The most expensive part of most consulting engagements is the first month. Not because of the invoice — because of the context-gathering that happens before any real work can start. An engagement that should produce output in week two produces a "we're still in discovery" update instead.
This is usually as much the client's fault as the consultant's. Here's how to structure the brief so the engagement starts at the right level on day one.
What Goes in the Brief Before the Engagement Starts
Business context
The consultant needs to understand the business at the level you'd explain it to a smart board member who hasn't followed the company closely.
- Revenue (ARR, MRR, or GMV depending on model)
- Growth rate (last 12 months, trend)
- Business model (how you make money, how customers pay, average contract value)
- Sales cycle (length and stages)
- Primary ICP (who buys, and what triggers the purchase)
- Team size and composition (especially the marketing and sales headcount)
Most of this can be a two-page written document. Write it once; reuse it for any external resource you bring in.
Marketing context
- Current channels and monthly spend per channel
- Conversion rates at each stage of the funnel (if you have them)
- Attribution model and how you're currently tracking
- Tools and platforms currently in use
- Content output (how much, by whom, how often)
- Email list size and engagement rates
- Competitors and how you position against them
The specific problem
This is the part most briefs get wrong. "We want to grow" is not a problem. "Our organic traffic grew 40% last quarter but qualified pipeline from organic didn't move" is a problem. "Our paid CPC has doubled in the last 6 months without a corresponding improvement in conversion" is a problem.
The more specific the problem statement, the faster the consultant can move from context-gathering to analysis. The problem statement doesn't need to be the right diagnosis — the consultant's job is to validate or revise it. But it needs to be specific enough that the consultant can immediately start forming hypotheses.
What you've already tried
Nothing wastes time faster than a consultant recommending something you tried 18 months ago and found didn't work for a specific reason. Document what's been tried, what the outcome was, and — if you know — why it didn't work.
"We ran paid LinkedIn ads for 3 months. CPL was $180 and none of them converted to pipeline. We turned it off." is useful. "We tried paid" is not.
Your definition of success
What does the engagement need to produce for you to consider it valuable? Not in vague terms — in specific, measurable ones.
"Identify the top two constraints in our marketing system and produce a prioritised plan for addressing them" is specific. "Help us with marketing strategy" is not.
This definition serves two purposes: it sets the consultant's target, and it creates a clear moment of evaluation at the end of the engagement — did we produce this or not?
Access to Provide on Day One
Good consultants don't start by asking for a lot of time from your team. They start by asking for data access. Provide this before or on day one:
- Analytics read access: GA4, or whatever product analytics tool you're using
- CRM access: read-only is usually sufficient, but the consultant needs to see pipeline data, source attribution, and close rates
- Ad platform access: read-only access to Google Ads, Meta Ads, LinkedIn Ads as applicable
- Email platform: list size, recent campaign performance, deliverability metrics
- Site admin access or a technical point of contact: someone who can give the consultant access to crawl data, page performance metrics, and backend analytics
The first week of an engagement that can't access these tools is a week of requests, follow-ups, and waiting. Most of it can be resolved before the engagement starts.
The 60-Minute Kickoff
With a solid written brief and data access in place, the kickoff call can focus on the things that can't be learned from documents: context, nuance, and the questions that only come from conversation.
The agenda for a productive kickoff:
- Consultant summarises their understanding of the situation from the brief (10 min) — validates comprehension, surfaces misreads
- Client fills in context gaps that the brief couldn't capture (15 min)
- Consultant identifies the 3-5 highest-priority areas to investigate first, and explains why (15 min)
- Logistics: access, stakeholder availability for follow-up questions, feedback cadence (10 min)
- Buffer (10 min)
What the kickoff is not: a lecture about the business. That should be in the brief. A kickoff that turns into a 90-minute history of the company is a sign the brief didn't do its job.
The Stakeholder Map
The consultant will need to speak to 2-4 people beyond the primary point of contact. Identify these in the brief:
- The person who owns sales (for pipeline and conversion data)
- The person who owns product (for positioning and churn context)
- The person who owns analytics or has the most context on the data (for measurement)
Scheduling 15-20 minute conversations with each of these people in weeks one and two is the consultant's job. Your job is to make the introductions and let them know these conversations are expected.
What Good Looks Like at Week Two
If the brief was complete, access was provided on time, and the kickoff was focused, a good consultant should produce — by the end of week two — at least a preliminary hypothesis about the primary constraint and a clear agenda for weeks three and four.
"Still gathering context" at week two means either the brief was incomplete, access was delayed, or the consultant is over-building discovery into the process. It's worth asking directly: "What's the primary hypothesis right now and what are you testing it against?" A consultant who can answer that question specifically at week two is working efficiently. One who can't is still finding their footing.
The brief is the tool that gets you to that answer faster.