How to Manage a Consulting Project: The Guest Lecture | Professor Makadok’s Yearly Consulting Class

This is the complete guest lecture from Professor Richard Makadok’s yearly consulting class, delivered by video on October 10, 2018, lightly edited for readability. The class works from Richard Lowe’s book How to Manage a Consulting Project, and the questions came from students already working with real client companies. Historical book counts appear as spoken; current figures are bracketed.

The introduction

Prof. Makadok: When I first started teaching this course three years ago, I went searching for tools and resources to give students to learn how to handle a consulting project, and after considerable searching, I decided the best resource out there was Richard Lowe and his wonderful book, How to Manage a Consulting Project. Let me introduce him. Richard Lowe Jr. served six years as vice president of consulting at Software Techniques Incorporated and seven years as vice president of consulting at Adept Computer Systems. For the next 20 years, he served as Director of Technical Services and Computer Operations for the Trader Joe’s Company; he was the guy running the back office systems to make sure your credit card worked when it got swiped. Richard left that career in 2013 to pursue his dream of becoming a professional author and writer. My bio here says he has ghostwritten 12 books; that may be out of date.

Richard Lowe: You’ve got to update the bio. It’s 22 ghostwritten now, and 76 under my own name [54+ ghostwritten and 113+ authored as of 2026].

Prof. Makadok: So: ghostwritten 22 books and authored 76 more under his own name through his own publishing company, The Writing King. Additionally, Richard has published hundreds of articles on blogs and websites, and as a senior LinkedIn branding expert he has helped numerous people improve their profiles. His mission is to improve careers and abilities by writing books and articles that solve real-world problems. Please join me in welcoming Richard.

Richard Lowe: I’ll say I’m really impressed this year with the quality of the questions the students submitted compared to previous years, and I think that’s because this year the students have already started working with their clients, so the questions are concrete and practical rather than theoretical.

One unique thing about me: I started as the director in charge of hiring consultants to work for me at Trader Joe’s, and now I am a consultant. It gives me a 360-degree viewpoint, which is pretty rare. Most consultants don’t understand what it’s like from the client’s point of view. I do, because I hired them by the dozens.

How should a client manage their consultants?

Prof. Makadok: That’s a nice segue into the first question: you’ve written the book from the consultant’s point of view. How do successful clients manage their consultants?

Richard Lowe: First, vet your consultants. Do a thorough interview up front, have a good contract, negotiate everything, and don’t depend on somebody else’s opinion; that’s a big mistake clients make, hiring a consultant off a VP’s recommendation when they’re not the right consultant. And make sure you’re happy not just with the consulting company but with the actual team members who will work with you, because when you talk to a consulting company, you’re usually talking to a salesperson, and they always sound great. The person you’ll actually work with is the tech person. Meet those people.

And managing consultants tends to be like herding cats. They’re independent, and they act that way. They’re going to go off in wild directions, and you need to catch them before you burn a lot of hours. Manage them closely, even if there’s a project manager on the consulting side, or you’re going to burn dollars you don’t need to.

How do you tell a client they’re wrong?

Prof. Makadok: What’s the best approach to show a client they need something when they’re dead set on doing it their way?

Richard Lowe: Contrast the two. Show them the end result if they go their way and the end result if you go your way. Maybe you come to a compromise; maybe there’s ground in the middle. Don’t take a stand against them, because you’re going to lose; it’s their money. Frame your way as a modification to their way, not as “your way is stupid.” I typically work with mid-to-high-level managers, director up to CEO, and you don’t tell a CEO he’s wrong. Not if you like your check. But you can point out the flaws in the argument, and you definitely do not want to be wishy-washy, because that’s not what he’s hiring you for.

I worked with a ghostwriting client last night; he had some ideas that were, quite frankly, stupid ideas. I couldn’t tell him “your ideas are stupid,” so we got into a heated discussion, and he was happy with that, because that’s what he wants, and I know the client. There are other clients I wouldn’t do that with, because they don’t respond to it. But I still need to get the point across, because I’m the knowledge expert they’re paying a lot of money. If they could do it themselves, they’d do it themselves.

Here’s a live example: I’m putting together a website for a client, and she wants to build it in a way that looks good from her point of view but won’t make sales. She wants a sales website, but she wants it to be friendly, and it’s attracting the wrong audience. I told her: your ideas are great, and here’s what will happen: you won’t get traffic, and the people who come won’t buy. It required some heated discussion. And she responds to emotion, not logic, which is something I found out; that’s another rule: know your client, and know what they respond to. If she’d been insistent, I could have proposed an A/B test, sending half the visitors to each version, which would have shown the problem precisely, though tests cost money. I also proposed surveying her clientele, which she decided was too expensive. The turning point was when I asked who her target audience was, and she couldn’t answer. That’s when she realized we needed to answer that question before spending $10,000 on a website.

And here’s probably the most important attitude of all as a consultant: there are plenty of clients. You cannot go in thinking, “I have to make this client happy or I won’t pay the rent,” because you’ve already lost. Have backup plans, have additional clients, and don’t depend on one person, because then you’ll make decisions based on needing a paycheck instead of what’s best for the client.

Negotiating the statement of work

Prof. Makadok: What challenges come up when creating a statement of work with a client?

Richard Lowe: They always have questions about the payment terms. First, the price. And the answer is: you can hire somebody off the web who’s a lot cheaper than me, but you’re not going to get the quality, you’re going to come back to me, and you’ll have wasted the time. I’m a professional, and this is what I’m worth. One guy told me my rate was three times what his wife makes as a nurse. I said: you’re not hiring a nurse. You’re hiring a website professional. He kept trying to cut me down, and finally I said: look, you’re being insulting. You’re a senior VP at a Fortune 50 company, and you’re telling me you can only pay $25 an hour? You’re insulting me and you’re insulting yourself. Let’s stop that. He responded to that and signed the contract at my rate, which was a hundred and a quarter.

They always argue about the rate, and my advice is to have a little give room; if your rate’s a hundred bucks, maybe you come down to 80, but don’t give too much. It’s a test: how flexible are you? Professionals don’t lower their rates to ridiculous levels; they stick to their guns.

Second, payment terms. I have a clause that says once you pay me, there are no refunds, period, end of story. They always argue about it, and I say: I’m a sole proprietor. That money, when I get it, is spent. Presumably you vetted me and you know my reputation. That handles it.

Third, schedules. “I want it done in three months.” Well, it’s going to take six. “I want it in three.” Okay, then the rate goes up, because you can affect time, quality, or money; those are your three variables. Decrease the time and you increase the money or decrease the quality. Which do you want? They usually pick increasing the money. Sometimes they pick decreasing the quality: fewer pages in the book, fewer pages on the website.

Prof. Makadok: The negotiation is also a test of how confident you are in the quality of your work. If you’re confident, you won’t lower your rates.

Richard Lowe: Somebody asked me how a ghostwriter can charge $25,000 or $50,000 for a book. I said: the difference is, I know precisely that I’m going to finish your book, and I’m going to give you a book that will sell. The guy charging $2,000 is obviously not confident, or he wouldn’t charge rates that work out to $3 an hour. You’re paying for what you get, and a senior VP knows that.

Prof. Makadok: I have a story you can tell clients when they haggle over rates. A hair salon had served its town for many years, and one day a chain salon opened next door with big signs: $5 haircuts. For a while it ate into the salon’s business. Then the owner figured out the solution. He put up a sign in front of his store that said: We Fix $5 Haircuts.

Richard Lowe: Yes. Exactly. I had a consultant I hired at Trader Joe’s, one of my first, and the boss told me to hire that particular group because it was less expensive. When they finished their job, our computers crashed. And for those computers to be down was five million dollars a day. We were down for two days. So I called my consulting firm of choice and paid them what they asked, more like $300 an hour, because I needed a team in there now, and when you need a team now, you pay for it. They fixed it, we never had that problem again, and they were still there when I left. That was a ten million dollar lesson.

Scope creep, again, because it always comes up

Prof. Makadok: What’s the most common mistake you see with clients or consultants?

Richard Lowe: Scope creep. Say the contract says the book is eight chapters, 20,000 words, about this subject. Then: “I want to add another chapter.” Well, okay, fine. “I want another revision. I want to add this appendix.” Before you know it, every added thing reduces your rate. Your price was based on 300 hours at $100 an hour; do 600 hours and you’ve cut your rate in half. And you need that money, because the government takes 30 to 40 percent right off the top; your $100 an hour is actually $60, and after expenses and travel maybe $50. That’s why you charge $100.

If you let scope creep slide without saying anything, it grows, and you can’t back out, because you’ve been giving it away. The longer you give it away, the harder it is to fix. The time to fix scope creep is the first time. It can just be a conversation: yes, I’ll make this change, and here’s an email that says it’s a change in scope and I’m doing it at my cost this time. The next time: this is the last time. And then you enforce it. And when you make a promise to a client, like “this is the last time,” keep the promise. You don’t slide on your promises. Ever.

Difficult client personalities, and where the line is

Prof. Makadok: What client personalities are hardest to deal with?

Richard Lowe: The know-it-all client is probably the hardest: the one who already knows the solution. Then why did they hire me? If you already know the solution and how to implement it, and you’ve got the flowchart and the spec, what am I for? It’s important to clarify what they expect.

The other one I have trouble with: I tend to be very rational, and very emotional clients are hard for me. One of my clients lost a big account of hers and spent 60 minutes crying on the phone about things unrelated to the project. I’m not her therapist or her priest, but I listened politely. I gave her that hour for free, because I figured I wasn’t actually working. But it’s difficult, because it isn’t related to the project.

Prof. Makadok: A related question: how much of the client’s personal life, family situation, work situation, matters when dealing with clients?

Richard Lowe: None of it. Your personal life and their personal life, other than politely listening when you have to, should not be allowed in. It’s a client relationship, and you keep it that way, same as a boss relationship: you don’t cross the line. When they get into their marriage, their divorce, their kids, you listen politely and lead them back to the project. If they can’t talk business right now because they’re emotional, reschedule. They get the point, and they appreciate it, or they don’t, and it doesn’t matter. You’re not their therapist, you’re not their priest, you’re not their confessional, and believe me, they want to confess things. You care about them as a human being, but those long conversations burn hours: yours if you don’t charge, theirs if you do.

And one big caution, because I’ve seen it happen: any moves they make toward you of a personal nature, push away. You do not go there. Ever. They’re clients. They’re not anything else.

What do you do when the client is too busy to meet?

Prof. Makadok: How can you consult effectively if your client is very busy and you’re having trouble meeting?

Richard Lowe: Oh, I was the king of that when I was at Trader Joe’s. I was the busy client who never had time: eight people on my staff, almost 40 consultants at one time, running the systems of a 15-billion-dollar-a-year company. My consultants would sit me down, grab me by the shoulders, and say: we need your time, Mr. Lowe. Okay. You can have my time.

I run into it all the time as a ghostwriter, because they’re handing me the book precisely because they don’t have time. I have a client whose book we just finished; it started as “we’ll do an interview every day,” and we were lucky if we did two interviews for the whole book. Finally I said: look, let me just take your book and write it. If you like it, you like it; if you don’t, you can pay me to rewrite it. He said okay. Fortunately, he loved it, and it’s going to press soon. Now he wants me to do his wife’s book the same way: she’s really busy, just do it.

There’s everything in between. Sometimes you talk to them. Sometimes you ask: can you assign somebody else to give me the information? Can we meet after hours? Can we do Skype, or phone, or email? I catch a lot of them in the car on hands-free; that’s the only time they have. I’m doing interviews while they’re driving down the interstate at 70 miles an hour, arguing with their wife at the same time.

And sometimes they just disappear. I had one client, a super important project: his professor from college wrote a textbook, and the professor was on his deathbed. By September 1st we were supposed to finish modernizing the book. Then the client got busy. I finally called and said: you told me this man was going to die and you wanted this book done for your best friend, and we’re not working on it. He said, yeah, yeah, I’ll work on it, and I never heard from him again. And he’d paid me. The professor passed away, and the book wasn’t done. It happens. That’s why I’m glad I have the no-refunds policy.

Is project management the same as consulting?

Prof. Makadok: There’s a whole field of project management: certifications, software, careers. What’s the difference between being a project manager and a consultant?

Richard Lowe: Two entirely different things. First: on most small consulting projects, you can take all that project management apparatus and throw it away. The client is not going to pay for it. If you want Gantt charts and flowcharts on a one-man project, you’re doing it on your own dime. What they want to see is the project done on schedule, on budget, with high quality. On larger projects, you need the project management, and you build it into the cost. But present a Gantt chart to a small client and they’ll nod politely, say it looks very pretty, and not know what it means.

Being a consultant means delivering a product to a client as an extra pair of hands. Being a project manager means bringing a project in on time, on budget, and on track with all milestones met. Managing a project is part of being a consultant, not the whole of it.

How do you manage client expectations?

Prof. Makadok: In your opinion, what’s the best way to manage client expectations?

Richard Lowe: In the contract. I make sure everything about the project is written down: I’m going to deliver this on this date, this on this date, at this quality, in this form, in Word or onto the website or whatever. It doesn’t have to be long. You don’t want nauseating detail, because then you have no wiggle room, and you want wiggle room, because you don’t know what you’ll find out. I’ll say the book is eight chapters and 20,000 words, but not how long each chapter is; that leaves me room to size chapters differently.

And you make it really clear: what’s in the contract is what you agreed to. Nothing else counts. The oral doesn’t count. What they thought in their head doesn’t count. What they dreamed in the middle of the night doesn’t count. What counts is what’s written. Then: you want to add that extra chapter? That’s not in the statement of work, so there’s an extra charge. They’ll probably negotiate: okay, I understand there’s a charge, but how about four thousand instead of five? Okay. Fine.

Prof. Makadok: The challenge with doing it through the contract exclusively is that the same words can mean different things to different people. How do you handle that?

Richard Lowe: Sometimes you open up the dictionary. I’m not kidding. “I thought it meant that.” Well, let’s look at the dictionary. “Oh, we don’t need to do that. You’re right, you’re right, that’s fine.” And sometimes you just have a negotiation, and you give a little ground, because you don’t want to be a jerk; you want them to hire you again and refer you. You thought a chapter was 10,000 words, I thought it was 2,000. Can we agree on 4,000? There you go.

What is the most important trait for a consultant?

Richard Lowe: Holding your ground. Consultants will be taken advantage of. The client is going to try to get more hours for the same cost, get scope changes in for the same cost. They can abuse you, because you’re not an employee: there are no employee protection laws for consultants. None. You’re going to get yelled at, you’re going to get dumped on, and you’ll have to deal with it. On the good side: you make your own life, your own rules, your own living, and you choose your clients. There have been a couple of clients where I said: I’m done. You can find another consultant. I’ve done that twice.

Prof. Makadok: Can you tell us about those situations?

Richard Lowe: One of them was verbally abusive: hostile, screaming, calling me names. I said: look, I’m doing the best job I can with what you gave me, and you’re cursing at me. We’re done. I wouldn’t put up with that from anybody, and I’m not putting up with it from you. “Well, I already paid you.” Yeah. You know the name of your lawyer; call him if you’ve got a problem. He never called. We’re talking a couple thousand dollars; nobody sues over two grand, and if they do, it takes years and costs more than it collects. Don’t relax your own ethics because somebody says “I’m going to sue you.” And by the way, when they say that: the contract’s over. We’re done. Once somebody threatens to sue, you have a hostile relationship, and you don’t need that. Why are you a consultant if you’re taking that kind of treatment?

Advice for students entering consulting

Prof. Makadok: If you were a college student interested in going into consulting right now, what steps would you take?

Richard Lowe: First, identify what area you want to consult in. Hot areas right now: artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, augmented reality is super hot, virtual reality. And have multiples, so if one goes away you’re not wondering how you’ll eat. Pick a spot, and the more narrowly you focus, the better you’ll do. The mistake I made in 2013 was thinking I’d put my shingle out and do anything for anybody. The problem with “anything for anybody” is there’s nobody to advertise to. You can’t promote to everybody; even Cheerios doesn’t have the money to promote to everybody. Now my audience is very precise: entrepreneurs at a certain level, middle management or owners of their own company. I walk into a dentist’s office and say, you need a book. I walked into a cleaning company and said, you need a book about how to clean, and he said: yeah, I do. It works. Walk in saying “I can do anything” and you won’t get hired.

Prof. Makadok: Out of curiosity, why does the dentist need a book?

Richard Lowe: She wants it for her patients and her investors: about a hundred pages on how dentistry works, why it’s painless nowadays, why you need to take care of your teeth, and how empathetic she is; the time she picked up a crying child and turned the dentist’s chair into something the child looks forward to. I’m writing it now; it’s my task right after this class. Her husband did the cleaning book, and lots of people read it and love it. And before that I did a book on artificial intelligence. Go figure.

Student: Thanks so much for coming; we’ve really benefited. I’m a computer information technology major and I want to go into technology consulting. Is it better to get experience working in those technologies first and then become a consultant, or go straight into consulting?

Richard Lowe: I’ll give you the classic answer: it depends. It depends on how deep your pockets are. If you’ve got money in the bank or you’re living at home and can afford the time, jump into consulting, because for the first two years you’re going to starve. You need to find clients, build a reputation, and get your online presence set up. If you don’t have that ability, working for somebody first is a good idea: get the name out there. Also, find a mentor or a coach; find somebody with a name whose coattails you can work from. If you were going into SEO, hook up with somebody like Neil Patel. If he mentions your name on his website, you’re done; you’ve got clients. It depends on where you’re at in life, because those first couple of years, clients don’t know who you are. Once you’ve got references and validity behind you, you can do whatever you want.

Student: And for the technical aptitude itself: how do you get deep enough in the subject you’re consulting on?

Richard Lowe: Let me take me as an example. I wrote a book on AI, and I didn’t know anything about AI except I’d watched The Terminator. I got on Google, read a bunch of books, burned the midnight oil, learned about AI, and got a twenty-thousand-dollar book contract out of it. Then I wrote a book on the Internet of Things, and I knew even less about that. I’ve got a book coming on augmented reality, and I’ve done white papers on it; I didn’t know squat about augmented reality before. But Google exists. I did a lot of research, fast, learned the buzzwords, got enough to get in, wrote a white paper, and they said: that’s pretty good, do another one. And another. And now I understand augmented reality. It’s just kind of weird how that works.

Prof. Makadok: Any challenges you’re currently experiencing with your clients where Richard might help?

Student: How would you handle a situation where you as the consultant feel the client should be focusing their efforts in a different area?

Richard Lowe: You advise them. You give them your best advice, and if they won’t change their mind, you make sure your objections are in writing, and you do what they say, because they’re paying the bills. But get it in writing, because it might come back to bite them, and you want to be able to say: I told you so.

Cash flow, culture, and the tie that got cut

Prof. Makadok: What’s been your biggest challenge?

Richard Lowe: Remembering that cash flow is important. A consultant depends on money coming in, and there’s no employer paying. If you don’t work, you don’t eat. You should have six months in your bank account and be able to survive without a paycheck, because there are dips. You’ve got to keep that pipeline full, and promotion is the hardest part of consulting: promoting yourself. It’s the stuff I hate, because I tend to be introverted, believe it or not. But you’ve got to get out there and shake hands, go to the meetings, the events, the trade shows, and find your audience. If you don’t, you’re not going to get the business.

Prof. Makadok: Do you adapt your approach to a company’s culture when working a project?

Richard Lowe: Yes, to a degree. Typically I’m at home working in comfortable shirts; there are days when I look up at 2 p.m. and I’m still in my pajamas, which is one of the advantages of being a consultant. But there are companies where I wear a suit and tie, companies with strict rules that I follow to be part of their culture. Trader Joe’s had a very eclectic culture. We had a consultant come in wearing a tie, and the first thing we did was say: we need to cut your tie off. What do you mean? We took a pair of scissors and cut his tie off, and said, don’t wear one next time. He put up with it because he thought it was funny, and the tie got put up on the fence with the others. It was not a cheap tie. And we had salespeople come in who didn’t understand that Trader Joe’s is informal, and they didn’t get the business. So yes: you have to understand a company’s culture.

Prof. Makadok: Well, thank you, Richard. We appreciate your time and energy, your book, and your willingness to respond to questions here in class and by email; I’ll post the address for the students.

Richard Lowe: And if any of you want to leave a review of the book on Amazon, that would be awesome.

Prof. Makadok: Please do. That’s the one way we can really pay Richard for his time and effort. Thank you very much.

Find Richard Lowe at thewritingking.com/.

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