Small consulting firms offer numerous rationale in order to persuade clients to turn to them rather than one of the well-known consulting behemoths. In truth, most of those reasons don’t hold water.
There are, however, (at least) five arguments that legitimately elevate your consulting firm above your outsized competition.
Before you, your fellow readers and I collectively engage in a rousing game of throwing big firms under the bus, let’s acknowledge our admiration and respect for the consultants in giant, brand-name organizations.
Seriously. They are smart, dedicated, well-trained and generally well-intentioned. And more of them should leave the nest and lead small consulting firms like yours and mine.
While we’re at it, we should also admit that many “benefits” touted by small consulting firms aren’t actually differentiating vs. the large firms.
For instance, while we say we’re very smart and lovely to work with, they’re smart and generally lovely people too.
We’re responsive; their project teams are responsive.
We’re experienced; they’re experienced.
We drink steins of beer at Oktoberfest; they drink kegs of beer at Oktoberfest. (Maybe. I’m not 100% sure about this one.)
So, are there any legitimate reasons a client should eschew large consultancies?
Yes! Let the game begin…
5 Defenses Against Large Consulting Firms
Economies of Scale are Illusory
In a production economy, “economies of scale” were a key driver of success. In today’s knowledge economy bigger doesn’t mean better.
Five hundred mediocre strategists do not have better ideas than a solo strategic genius. They just reach more people with their mediocre ideas.
Plus, large firms are slower to adopt new ideas and best practices than boutique consultancies. It takes far longer to migrate an essential learning or a breakthrough approach to 5,000 consultants than to your team.
The Smartest of the Smart Are in Small Firms
The biggest names in innovative thinking regularly leave the confines of the large firms to form their own groups. Famous examples include Tom Peters and Clayton Christensen.
Other gurus who have reshaped the business environment never joined large consulting companies at all: Peter Drucker, Michael Hammer, and Stephen Covey, to name just a few.
While researching my first book a dozen years ago, I reviewed a year’s worth of Harvard Business Review articles to find out where thought leadership comes from.
Over 70% of the contributors hailed from small, independent consulting firms. Only 18% of the contributors came from big name mega-consultancies.
Maybe an updated repeat of the analysis would show that thought leadership is now dominated by big firms. I doubt it.
Great Talent Isn’t Difficult to Reach
Back in great-grandpa’s time folks depended on human telephone operators to dial for them. “Connect me to Burnsterberry 549 please.”
Thanks to modern technology, you can connect with anyone, anywhere in the world by clicking a link on your laptop or by inadvertently swiping your phone screen. (Oops.) Operators would just be in the way.
Similarly, before the turn of the century, clients would struggle to find the most talented experts in a particular problem. Hence, they relied on big firms to find brainiacs, train them and house them under one brand.
Now a client can locate a specialist consultant anywhere in the world with a quick Google search. Or, they can turn to staffing platforms like Umbrex, Catalant and TopTal or other platforms to quickly, easily locate top-notch talent.
Like old-time telephone operators, big firms are no longer a useful conduit. They’re just in the way.
Customer Conflict
Clients who hire your small consulting firm will probably engage directly with you or, perhaps, another partner-level person at your firm.
Your client’s opinion is the sole determinant of your success on the project and it’s darn clear who the customer is: your client.
Clients who engage a team from a large firm are frequently working with analysts, consultants, managers and perhaps a director or junior partner. All of those people have bosses inside the consulting firm who are totally disconnected from the client.
That disconnected boss inside the large firm determines the consultant’s career trajectory and financial rewards. Hmm, whom does the consultant view as their customer?
Why else should a client choose your firm rather than turning to a giant consulting powerhouse?
Text and images are © 2025 David A. Fields, all rights reserved.
