The best consultants make themselves unnecessary

Thank you. Thank you for having me on. It's a pleasure to be here.

Yes, thank you. that's a very interesting question. when I think back going back to 2007, I was already doing some independent work, working with the organization in New York City. prior to that I spent many years in operational management. And also working with a non-for-profit organization serving individuals with intellectual and developmental needs. And in 2007, I sort of decided that I wanted to become a full-time independent consultant, but not just a consultant, a healthcare consultant. The reason for that is because working with families who had young adults, children with intellectual and developmental disabilities. inspire me to have a better understanding the many challenges that they face navigating the healthcare system. At that point I made the decision to transition out of the 9 to 5 job and started DAO consulting services and I became a healthcare consultant and that was sort of a big leap of faith for me because at that time I told my husband I might not be getting any income for the next couple of years because I truly believe that I need to do this and I want to contribute to society in this way. Fast forward a couple of years later I was part of the Institute of Management Consultants in New Jersey. There was a chapter here where I was truly embraced By many of the chapter members, and they nurtured me and they didn't understand what healthcare consulting work I was doing because they were management consultants, very different feel. And eventually they did. One of my very long-time clients was through a connection in this group. So I'm forever grateful to the support that I received from the Institute Management Consultants, especially the New Jersey chapter. So that's sort of how it started. It was a leap of faith in a decision that I made at that time that has truly fulfilled my mission in working with non for profit organizations, especially the healthcare industry.

Yes. Working with federal qualified health centers in the United States, it's a very rewarding experience. we truly believe in their mission. their mission is to provide healthcare service for all in their communities. And primarily they serve underserved communities, low-income communities. A day for me is getting up at five in the morning. do the things that I need to do for that, looking at the agenda for that day and also the rest of the week. I do some reading early in the morning and sort of to understand where I am right now as the individual leading Dow Consulting Services. But more importantly, is what Dow Consulting Services is doing for the federal qualified health centers in the United States, especially. For the clients that we have long-term relationships with. I have a lot of meetings throughout the day. I start some days I start 7:30 a.m. with meetings. sometimes I end the day with meetings, and then I have to sort of catch up on some of my work. I do have a small team of consultants as well, and I have to nurture my team by having meetings on a weekly basis. It's consistently moving for me and my schedule for that week can change very quickly. It depends on the needs of my clients, but also I do travel for a lot of conferences as well. So it's a very fast space. hardly have a time to downtime, I would say, but I truly enjoy it.

Yes, it it depends. Even though the I work with federal qualified health centers, I truly believe that each health center is very unique. The culture is unique, the individuals, the leadership and the staff is unique. Sometimes some of the misconceptions that we see with some of our or at the beginning with some of our clients have been that with senior management. and a special needle management in a way that we might per be perceived at first of sort of coming and getting into their space of work and sometimes there might be a little resistance because they do not understand why we are being brought in by their executive director and sometimes I have to explain when we have a little of pushback that Our role is to support them. Our role is to make their job easier and to support them. At no moment me or my team will ever be interested in displacing anyone for from their job. In the contrary, we want to support them and make them successful at their job. And overall, for the health centre to be successful in miss in meeting their mission and us working behind scenes to make sure that they that's how they are able to focus.

Yes, that's a interesting question. When I initially started that consulting and I was sort of positioning myself at this healthcare consultant, I truly believe that a lot of the challenges that I was going to face were with male consultants because you know what are you doing in our space? It it dominated, right? and I'm not gonna say that I did not at the beginning, yes. But I also was very embraced by male consultants in regards to understanding and learning more about the work that I do. When it comes to other women in the consulting field, especially in healthcare, I believe that we were probably the first or a few, in at least in our state in New Jersey, to label ourselves as healthcare consultants and specifically working with. Further qualified health centers. Where we are today, yes, there are a lot of other female healthcare consultants or consultants that are in our market, in our industry. And what we see is that these are executives or senior leaderships that transition out of working for a health center that are initiating their own consulting company. Which I believe is is amazing and I I do celebrate that. But we do see some competition in the sense that that's the perception that Dow Consulting has been in the arena for a very long time. And that I believe that we need to learn how to collaborate, there are ethics that we need to follow. And every health center or other non-for-profit organizations that might need some consulting work that we provide whether it's us DAO consulting or another firm that there is a space for everyone and in the contrary as women in consulting we should come together and be a community that supports each other that we do not see our each other as competitors and have sometimes an amazing or even sabotage in some of the work of other women in healthcare consulting or consult consulting at large. because it does not help us, it does not do a service. On the contrary, it creates the device and it doesn't encourage the next generation of women in consulting to be looking forward to doing that or collaborating. So we need to definitely make a change, need to be change agents where we can show that we women in consulting, we collaborate and we support each other so we all can grow at the same time.

Yes. I like that question because when I first started there were things that it was just me. I was doing everything. I had an office where in in Jersey City, New Jersey, one of our another town, and I had an office there for a few years and it was me and my assistant, part-time assistant, and I was the one picking up the garbage, cleaning the office. You know, and sometimes there is a perception that consulting work is very luxurious. And as a solo practitioner back then, the those are things that actually taught me humility. And I believe humility in consulting work is so important that we need to understand that. Everything that we are working on in providing these services, it is a way that we need to do it in a humility manner because we do work with many different personalities, many different clients, and we need to be in a place where we also are able to take some feedback. Our clients will give us feedback in regards to how do they see things that are moving. or not. But we also need to be truthful in a sense that is a partnership. And sometimes one of the hardest things that we have is with our clients is understanding that there needs to be a partnership between that consulting and them. That the team that they have in our team need to develop that relationship and how we collaborate. still it is us providing the advisory, providing the guidance and working in partnership. So it's not DAO consultant doing things for our clients, is truly developing a long-lasting relationship where if tomorrow something happens and we are not there, that whatever systems changes that were implemented, they are sustainable because their team is able to carry that on. without us. you know, that's something that I think that also makes us a little different, the other consulting firms is that as we roll up our sleeves. Let me put it that we roll up as our sleeves and we work shoulder to shoulder with our clients. So we are not a group that will just stay in the back and waiting to hear from our clients say, we need help on this. No, we become part of their team and order to make sure that together we work in being successful.

Yes. Well, I think as you mentioned before, it's through the work that we do for them and the relationships that we build with each of our clients. And every client is unique and is special to us. So today I might be focusing or be visiting one of our clients. My focus, my attention at that moment, they are the only ones that exist. And it is a challenge. I'm not going to say that it is easy, but every client that we have is unique and they we give 100% of ourselves to them. And we are there when they need us, and we are always going to be there. So fostering those relationships and partnerships with our clients is the number one priority. And we but it goes back to what I was saying before. we treat our clients with the utmost respect and dignity, and having that providing consulting with humility and listening and understanding their unique needs is important to us. Not every health center is the same. We approach any challenges that they have in a unique way because it is based on who they are. And what their needs are. I do train my team to think the same way because at the end of the day, my they represent DAO consulting. When I'm not there, they I gotta make sure that they understand that they also are the face of that consulting, but they also are representing that client at that moment. So having that humility and also recognizing that sometimes You know, there might be things that might not work the way that we first thought, and that is okay. but I I will be honest, it has taken me a long time to to accept that and to have that humility, something I believe that you can learn and you can develop because who likes to be told that maybe that was not the right way to go about it? And that's okay because we learn from those lessons and we can just aim to be better today than where we were yesterday.

Wow, I remember sitting in 2007, maybe towards the end of 2006, I would say, because the whole idea started brewing way before 2007. Sitting at my dining table with my laptop, a bunch of papers, and doing a lot of research about consulting work. And The information and the resources that we have now available, I could not find. I would say that's why you know the only organization that I found was the Institute of Management Consultants, as we know, it's an international organization. And that's how I ended up joining the New Jersey chapter at that time. What I would tell myself, if that had the opportunity is to be patient. To be patient, to do the same diligence work that I did and research. also to still take that leap of faith. I wouldn't change that for nothing. I did not work for a large consulting firm and decided to go independent and to bring clients with me. No, I had an idea, I had a passion, I had a desire that I truly felt at that moment that I could make a difference. And that I would not change. I still would do the same thing, but definitely one of the biggest things that I would do a little different now that I know a little bit more is to continue building a network of with peers and attend events, attend conference, attend networking events, because that is having that face-to-face interaction is so crucial and make time for that. The other thing is that making time to continue evolving and developing your consulting practice. So that is something that I did not understand and I did not know. But it will be one of those things that I will definitely tell myself, make time to focus on continuously developing the consulting firm and also to set time aside for myself where I can enjoy quality time with my family and also solo time. That solo time and in a quiet space is where big ideas happen. and how do you bring that into reality? So pretty much in summary is making time for yourself where you allow yourself to just do nothing in a sense of the day-to-day work but to think about the big ideas consulting work doesn't stop when you have X number of clients and you have positioned yourself and you are known in the industry that yourself it doesn't stop. Because if it does, then the impact it will be the clients that you currently have and the future clients and also for your team. So that continues evolve evol in evolving of your business, it is crucial. So that definitely something that will tell myself if I was able to go back to the two thousand and seven.

Yes. you know, I in 2025 I attended my first tech conference. And it was at Atlanta, Georgia, and it sort of reminded me about these big ideas. And I truly enjoy Tech Conference because or TechNex, that's what it actual conference is called in Georgia Atlanta. So for me, if we would look, I like to think about smaller time frames, the next two years, three years, five years, and on. I definitely do not plan to do consulting for until 100, if I ever get to that. But it is we are currently working on it the best, the next big idea. And I'm working with some of my team members to develop that next big idea that our goal is to make things easier for our clients. I do not see myself saying I want to have X number of consultants or X number of clients sort of become this big consulting firm because I believe that yes can we expand? Can we provide services? Absolutely. But that's not my goal. My goal is to have a consulting practice to continuously improve, develop, and improve this the services that we provide for our clients. But the next big idea it is brewing right now. I cannot disclose what that is at the moment. All I can tell you is that the goal is to help our clients meet. a lot of their goals and also for the leadership to have peace of mind when it comes to compliance. And everybody that hears about Federal Qualified Health Center compliance understands what that means and is truly helping them to have that peace of mind for the leadership to focus on their mission and for us to focus on the things that happen behind the scenes, keeping them compliant. So we do have this big idea. hopefully within the next twelve months we will be able to share what it is.

Yes, absolutely. They can go to our LinkedIn, our Dow Consulting Services page. also we are on Instagram and Facebook. or they can email me directly directly at Helen at Dow Consulting Services dot com and or go to our webpage and there is a contact form that they can fill out. Our website is Dow Consulting Services dot com and We'll be happy to engage in a conversation, no strings attached. We would like to hear what some of the priorities are and what is keeping them for having a restful night's sleep. can we solve all the problems? no, we cannot promise that, but we can listen and to be truthful to say we can help in this area and we will partner with you. So, yes, so many ways to contact us and to continue the conversation.

Thank you, thank you for five having me, Mike. It has been a pleasure and I truly enjoy our conversation.