Survey's Opening Conference

Promptly at the appointed hour your Survey begins with a meeting which will start to build relationship as well as to make sure everyone has a clear view of the process, procedures and desired end result of the Survey.

Some additional history of the consulting firm will be presented and your questions will be answered.  References are seldom offered and even involve a bit of a procedure to obtain because of confidentiality agreements.

Clients' and their information are confidential.  Just as you would not want your information, even contact information, disclosed without your knowledge or to a multitude of the merely curious, other clients feel the same way.  Also like you, many of the clients work in their business and the consulting firm will respect their time.  What can be done is to have the firm's home office schedule a time for a call between you and a reference.

Getting back to the Opening Conference, the Analyst will describe some of the techniques used to review and interpret your operations, finances and other information.  Do not hesitate to provide what the Analyst requests even when you do not seek help for a particular area.  Your business is more than the sum of its parts and each part has influence, especially unintended influence, over the others.  Often, an outside look will bring an overlooked or obscure connection into focus which, in turn, presents you with wholly new opportunities for improvement.

Next, the Analyst will go over the written agreement describing both the work the Survey covers and the written agreement that details the consulting arrangement, should you proceed to that step.  It is important that you listen and read the documents carefully.  Although they are generally prepared in plain language they are still legal documents.  Since many of these firms have been in business for decades, their documents have been refined over time and every word has meaning.

At various times during the course of the Survey (and the same will be true with consulting), the Analyst will be in contact with the firm's home office.  Some of the calls will require your presence and you should plan to attend and, when asked, participate.

Don't be surprised when the Analyst tells you that you will have some work to do.  Whether you are asked to do something in the office or at home the assignments will not only involve you in the process but will often be very revealing.

Having dispensed with the formalities up to this point, the analyst will begin to learn about your company.  The next post will describe that step.