If your metric for keeping your advisory clients happy is the production of a report that takes 4 weeks post-consultation, your clients are either excessively tolerant or what you have to report is really not very important.

Why cannot you provide your client a high-level summary in 48 hours or less? After all 80% of a client’s need for expert insights are almost certainly met in your summary, not the full-blown report.

I find that the government, arts and education sectors are the least likely to grasp that “speed” is an equally important determinant of a client’s success as “quality”. Call it the triumph of bureaucracy over success.