Moreover, anyone making their living in consulting should be asking these question of himself or herself constantly. Anyone providing a professional service, like consulting, has to maintain market relevance. Sounds like a simple model, and if you are going to market as an individual it can be that simple. However, the management consulting that I am speaking of here is team based and goes to market in the context of a firm, not just an individual. So, for the remainder of this article, assume that I am speaking of working for a consulting firm that typically goes to market in teams.
Lets break it down a bit in pursuit of answering the question.
Clients need good answers to the how much, how soon and how sure questions before they will buy consulting projects. A wide variety, but they all typically have one common ingredient. The client wants to make some kind of change, or wants to analyze if change is called for, and they believe that the how much, how soon, how sure questions have better answers if they get outside consulting help. This applies to business strategy, business process design or change, people process design or change and, of course, the inevitable computer systems development or change. Virtually all projects have some combination of outside consultants and client staff members working together.