How Do I Choose a Retail Strategy Consultant?
Updated: Oct 30
There are four questions to ask in the first meeting, including the one most people skip.
If you're a founder or a retail director weighing up a strategy consultant right now, the first thing I'd ask them for is proof, what they actually changed for a client and what happened to the business after they changed it, and if they can't show you that I'd be dubious about everything else they tell you.
I say that as a consultant, and I'm super aware of how it sounds. But I spend a fair bit of time reading what other consultants and advisors put out on here, and there's a lot of very confident content, everyone's the authority, everyone's the biggest voice in their space, and when you go looking for the client work underneath it there's often not much there. There's a lot of tone and not much truth.
Content is a claim. A client's result is the proof.
Trust gets proved and earned, it doesn't get romanced with a narrative, and I spend most of my working week telling brands exactly that about their customers. It would be a little bit rich of me not to hold my own industry to the same standard. So this is how I'd choose a retail strategy consultant if I was the one sitting on the other side of the table, four questions you can ask in the first meeting.
Ask what they changed, and what happened next.
I mean the change itself, because a beautiful deck, with amazing images and a framework isn't a result. A good consultant can tell you what was true about a business before they arrived, what they did about it and what moved afterwards, and they can tell you in plain language without hiding behind the method.
Some of that work will be confidential, I get it and that's totally fair, client confidentiality is real. But they should still be able to walk you through the shape of it, and most consultants worth hiring will have at least one client happy to take your call.
So here’s one of ours. I’ve spent the last twelve months working with Mondial by Nadia, a family-run fine jeweller with sixty years of heritage, and across the eleven months after the baseline month they’ve averaged a 26% monthly revenue increase against it, in one of the toughest retail climates in recent memory, and recorded their strongest twelve months of trading since the business was founded. Nadia read and signed off the full case study, and you can read it here.
Find out where their judgement comes from.
AI is very good at telling you about yesterday, and anyone with a subscription can now produce a perfectly reasonable-looking retail strategy in about thirty seconds. What you're actually paying a consultant for is judgement about tomorrow, and that only comes from years of watching the patterns play out inside real businesses, the launch that sold out and still cost the brand something, the store that hit its number and lost the customer anyway.
So ask them where they learned what they know. If the answer is mostly other people's content, or the answer is a tool, be careful. Technology is table stakes, it's foundational and it's no different to having a laptop or an iPhone, and it's only ever as good as the person using it.
A good consultant will tell you what you don't want to hear.
If every answer in the first meeting is some version of yes, that's a warning. You're not hiring someone to agree with you, and if I'm honest the most valuable thing I do in most businesses I walk into is name the thing everyone in the room already knows and nobody's said out loud.
Ask them what they'd want you to stop doing. They may need to see more before they can answer properly, which is fair enough, but they should be comfortable telling you they'll say it when they find it.
Ask who they won't work with.
This is the one most people skip, and it tells you more than the other three put together. A consultant who'll work with anyone hasn't decided what they stand for, and sooner or later that shows up in the advice.
I won't work with a business that's only out to extract from its P&L or its team, or one that wants to get the sale by leaning on a negative feeling the customer has. That rules some people out, and so it should. If you're reading this and that's you, I'm just not the right fit, and it's better we both know before the first invoice.
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The good ones will be glad you asked.
None of this needs to be a long procurement process. It's four conversations in the first meeting, and the consultants doing real work will welcome every one of them, why? because they want to be judged on it.
If all you can see is the content...
you're buying the claim.
Ask for the proof.
If you'd like to put IGU Global through these four questions, book a Clarity Call at iguglobal.com.
See the client results for yourself in our case studies.
Nick Gray, Founder & CEO of IGU Global, Sydney. Named a Top Retail Expert 2026 by Rethink Retail.
FAQ
What does a retail strategy consultant actually do?
It varies a lot, which is why the questions above matter. At IGU Global the work has two parts: getting clear on the feeling a brand sells so its behaviour comes to life consistently across every channel, inside the team and out in the market, and a psychometric deep dive into the customer, what they feel, what reassurance they need and what's causing them to hesitate.
What should I ask a retail strategy consultant before hiring them?
Ask what they changed for a recent client and what happened next, where their judgement comes from, what they'd want you to stop doing, and who they won't work with.
What's the biggest red flag when choosing a consultant?
A consultant who can't show you any client results, only content about themselves. If there's no proof of the work, be dubious about what they're capable of.