Trying to convince my boss: consulting != sales

[Former Member]

My manager is arguing that salespersons and consultants are the same thing. After reading the dictionary definition, he argues that they are the same roles because consultants analyze and recommend solutions. What the definition eludes to but doesn't explicitly state is that consultants are paid by their clients for their advice and or services during a project.

Since he won't take my word, can you please chime in with your definitions and or explanations of the differences between consultants and salespersons?

Thanks in advance,

Jeremy

[Former Member]

Unfortunately, I beg to differ .....and I have Dilbert to lean on.

>

> "If you give a man a fish he will eat for a day. But if you teach a man to fish he will buy an ugly hat. And if you talk about fish to a starving man then you are a consultant." 

Except that a salesperson will try and sell fish to the starving man.

[matt]

I know a similar one. If you give a man fire, he's warm for a day. If you set him on fire, he's warm for the rest of his life.

[Lakshmipathi]

The main difference according to me is that

sales person is the one who always should be able to please his customers with some false promise and generate orders, whereas consultants should always prove what he knows ). This means, after sales, if any problem arises in the product sold, sales person can redirect to their technical team whereas, consultants are answerable if any issues comes at a later date

thanks

G. Lakshmipathi

[stephenjohannes]

Jeremy,

Well first off welcome to SCN and the coffee corner. You chose to be really brave by making your first post here as the regulars here tend to be a little grumpy and sometimes a little mischeivous.

Now to answer your question for SAP software the salesperson is the guy who tells that the software can do everything, and the consultant is the guy that tells you that the sales guy was wrong and it will only do 20% as promised after 80% of system modifications. Well that's the old joke at least.

Generally consultants tend to be more practical and focused on actually getting the product to work, while the sales folks are interested in getting the product in the door. Not saying salespeople don't understand the solution, just you wouldn't ask them to implement the solution unless they were an ex-consultant/developer. Sales people also tend to be a lot more fun than consultants and usually can provide freebies and other perks :).

Prior to popular belief you don't need consultants to implement software, but you do need a salesperson to sell you the solution. You can implement in-house, but it will be much slower and require learning everything. Although that method is generally fun for me, consultants are great for filling in areas where you are not an expert and teaching you in areas where you don't fully understand the solution. Consultant should not be around for more than year or otherwise they experience the "stockholm" syndrom and start to think like an employee. At that point they are no longer consultants, but mere contractors. A contractor simply a hired gun to do the work. A consultant is a hired gun that does the work and provides advice on how to do the work. As an ex-consultant my opinion is probably slighted skewed :).

Well the long weekend is almost here, so I'm sure you might get a few other ideas.

Take care,

Stephen

[Former Member]

Thanks Stephen,

I guess it's not bravery, but just ignorance.

Your "hired gun" analogies are what I was looking for.

I should provide a little more background info. We are an IT training company and my manager is adding a new sales employee who will do strictly sales work, as you said, getting the product/service in the client's door. They are concerned mostly with generating leads, making calls, and taking orders. The only real post-sales work they do with clients is to follow up on them.

My manager is arguing that salespersons and consultants are the same because they both analyze the client's needs and recommend products or services to them. What he is missing is that consultants additional work beyond just selling their services. The key difference is that salespersons do no installation, configuring, building, or other services and consultants do.

Am I correct?

Thanks,

Jeremy

[Former Member]

Hi Jeremy,

In a nutshell for me:

Consultants provide solutions (hopefully)

Sales persons, well... sell stuff innit?

Kind regard, Rob Dielemans

[Former Member]

Thanks Rob. As you put it, it's really simple.

I think my manager is only going on what he's heard. I think that he's heard the word thrown around out of context, or more probable, used by others who themselves don't truly know what it means.

I think the trend is for people to inflate their business' and employees image by calling them consultants. They are trying to steal meaning from the word consultant and avoid the stigma of high-pressure that comes with the word "sales".

[matt]

>

>...
> Prior to popular belief you don't need consultants to implement software, but you do need a salesperson to sell you the solution.  You can implement in-house, but it will be much slower and require learning everything.  >

Not always the case. I've done in-house implementations, using only internal staff. The trick though, was our employer had recruited people who'd already done quite a few implementations.

We did bring some consultants in to do the donkey work. As they were expecting to be the experts and doing the fun stuff, they were quite disappointed to find out we had more experience than they did. 😄

[Former Member]

This might seem a bit off topic at first, but it is important for you to consider at this time whether you need a new vacuum cleaner.

Also, if you are an eskimo then I have a special offer going at the moment for ice (super discounts for bulk orders)...

Your competitor ordered both last week, and already saved 50% costs on breakfast cereals this week!!

Julius

[Jelena_Perfiljeva]

>

> My manager is arguing that salespersons and consultants are the same because they both analyze the client's needs and recommend products or services to them.

You might want to show your manager that old joke "Are you a consultant or a prostitute?" (I think it's even posted somewhere here) - there are many similarities there too.

More to Lakshmipathi's point - the objective of a sales person is to sell, the objective of a consultant is to advise and to provide a solution that would be in the best interests of the client. Well, at least that's what a good, decent consultant should do.