The clients of consulting firms are inundated with information and analysis from every direction. Unquestionably, the vast majority is binned or deleted instantly. So what are the factors likely to attract a client’s attention? When, if at all, will an article, book or survey by a consulting firm prompt a client to make contact with the authors and perhaps even buy their services?

• Appeal: For a client to hang on to a piece of thought leadership, even for a few seconds, they instantly have to be able to recognise it as being relevant to their work. And, because most executives have a very narrow definition of what is relevant, it is comparatively rare for a “generic” piece of thought leadership – something designed to apply to any sector – to be seen as relevant. Bankers want to read about people development issues in banks, not across industry as a whole; retailers want to see how other retailers have improved their technology infrastructure.

• Differentiation: Where consultants excel is in pouring old wine into new bottles and re-labelling them. Clients are, indeed, looking for something different, but experience and cynicism has taught them to regard any thought leadership piece that trumpets its own originality with considerable scepticism. They complain that, despite its pretensions, most material produced by consulting firms is indistinguishable from that produced by their competitors: most thought “leading” is in fact thought “following”. With a little more time invested in seeing things from a client’s perspective – how one firm’s output sits alongside its rivals’ – consulting firms could significantly improve the level of differentiation achieved.

• Practical application: Occasionally management ideas do capture the imagination of executives. Customer relationship management is a good example: although the thinking produced on it in the early days was comparatively abstract, almost all managers could relate to the idea of re-connecting with their customers. But for the vast majority of thought leadership, it is the practical application which will attract people’s attention: not only do they want to know it’s something relevant to them and that it has something new to say on a particular problem, they also want to know what they can do. This is not the same as ending an otherwise interesting thought piece with a series of diagrams illustrating a complex consulting process: detailed frameworks have to be balanced with quick wins.

• Quality of thinking: Whether a client buys into the idea a consulting firm is trying to put across also depends on the evidence. Clients don’t take a consulting firm’s word; increasingly, they’re sceptical of the testimonials of a small number of supportive clients. Surveys are helpful, although they are too often focused on executives’ attitudes rather than actions, but what clients would really like to see is a wealth of named companies whose experience reinforces the message the consulting firm is trying to get across.

• But not a hard sell: It goes (almost) without saying: the more a client believes a consulting firm is trying to sell it something, the more likely they are to reject the ideas the firm is putting across.