# B2B marketing consulting versus doing the work
> B2B marketing consulting is diagnosis and a recommended plan: ICP, motion, org design, measurement. Doing the work is campaigns, assets, and ops. Buy them as different contracts. A slide deck that nobody implements is not cheaper than a junior hire. It is just quieter.
- HTML: https://omentir.com/b2b-marketing-consulting
- Markdown: https://omentir.com/b2b-marketing-consulting.md

## Diagnosis is the actual consulting product

A consultant should leave you with a written bet: who you sell to, what you will stop doing, how you will measure, and what to hire or buy next. They interview sales, read the CRM, and sit in a few calls. [McKinsey's marketing and sales insights](https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights) are an example of the diagnosis genre at a large-firm scale. Your consultant does not need that logo. They do need the same habit: evidence before a recommendation.

**Diagnosis versus doing**

| Consulting | Doing |
| --- | --- |
| Finds the broken motion | Runs the webinar |
| Leaves a brief | Leaves a campaign in the ESP |

## Execution is a different contract

If the same firm also builds the site and runs ads, you now have an agency with a consulting intro. That can work if you want one throat to choke. It can also mean the diagnosis was written to sell the retainer. Separate SOWs. Pay for the diagnostic first. Decide later whether they should implement. If they refuse to sell diagnosis alone, you know what they optimize for.

## Deliverables that survive the engagement

ICP one-pager, messaging that sales will say out loud, a measurement dictionary, a 90-day operating plan with owners, and a list of programs to kill. Workshop photos and a 60-page PDF with no owners will fade when the consultant's Slack guest account expires. Insist that artifacts live in your Drive or Notion, not only in theirs.

## When to stop the consultant

When the plan is clear and the bottleneck is doing, not deciding. Keeping a consultant in the weekly meeting "for alignment" is how you pay for an audience. Bring them back for a quarterly review or a new motion. Continuous consulting without implementation capacity is a subscription to advice.

## Related

- [B2B video marketing: demos, stories, LinkedIn native, and YouTube](https://omentir.com/b2b-video-marketing.md)
- [B2B influencer marketing is analysts and practitioners, not fame](https://omentir.com/b2b-influencer-marketing.md)
- [B2B technology marketing for developers and economic buyers](https://omentir.com/b2b-technology-marketing.md)

## Common questions

**How is a consultant different from a fractional CMO?**

A consultant usually has an end date and a diagnostic deliverable. A fractional CMO is in the org chart for a season and owns the operating cadence. Some people do both. The contract should still say which hat they are wearing this quarter.

**Should consultants have CRM access?**

Yes, at least read access, or they are guessing. Use a contractor license and revoke it at the end. Diagnosis without pipeline data is a brand workshop wearing a consulting invoice.

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