In short

  • Ask what they operate, not what they have advised on. The gap between those two answers is the whole evaluation.
  • A named client list proves someone bought; it does not prove the engagement worked. Logos are the weakest form of proof and the most commonly offered.
  • Any consultancy worth hiring will tell you where they would be guessing. Treat unbroken confidence as a warning.
  • Scope the first engagement small and specific enough that being wrong is cheap and obvious.
  • The deliverable should be something your team can operate after the consultant leaves. A document nobody can act on is a cost with a cover page.

The proof problem

Consulting is hard to evaluate before you buy because the thing you are buying is judgement, and judgement does not demo. So the market has settled on proxies — client logos, case studies, headcount, certifications, result percentages — and every one of them is weaker than it appears.

A logo proves an organisation signed a contract. It does not prove the work landed, that the named client would hire them again, or that anyone who did that work still works there. A case study with a percentage in it is a number produced by the people being paid for it, with no counterfactual and usually no definition. Certifications prove someone passed a vendor's exam.

None of that is fraudulent. It is just weak evidence, and it is what most of the market runs on.

The question that does most of the work

"What do you operate?"

Not what have you advised on — what do you run, where the consequences of being wrong land on you. It is a hard question to answer with a deck, and the answer sorts the market quickly.

Someone who operates has scar tissue and will produce it unprompted: the thing that broke, the assumption that turned out wrong, the migration that went sideways. Someone who presents will move to methodology, framework and process. Both may be competent. Only one has had to live with being wrong, and that is the difference you are actually paying for.

We answer it this way: Avenmark Media runs six live properties — content sites, a store, and a betting property in a closed licensing regime — and the consultancy exists because that operating experience exists. On the iGaming CRM side the proof is different in kind: it is people who have held Head of CRM and Director of CRM roles at licensed operators. We say which is which rather than blending them, because they are not the same evidence.

Six more questions worth asking

  1. "Where would you be guessing?" The single best signal available. Everyone has an edge to their knowledge; only some will show you where it is. A consultancy that answers everything with equal confidence is either extraordinary or not listening — and it is rarely the first.
  2. "Who actually does the work?" The pitch team and the delivery team are often different people. Ask who will be in the room in month two, and get names.
  3. "What would make you tell us not to do this?" Someone with no such answer will never tell you your plan is wrong, which is most of what you are hiring them for.
  4. "What does the first month produce?" If the answer is a report, ask what your team does with it on the day after it arrives. If nobody can say, you have bought a document.
  5. "What happens to this after you leave?" Work that only functions while the consultant is present is a subscription that was sold as a project.
  6. "What have you got wrong recently?" Unanswerable by anyone who has not done the work, and revealing regardless of the specific answer.

The engagement shapes that work

Most disappointing consulting engagements were badly shaped rather than badly staffed.

Start with a diagnostic, not a transformation

A short, tightly-scoped piece of work that answers one question does two things: it produces something useful, and it lets you evaluate the consultancy on real work rather than on a pitch. If they are wrong, you find out cheaply and early. If they are good, the scope grows on evidence.

Be suspicious of anyone who resists this. The willingness to be evaluated on a small piece first is itself a signal.

Make the deliverable operable

The test for any deliverable is whether your team can act on it without the consultant present. A segmentation model your CRM team can run beats a slide describing one. A written data contract beats a diagram of an architecture. A documented decision beats a recommendation.

This is also the honest test of whether the consultancy understood your constraints — advice that cannot be implemented by the team you actually have is not advice.

Agree what you will measure, before

Not a guaranteed outcome — anyone promising one in a category with this many variables is selling something. Agree what you will look at, when, and what would count as it not having worked. Doing this before the work starts is the difference between an evaluation and an argument.

Five things that should slow you down

  • Guaranteed results in a regulated, competitive category. Too many variables sit outside anyone's control. A guarantee is a sales instrument, not a commitment.
  • A recommendation that arrives before the questions. If they know the answer before understanding your situation, you are being sold a template — or a product they have an interest in.
  • Undisclosed vendor relationships. Ask directly whether they are a reseller, implementation partner, or receive commission from any platform they recommend. It is a fair question and the answer should be immediate.
  • No named individuals. You are buying specific people's judgement. If nobody will tell you whose, you cannot evaluate what you are buying.
  • Discomfort with "what would make this fail?" The most useful conversation available, and the one a weak supplier will steer away from.

The same questions, turned on us

It would be poor form to publish this without answering it.

We operate six live properties and consult where that experience transfers — SEO, website development, social and iGaming market entry all trace to properties we run. iGaming CRM is the one line whose proof is people rather than property, and we say so.

We hold no gaming licences and are not a law firm. We are not resellers or implementation partners for any platform we mention, and we take no commission on any recommendation. We publish no client names, no result percentages and no team-size claims — not because we have nothing to show, but because those are the weak proofs described above and we would rather be judged on the reasoning we publish. Our editorial standards set out the rest.

And where we would be guessing, we say so. That is not modesty; it is the most useful thing a consultant can tell you.