Offering "Expert" Opinions -- Dickeson

That quick judgment doesn't satisfy a client who's paying you $10,000 for a report on the faults of his production system. So you take a couple of weeks and draft a 50-page report (with an executive summary) and go back for a conference to defend the conclusions. That's the consulting game. You become a consultant by self-declaration. You become an expert by landing sufficient consultation assignments to qualify you as an expert. You maintain expert status in the industry only by continuous reappraisal and refinement of your basic assumptions.