Small Business – Why Should I Use a Business Consultant?
Looking back on the days when I owned my own business, there were a number of occasions when I really could have utilised the skills of a Business Consultant but I never did, I muddled on the best I could and hoped everything worked out. Why did I do this? To be quite honest there was a big ego that didn’t like to admit it needed help, my annual turnover wasn’t huge and the cost of hiring a consultant scared me; I didn’t have a clue how much they would be but the word “consultant” conjured up a feeling of big bills, not unlike an Accountant or Lawyer. I also thought, how would a consultant know anything about my business, if they never worked in my industry how were they ever going to help me?
Now that I am on the other side of the fence (I am the consultant!) let me answer a few of these questions and try and paint a picture of what many consultants do and obviously explain exactly what I do (nothing like a bit of extra advertising!!).
Firstly you are the expert in your business, the consultants role is not to take over the operation of your business, they are not the expert in your business, they offer a fresh set of eyes to any problems you may have and will offer advice on possible ways for you to go forward. How will they do this, well they most likely will be qualified in Business Management, Marketing or Sales and more often than not have been through the pleasure and pain of owning their own business; because of this they will have a good understanding of the basic principals of running a successful business.
Most of have heard the saying “… can’t see the wood for the trees” or ” ….. business owners need to work on their business not in it”; to me this is where a good business consultant can add immense value. All too often business owners spend so much time in their business that they either don’t give themselves the time to effectively run the business or they don’t have the inclination to periodically sit back and take a look at what the business is doing and where it is going. This is a perfectly natural place to find yourself as a business owner, why, because you do what you do because you are good at it and love doing it and ultimately everything else tends to come second place. A business consultant is in the enviable position of being able to look at the business from the outside and as a whole and will very quickly identify areas that need attention (if there are any).
Most business consultants will have particular areas of strength when running a business, my strengths for instance is developing sales and marketing strategies and providing training in these areas for both the staff and the business owners, whilst other consultants strengths may lie in accounts or human resources or business law. Some business consultants target larger corporate customers whilst others concentrate the efforts looking after small businesses; what ever size your business may be and whatever challenges you may be facing there will be a consultant out there for you and like any other service you may use, shop around, talk to more than one consultancy company until you find one you feel comfortable with.
Here’s the advertising bit 
I specialise in small businesses generally with an annual turnover of $1m or less with not much more than 10 staff; this is where my previous business was positioned and it is at a level I feel I can give the most value. I also specialise in training for this size of company with many training modules covering a variety of subjects and all of them lasting no more than 1hour, this is deliberate as many small businesses can’t afford to have there staff off the job for much more than an hour at any one time. To find out more about the training courses I provide please click on the link here; to find out what other services I can provide including pricing please click on this link here.
For any other information please feel free to contact me.
Tags: Small Business Consultant and Business Development Specialist Services
