Big budget PR programs can disguise questionable competency levels and without guidance, clients can suffer unnecessarily. Before engaging one, it is wise to know something about how consultants operate and then follow a prescribed selection process. Consultants, even the most prestigious large firms, are not omnipotent and all knowing. They share the market with larger and smaller competitors some of which are more or less capable, efficient, scrupulous and profitable.

Consultants are not omniscient. The wisest among them know knowledge and innovation has many sources, converges from all directions and does not flow solely from any single individual or from within the walls of any single organization. It follows then, that the consultant should not be relied upon as the sole source of enlightenment. To be of true value, he must constantly seek knowledge, absorb it like a sponge and employ it as beneficially as possible, with his best effort, for the interests of his client.