When people ask me what I do, I often see in their glazed over eyes that they have a general understanding of small business and a general understanding of consulting, but they don’t really
know what a small business consultant is and why they would ever need or recommend one. Unfortunately, this idea is perpetuated by the fact that I am often called in as a last resort. Usually, the business owner has tried unsuccessfully to manage every aspect of their business all by themselves.
The biggest problem your average small business owner experiences is that he/she has so many issues that pop up daily (sometimes hourly) that they become easily overwhelmed. The issues are innumerable but their resources are very finite. They only have so much time and so much money to throw at a problem, so most of the time they put all of their energy into what they know, which is usually the doing. Consequently, all of the other aspects of the business (marketing, cash flow management, and growing a team) fall by the wayside until they escalate to crisis.
Oftentimes the business owner will reach for the easiest “fix” to these crises and try to band-aid a solution themselves, buying more time to focus on the doing. The problem with this mentality is that it produces only temporary fixes and sometimes, just covers up the underlying issue until it rears its ugly head again.
A great example of this is like is found in our society’s current obsession with supplements. We want to be healthy. We don’t have the time, energy or motivation to educate ourselves on how to get there, so we turn to supplements. If you’ve ever opened the door to exploring what you need to take to be healthy, you will experience what every small business owner experiences when they think about hiring a consultant. Every supplement has claims that are too good to be true. All of them guarantee that you will feel better. However, these claims aren’t always true and some supplements can actually be detrimental to your health.
It’s the same way with business consulting. I focus on financial and systems health, but your business might need marketing because there are no finances to make healthy. There are other consultants out there who will focus on marketing, but what you really need is better financial management so you can maximize your current revenue. Then there are other consultants out there who claim to be small business consultants, but in reality are snake oil salesmen peddling wares that look good on the outside, but are in reality just placebos in disguise. The business owner who has fallen prey to these tactics has wasted their hard earned money and their precious time and they are no closer to solving their business problems that are sucking the life out of them.
So what exactly does a consultant have to offer and if you hire one, what should you expect?
Expertise:
First, every consultant should be able to offer you expertise gained through a combination of experience or education. Someone with a business degree but no practical experience is not going to be able to offer you anything other than cookie cutter solutions learned from a textbook. On the other hand, someone who has learned only from the school of hard knocks and not from experts in the field is only going to be able to show you a path of hard knocks.
Perspective:
Second, he/she should be able to immediately offer perspective. In other words, they should be able to hear your laundry list of problems and identify where you are and where you should be.
Solutions:
Last, they should be able to offer practical and implementable solutions that will provide relief and position your company for healthy growth. These solutions can come in the form of creative problem-solving, education on best practices, or training you and your employees to operate more efficiently.
Next week, I’ll talk about what type of consulting I do and more about what drives me to help small businesses.