Popular Woodworking
#49
My experience with high priced consultants is that you pay them a lot of money to tell you what you already knew. It's management's justification for making unpopular decisions. It's easy for professional consultants to bring their metrics to the table and provide a classy analysis of your business model and performance. It's not so easy for them to understand your business; and, more often that not, they don't. I think many poor business decisions are made in reliance on consultants. It's the easy out for management. I agree with tiff, If you provide high quality content, people will pay for it. I haven't seen a lot of high quality content in woodworking magazines for a number of years. FWW comes closest, and that probably explains their continued viability. But it doesn't explain the failure of "Woodworking" which had, IMHO, the best content in print.
Reply
#50
(03-18-2019, 07:12 PM)Hank Knight Wrote: My experience with high priced consultants is that you pay them a lot of money to tell you what you already knew. It's management's justification for making unpopular decisions. It's easy for professional consultants to bring their metrics to the table and provide a classy analysis of your business model and performance. It's not so easy for them to understand your business; and, more often that not, they don't. I think many poor business decisions are made in reliance on consultants. It's the easy out for management. I agree with tiff, If you provide high quality content, people will pay for it. I haven't seen a lot of high quality content in woodworking magazines for a number of years. FWW comes closest, and that probably explains their continued viability. But it doesn't explain the failure of "Woodworking" which had, IMHO, the best content in print.

So true... almost every one of my competitors in my consulting business does this, makes it easy to compete with them...
Skip


Reply
#51
(03-22-2019, 04:10 PM)Skip J. Wrote: So true... almost every one of my competitors in my consulting business does this, makes it easy to compete with them...

In my experience when a business decides to hire a consultant it is an admission that they have lost sight of what business they are in, or the environment has changed enough that they no longer know what to do. This is especially true in publishing. If you know your product and your audience you'll be successful as long as you're providing something of value.  One of the big surprises to me when I went to work in the media business was the lack of creative people. If all or nearly all content producers are chasing the same easy to reach target, or repeating what worked before you soon arrive at the situation we're in today.
Bob Lang
ReadWatchDo.com
Reply
#52
(03-23-2019, 12:49 PM)Bob Lang Wrote: If all or nearly all content producers are chasing the same easy to reach target, or repeating what worked before you soon arrive at the situation we're in today.

So true, not only in the publishing biz; its rampant, the chase to the lowest common denominator, and the products show it.  It has been said that the insolvency process is the engine of the creative destruction process that hopefully leads to something better.  The brand PW has value, perhaps someone will pick it up and do something special with it.  But whoever might do that should bring along a bunch of money to invest - and hire the right talent to run it.
Credo Elvem ipsum etiam vivere
Non impediti ratione cogitationis
Reply
#53
(03-23-2019, 12:49 PM)Bob Lang Wrote: In my experience when a business decides to hire a consultant it is an admission that they have lost sight of what business they are in, or the environment has changed enough that they no longer know what to do. This is especially true in publishing. If you know your product and your audience you'll be successful as long as you're providing something of value.  One of the big surprises to me when I went to work in the media business was the lack of creative people. If all or nearly all content producers are chasing the same easy to reach target, or repeating what worked before you soon arrive at the situation we're in today.

Yep.  kind of matches my experience.  Management brings in consultants because management themselves have no clue what to do.  Someone up thread mentioned the job of finance types was to advise management.  What happens however is the finance types eventually become management so they have no clue about the work being done, since their only experience is in finance.  They try to apply that to everything and don't begin to understand the impact.  They then hire consultants to tell them what they don't know.  And the consultants knowing which side their bread is buttered on, tell them what they want to hear.  

Funny, yet sad story.  A couple years ago I got put on an IPT with several others.  Management had hired a consulting firm to lay out a long range plan.  We spent a week locked up building that plan with the consultants.  The day came for them to present the plan.  First slide up, management didn't like it.  Second slide up, same thing.  Third slide up the consultants deleted everything we had done and starting building the slides as management dictated to them.  And in the end management had the unworkable plan they wanted all along with the consultant's report to prove they picked the right plan.  And because it was completely unworkable, it was immediately shelved and not spoken of again.
Reply
#54
(03-24-2019, 03:29 PM)tnff Wrote: The day came for them to present the plan. First slide up, management didn't like it. Second slide up, same thing. Third slide up the consultants deleted everything we had done and starting building the slides as management dictated to them.

Yours was clearly one of the exceptions, and that's not how the consulting world usually works for the private businesses.

The way it works is more like this:

IF management wants the consultants to say what it wants, a) a steering committee headed by someone from the management (a senior VP, for instance) is formed to GUIDE the work of the consultants, b) directions or drafts are "discussed" (and changed to the satisfaction of the management) before they are presented, and c) 9.9/10 times, there are NO last minute surprises for the top management. Minor tweaking, may be, but no contradiction to the strategic interests of the leadership. If there were? You can expect new consultants hired, or a new consultancy study commissioned.

Unless it is a dictatorship, leaders can't afford to roll out something that is a) unpopular and b) advised against in a consultancy study.

Simon
Reply
#55
(03-23-2019, 12:49 PM)Bob Lang Wrote: If you know your product and your audience you'll be successful as long as you're providing something of value.  

The decline of readership and subscriptions to printed media isn't just affecting PWW.  It's across the spectrum.  Anything from tech magazines to sports magazines to cooking, interior decorating, news, newspapers, entertainment - you name it.  People are getting more and more of their content from the internet.  Traditional print media that offer web content (that is still relevant) survive.  Those that don't fail.  The most successful (IMO) are those whose content is current events e.g. news, sports, and technology.  The demise of F+W is partially due to bad management, and partially due to consumers that no longer desire print media.
Still Learning,

Allan Hill
Reply
#56
I was asked to be part of an internal consultant group on a question where I worked by the Administrative VP.  The answer was supposed to be, "No, this part of the organization is in trouble and has to be brought under the Administrative VP."  Instead, we came back and said, "Looks like they're doing fine."  The VP was not pleased; since we reported to him, this did not earn us points.  But we were asked a question, and we answered it. I guess I have no future in the consulting business.
Reply


Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)

Product Recommendations

Here are some supplies and tools we find essential in our everyday work around the shop. We may receive a commission from sales referred by our links; however, we have carefully selected these products for their usefulness and quality.