How to make sure your consulting reports generate new business

If your deliverables don’t create follow-on engagement, you may be missing a prime opportunity.

You’ve just finished that project, and turned in that final report or outbrief. The last thing you want to hear is the client’s door slamming behind you. Not that you want to keep selling for selling’s sake; chances are, the client has other needs, which you can perceive, where you could deliver more value to help them succeed. But the client won’t know that until you suggest it—and there’s no better time to do it than when you’re working on your “final” deliverables. Here, then, are some best-practice guidelines to ensure that your next report won’t be your last:

• Re-state the challenge. It may seem obvious to suggest it here, but too many times, so much progress has been made since you started your engagement that the client tends to forget, or at least take for granted, where they are now, vs. then. Don’t let them. Always lead in with a brief recap of why you were invited to consult. What was the specific problem you were asked to help address? Why was your unique expertise required? Don’t think for a minute that any of this will be top-of-mind until you remind them.

• Review the methodology. What was the process by which you’ve arrived at the big conclusions you’re about to draw? The program design was essential to its success, and it didn’t just appear magically on its own. Again, everyone should know this by now, but don’t assume that they do. Feel free to make reference to mid-stream deliverables you’ve already handed in; rather than adding them as a bulky appendix, simply include a parenthetical “Contact us for copies of any of these prior documents.” It’s an easy call to action.

• Consider the downstream reader. Assume that your report will get passed along to others (i.e., new prospects) in other parts of the client organization (both up and down), so you’re making your case to these strangers, too. (Good reason to go easy on jargon and be sure to define any acronyms at first usage, regardless of how ubiquitous you may think they are.) And if those people contact you for more information, so much the better.

• Get to the meat of the matter. While the steps above are important, they’re also short. The findings are what the client is paying you for. And while you may have uncovered a ton of stuff, don’t present a ton of stuff. Brevity is the watchword here. It may feel painful to leave some details out, but better that your report gets read than skimmed—or skipped.

• Make it memorable. Easier said than done. But you truly need to organize your findings into bite-sized chunks with titles/subheads that make them easy to grasp and make the structure of your findings readily apparent. Sweat this detail; it’s worth it.

• Define the next steps. This is the key. It’s where you sell-without-selling. Your report will end with conclusions and recommendations; be sure to frame these as action items that the client can easily grasp and work to actuate. But bear in mind how the new to-do’s will each be accompanied by requisite challenges—challenges you may well be able to help address. That’s the follow-on work. But the trick here is to let the client arrive at that conclusion on their own, and on a “delayed fuse”. It’s a subtle distinction: You don’t want them to think that they’re being sold to while they read your report. But you do want them to realize that you’d be terribly helpful to them just as they’re getting serious about putting those next steps into action.

• Cross boundaries. How should the client expand upon the vital findings you’ve uncovered? What are the opportunities to migrate this learning to a new department or line of business? Don’t assume they’ll make these leaps on their own.

• Nail the executive summary, i.e., the one part you’re sure everyone will read. Do this last; if your report is well structured, it should be pretty easy, since you’ll be working from topic sentences, bullet lists, chapter titles, etc. If your exec summary doesn’t fall readily into place, take a harder look at your underlying structure. It may need fixing. And if that exec summary isn’t tacitly selling your follow-on services the way your “next steps” should, you’re missing an opportunity.

• Consider getting help. Following the above best-practice guidelines will maximize your odds of success. But they require specialized skills which may not overlap your strengths. Fortunately for you, we have the unique combination of consulting, marketing, and creative skills which have let us help independent consultants just like you to boost their follow-on work for more than 15 years. Best of all, we’re fast, efficient, and surprisingly affordable, given the value we provide. Contact us right now and let’s talk about that last project—and how to turn it into your next one. 

---