I've seen fellow consultants take this a step towards the dark side and equate their clients to being stupid, just because they may not grasp the finer points of some boring computer stuff. It really irks me – here at WebProductive we’re firm believers in the mantra of ” You are what your clients are” – if they truly are lacking in information when it comes to IT, or an aspect of the IT you’re consulting on, then you’ve failed.

Learning is key

Part of any piece of work with clients should be about education. Again, a facet of the darker side of consulting with clients is to breed a dependancy between consultant and client. In some ways this is fine – if someone has a trusted advisor, or someone they always buy IT from, that’s fine, but implementing solutions so a client is dependant on the consultant for knowledge, or for updating key information is just plain wrong.

A consultant should learn to respect their clients knowledge, learn from them and also impart knowledge on their area of expertise in return.  Respect your client, and they’ll respect you.