up the new office. But should
this relationship last for more than a year? Somehow, I doubt it.

Finally, if I were Maloney, I’d call my managers to a meeting and

let them know that I expect all employees to have up-to-date skills
and the ability to make informed decisions. I’d say, “Either you
folks do the job you were hired to do or we’ll get others to do it—
and I don’t mean consultants.”
Peter Klein is the senior vice president of strategy and business
development for Gillette in Boston.

If Jeff and his team could inject Maloney with truth serum and
ask what would it take to keep the account, Maloney might say:
“You must convince me you are relevant and differentiated, that
you have meaningful experience, brainpower, a record of past
successes, and the proven ability to provide tangible, practical,
measurable results for GloBank. You must articulate your
relevancy and uniqueness simply, and you must communicate
how your insights have consistently led to measurable
performance improvement.” This is a very tall order.

Flynn Fuller should prepare a strategic framework to respond to

Maloney’s (and the CFO’s) likely issues. This framework should
use deductive reasoning to focus and customize the discussion to
its skeptical audience.

The framework would consist of three columns; each should list

all the known variables influencing the presentation’s outcome.
The left column consists of facts and assumptions, what the team
knows or can hypothesize about Maloney’s background and
intent. The middle column focuses on the reasons that support
these facts and assumptions—that is, why Maloney might hold
his beliefs. The third column is for replies: relevant benefits and
strategic differentiators Flynn Fuller should communicate to
address Maloney’s issues.

Let’s start with the facts and assumptions column, which should
list meaningful facts: GloBank needs a financial and strategic
turnaround, the CEO has a directive from the board to quickly
reverse the poor financial performance, GloBank has historically
relied on consultants, and so on. In addition to the facts, there are
also assumptions; for example, the probability that Maloney
doesn’t like consultants. Another assumption is that Maloney is
open-minded—after all, he expressed a willingness to listen to
consultancy presentations. It’s possible this willingness is really a
smoke screen, that Maloney may be using these presentations to
show his senior management that the days of relying on
consultants are over. It’s also possible that just the opposite is the
case. At the end of the day, Maloney will do whatever he thinks is
right for the future financial health of GloBank, including the
selective use of consultants if he sees their value.

The reasons column should address each of the facts and

assumptions. For example, the team can ask itself why Maloney
doesn’t like consultants. Is he a controlling person who likes to
feel in charge at all times? Does he believe in driving policy from
the top down? Has he had unpleasant experiences with
consultants or is his attitude due to hearsay?

In the replies column, the team should develop specific strategies

and responses for addressing each fact, assumption, and reason
listed in the first two columns. If team members believe Maloney
doesn’t like consultants, they should demonstrate Flynn Fuller’s
overall operating principles, its beliefs as a consultancy, and its
specific value to GloBank. One presentation point might be: “For
every dollar invested in Flynn Fuller, GloBank received X dollars
in return, and here is our evidence.”

Once the team has sufficiently completed the strategic

framework, they can build the presentation in a “consultative
selling” mode—for example, stating Flynn Fuller’s principles and
beliefs relative to growth management and turnarounds, its
unique industry knowledge and insights, the value it has
delivered to GloBank, its unique methodologies, and the
credentials and skills of its financial services people. They can
apply this framework to develop a professional, polished, and
targeted presentation that clearly articulates the firm’s ability to
address Maloney’s concerns. And if the presentation is delivered
in a professional and “be bright, be brief, be gone” way, the team
may make a sufficiently favorable impression on Maloney and his
CFO to be retained.
 If the presentation is delivered in a
professional and “be bright, be brief,
be gone” way, the team may make a
sufficiently favorable impression.

Will Flynn Fuller’s effort be for naught? Perhaps. But if the

consultants convince Maloney to keep them on, they may not
only hold on to their GloBank revenues but increase them as they
pick up a larger share of the consulting pot.

Tricia Stone is a founding partner of Stone Communications, a

San Francisco–based consulting firm focused on high-stakes
presentations.

Jeff is panicking. His fear of failure and humiliation is driving his

decision making right now. He needs to pull himself together and
remember the value his company has delivered to GloBank over
the years.

Jeff’s team members are more concerned with saving face than
with solving their biggest customer’s problem. John Castle’s
suggestion that Jeff should make a play to Maloney’s taste in
whiskey is misguided; it would absolutely backfire. Alexandra is
right to propose focusing on past successes, but she should be
braver—that is, willing to talk about mistakes as well as successes,
otherwise they’ll have little credibility with Maloney. Mark
Tannenbaum is correct to advocate a display of industry
expertise, but he needs to take a more open, less defensive stance.
Differentiation, as Jane McCreary notes, is critical; yet someone
like Maloney is not going to value an in-depth discussion of
methodology.

Jeff’s team members are more

concerned with saving face than with
solving their biggest customer’s
 problem.

Jim Whalen is the only one who’s on target. Focusing on financial

returns is the only way to convince this fiscally minded CEO of
Flynn Fuller’s past and continuing worth to GloBank. Maloney is
smart; he prides himself on his reputation, and he wants to make
his business successful and productive again as quickly as
possible. The only consultants he will respect, therefore, are those
who speak his language of toughness, competence, and
practicality. During the presentation, Jeff must show that he
thinks like Maloney by focusing on Flynn Fuller’s return on
investment over the years. The examples of cost savings and
revenue growth spurred by the consultants’ advice must be both
true and convincing. If the numbers are either inflated or
unverifiable, Maloney will give Jeff the thumbs-down. At the
same time, Jeff should approach this presentation as though it
were an initial sales call, providing Maloney with important
background information.

Jeff and his team should have a few key messages as they develop
the presentation and make sure these messages shine through in
both their verbal commentary and their visuals. They should also
keep the number of slides to a minimum—roughly ten slides
should do the trick. If three or fewer GloBank executives attend,
they can use a handout; if the group is larger, they should stand
and use a projector. The slides must be clear and graphical, and
each should make only one big point.

After a single slide introducing Flynn Fuller and its work at

GloBank, they should lay out their most impressive return on
investment statistics and excellent results, highlighting the
expertise of the group assigned to GloBank. Then they should
describe some of the success they’ve had with other banking
clients. Finally, they should conclude with points about where
they’d like to go with GloBank and how they can help Maloney
achieve the results he expects in the future.
It’s critically important for Jeff and the two people who
accompany him—presumably Alexandra Manning and Mark
Tannenbaum, who know the account best—to practice their
delivery and answers to questions. They must not be wedded to
their notes or to the script of the slides; the aim is complete,
comfortable control of their information. As they deliver the
presentation in front of each other, they should fine-tune it,
eliminating anything that sounds like consultant-speak or lacks
examples. They should give each other feedback on tone. They
want to sound neither defensive nor arrogant—just confident.
Their goal is to show Maloney that they are proud of their work
but also objective about it.

They need to think about how to demonstrate their desire to

partner with Maloney to achieve the results he’s looking for. One
example might be to respond to pricing inquiries with the offer of
a risk-sharing agreement, in which GloBank pays on delivery of
results, with a possible bonus for overachievement. Ultimately,
the tougher they are on themselves during their preparation and
the more confidently they deliver their presentation, the more
likely they’ll be to impress the skeptical CEO.
ABusiness
version Review.
of this article appeared in the February 2003 issue of Harvard

RB
Robert Buday is a founding partner of the
Bloom Group, a marketing services company
that specializes in the marketing of consulting
firms. He coauthored “Marketing Breakthrough
Products” (HBR November–December 1999).
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