Combined, Gordon Perchthold and Jenny Sutton have spent more than 50 years in the management consulting profession. The two former Deloitte consultants formed the RFP Company in 2006. Its goal was to help businesses—from the other side of the table this time—select all types of vendors, including consulting firms. And, "after seeing clients make the same mistakes over and over again, we thought we'd put our thoughts down on paper for anyone who was even considering hiring a consulting firm," Sutton says. So they did: In 2010, the duo released Extract Value from Consultants: How to Hire, Control and Fire Them . Consulting magazine sat down with Perchthold and Sutton to discuss the book, the consulting market and their upcoming presentation—What Clients Want—to be delivered at the Consulting Summit in Chicago on May 5.
Consulting: You say you wrote the book because you were tired of seeing clients making the same mistakes over and over. What are those mistakes?
