How Can Your Consultant?

Let me share a little known fact, no matter how savvy your chosen design or social business consultant, and some of us are pretty snazzily savvy, none of us are omniscient or omnipotent. We can’t create something from nothing. We can’t read your mind. Your ideas aren’t shared via osmosis.

Just as any social media consultant or graphic designer has to go into each proposed project with a plan, a detailed accounting of proposed costs, products, services and expected outcomes, you – the prospective client, need to do some prep and planning before any consultant can tackle your project. It’s your job to provide your consultant with certain necessary bits of information and certain files/documents.images.We can’t just pluck your favorite color out of thin air. And, believe it or not, unless you tell us, we aren’t going to know about your aversion to small-caps font families.

Provide your consultant with the following:

1. Your logo – don’t expect them to scrape it off your existing web site or scan it off your business card. Provide a high resolution copy, preferably in its native format.
2. Your company fonts. Don’t make your designer guess or find the closest match. Send them the correct files to work with from the get-go.
3. Examples of designs you like and don’t like.
4. Any special considerations. Do you need to incorporate audio files, video, an extensive PDF collection. Do you have custom scripts? Do you need a blog?
5. Any and all EXISTING content. Don’t make your consultant reinvent the wheel.
6. Feedback. Don’t let your consultant keep doing work if you’re not satisfied. Better to make changes/adjustments early in the project than to have to make major adjustments at the end of the project.

All projects are a two-way street. The trip will only go smoothly if you have the same end destination in mind. When working with two different end goals, you are setting yourself up for mistakes, ineffective use of time and an end project that doesn’t meet your needs.

A good consultant listens, chimes in when he/she feels you might be missing a vital point, and works with you. For the relationship to produce the best results, you need to be a pro-active part of the project.