Canyes, however, at the time I wrote this chapter, wasn’t the consultant to install a $5 million micro network. He might be one day, but back then he just didn’t have the resources to do the job justice. A Big Eight accounting firm would have been better than Michael; in fact, an executive with a large company mightn’t need an outside consultant of any kind—large or small. His or her employer may boast a large microcomputer center and a helpful data-processing department. But you never know. Sometimes, Data Processing is either ignorant of micros or discourages their use. Ask some test questions. Has anyone in Data Processing ever installed a micro for business purposes? Do many in the department have micros at home? Are they reading the micro magazines and newspapers—InfoWorld, say, rather than just magazines about the big machines? If Data Processing isn’t comfortable with micros, you’d do well turning to the outside.
One of the qualifications for the outsider, of course, might be his ability to work harmoniously with Data Processing if you’re hoping to hook into the mainframe. Then again, your micro might be a stand-alone, not exchanging information with other computers, so that you needn’t worry what Data Processing thinks. Even if you’re using a Data-Processing staffer or other internal person, you still may want to find out his track record. Don’t be a corporate chauvinist. Every company has its share of gobblers.
Turning to an outside consultant? Then, through computer stores, you might try to track down a local users group for a brand of hardware or software. Go to a meeting. Find out whom the members regard as an ace consultant. In fact, try to go to several user groups—remember the preference that Apple owners, say, may have in favor of an Apple solution or that Kaypro owners may have in favor of a Kaypro one. Mere word of mouth, though, is still no substitute for a thorough interview with the consultant and reference checks. Certainly, too, you can’t use a consultant just because he or she shows up in the directory of a consultants group. Charles E. Harris, a lawyer who, with Joseph Auer, wrote Computer Contract Negotiations, says, “I know of no organizational membership that proves anything other than membership and the fact that the man’s paid his dues.”
“The person to watch out for in particular is the guy who’s doing this part time and he works on a mainframe or something like that,” warns Mark Robinson, a California consultant. He’s been in the micro business for years and handles dealer relations for Lexisoft, a software company—a micro one, mind you. “Anybody who hasn’t made this his business full time for a significant period of time,” he said of micro consulting, “is a great risk.” Consultants can relax. Robinson said eighteen months could be “significant.” I myself wouldn’t shrug off the part timers from Data-Processing departments if they have a long list of pleased micro clients. But as a generality Robinson’s observations seem valid. Not only is micro software written differently from the mainframe kind; there’s also a different mentality. Cloistered away in the computer rooms, some mainframers may strive for technical perfection at the expense of economy. “They may be right about things,” Robinson says, “but that’s not the point. The point may be more like what Mr. Osborne prates about all the time—mere adequacy. I’m thinking of posting an aphorism on the wall from The Soul of a New Machine: not everything worth doing is worth doing well.”
The same wisdom might apply to consultants. You don’t need a $1,500-a-day man to help you choose a good micro for word processing—not unless you’re about to buy a few hundred. Opinions vary about pay. Some observers of consultants say you get what you pay for. “There’s very little relationship between pay and value except for one thing,” Robinson says. “People who don’t charge enough eventually go out of business, or that business. If they don’t charge enough, they’re not likely to have been around long enough to have gotten experience for you.”
Then again, as Robinson points out, experience in the microcomputer business rapidly decays in value, weakening the relationship between pay and competence. Back in the late 1970s Bernard McGowan, a Massachusetts ophthalmologist, bought an Apple and hired an expert at all of $5 an hour. His consultant was a scruffy young man in an old jacket. And this guru had himself owned an Apple only a day. But it didn’t matter. His name was Mitch Kapor, and he was good, apparently, for he went on to found Lotus Development Corporation, the company that developed the best-selling 1-2-3 integrated program. Today McGowan is still using $5-an-hour men at times. He told me, in fact, that one consultant, a teenager digesting software manuals for him, doubled as a baby-sitter. No, this isn’t an argument for merciless exploitation of child labor à la nineteenth-century England. For a small businessman with a simple task, however, and no pressing deadlines, a teenager might do well. Why must every sixteen-year-old be flipping hamburgers around after school at McDonald’s?
But teenage computer geniuses are special cases. Don’t count on a $5-an-hour consultant to write up a complex accounting program that you need done within three months to avoid bankruptcy.
Moreover, if you’re a business of any size, you might end up spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars just to audition consultants. That’s right; you may pay them. Canyes will talk to people by phone if he thinks they’re good prospects, but the moment he gets in the car, the meter starts running. That’s basically in line with what Adam Green, a software training expert, told me. Green has conducted seminars for big-name clients like Price Waterhouse and Xerox, and earlier he worked as a programmer and salesman, so he’s been around. “A good consultant in my view would come out [in many cases] and spend a day or two looking at the operation and then give back a written proposal saying how they could help the client,” Green said. “And then they should charge the client about $250 for that.”
“If someone comes out and spends a day or two with you and writes something up for free, obviously they don’t have anything better to do. They’re not working. They’re amateurs. They don’t consider their time worth anything.” Paying a consultant to write a proposal, you’ll learn (1) if he can communicate in comprehensible English, (2) if he can think logically, and (3) if he understands your business and its needs.
But maybe that’s a step or so ahead of where you now are in the game. Having found a promising candidate, make certain you feel comfortable with him or her. Trust your instincts. Beware of snake-oil artists who, through greed or incompetence, may actually increase your time and expense. People like Bob Hillard and Michael Canyes come across as teacherlike in their eagerness to pass on their wisdom to the appreciative. But not all consultants, in and out of computers, seem that way. A few might not even give you a written report of their findings. Many intimidate you through jargon, even through dress. Quite correctly, some young business school hotshots have been depicted as punks in pin-striped suits. “You have to know what your client wears and dress one level above him,” said an ex-Bain and Company man. “If he wears a sport coat, you wear a suit. If you’re meeting him in a midwestern cornfield and he’s wearing a T-shirt, you wear a button-down. You might actually drive to his office in beige pants, a jacket, and a tie. But you can look in through the window when you get out of your car and then take off as much as you have to.”[[31]] The consultant wasn’t in the computer trade, but he might as well have been. One industry magazine began a “So You Want to be a Consultant” article with a warning against polyester.