All of the large strategy consultants and some of the small marketing boutiques have a few visionary thinkers. But even in the very largest firms, they represent only about 2-3% of their total staff and spend only a few hours/days per month on any given project/client. It is true that most clients are told that seniors will work on their business. But if you look at the large firms' hierarchies, for every man or woman with 25 years' experience, there are 25-50 with less than 10 years' experience and 50-100 with less than 5 years' experience. If the seniors are working on every client's business, whose businesses are all these other people working on?

Conversely, most of the small marketing boutiques have a single owner, who may be the firm's only employee ever to rise into middle management, if that.

Our junior partner has over 25 years of business experience. Before joining the New England Consulting Group, he was the general manager of a division of a multi-billion dollar global food company. As a result, when a client retains the New England Consulting Group, he or she gets the counsel of three ex-general managers, each of whom has a minimum of 25 years' experience and all three of whom work directly on the business.