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How to Hire a Consultant for Your Small Business

How to Hire a Consultant DoThisNotThatMarketing.comSTOP!

Before you even consider hiring a consultant for your small business, make sure you’ve read my article on The Pros and Cons of Hiring a Business Consultant. If you’ve read it and determined you do need some kind of outside help for your business, read on to find out how to hire a consultant for your small business.

Now that you’ve established you need help, you need to figure out what sort of consultant your business needs. Are you in need of a specialist to help you increase your profitability through decreased cost or increased efficiencies? Someone to design a compensation plan for your sales team? Perhaps you’re looking for someone to run your social media marketing. As we’ve discussed, some consultants serve as advisors and other consultants come in and fix a particular issue within your business. Determining ahead of time your needs and goals will save you and your business valuable time and money. Your needs and goals may change over time and after talking with your consultant, but you have to start somewhere.

How do you find potential consultants? Ask your friends or peers who they might know and recommend. If you don’t know anyone (I didn’t when I first started looking), call the local Chamber of Commerce or visit a networking group and ask around. If you still can’t find anyone, consider visiting a local Rotary meeting. In many communities, Rotary is the service organization where movers and shakers congregate. There’s a good chance that someone there will be able to help you in your search for a consultant.

You can also Google “small business consultant” + your city or a large city near where you live. For example, I might Google “small business consultant Denton, Texas” and, if I don’t find anyone that seems like they might be a good candidate, I would Google “small business consultant Dallas, Texas.” If you are looking for someone to help with a task that is limited in scope, you could be even more specific. Try Googling “small business social media consultant, Dallas, TX.” Depending on the nature of the work, you might not even need to put a specific location. It’s relatively easy to communicate via Skype, email, etc. with people from all over the world, so don’t be afraid to try. On the other hand, if the scope of the project is relatively broad or will require more face to face contact and hands on work from your consultant, don’t be afraid to make their location/accessibility a “must have.”

After you’ve found at least 5 consultants you think might be able to provide you with the results you need to achieve, you need to vet them as you would a potential employee. Ask to see the consultant’s resume, portfolio and any previous work samples they have. That’s a start, but it’s not sufficient to make a hiring decision. TRAP: Don’t be swayed by their education and resume. They may have graduated from Harvard Business School and been Secretary of the Treasury. The real question is: can they help businesses like yours fix the problems or reach the goals you want to achieve?

Check up on the consultant’s references and ask those companies why they chose this particular consultant over another one. Look for specific, detailed recommendations from references. You must get details and find out what sort of results were achieved. A reference without specific details is a red flag. Some people are afraid to say anything negative so they will say things like, “He is a hard worker. She is very punctual. They really know their stuff.” Honestly, are you hiring a consultant because you want a hard-working, punctual person who knows their stuff? Of course not. You’re hiring for results. If the job requires certain certifications, make sure they are up-to-date. Does the consultant have a website or a newsletter? If so, check them out to make sure they don’t handle problems with a one-size-fits-all type mentality. Also, don’t be afraid to perform a background check of the consultant. After all, a consultant will be handling an important part of your business and ensuring they are quality material is crucial. When you are looking for a consultant, you should be thinking about 1) results and 2) value. Are they going to deliver the results you need for a reasonable investment?

Chemistry is important when working with anyone and is no different when selecting and introducing a business consultant to your team. Do you feel at ease with this person handling this part of your business? If not, they probably aren’t a good match. Do they listen to you and your company’s needs? If they aren’t really listening, they can’t help you tackle the problem at hand. Do you like being around them? This may seem petty, but the truth is you will probably be around them a lot. If you don’t like being around them but hire them anyway, you are dooming your project from the start. The consultant should be asking you questions as well to better understand your business needs. Can they be assertive when needed or provide encouragement and positive feedback when appropriate? During the interview you should ask specific questions based on what they have actually done in the past. This will help you get a feel for how the client would work with you and address your business needs. Don’t ask, “You don’t have any trouble getting along with people, do you?” Instead ask, “Give me an example or two of a time when you were working with a company like mine and you had a significant disagreement with someone at that company. How did you handle that situation? What was the outcome? What would you do differently if you had it to over again?” Those kinds of questions will give you much more insight into whether this consultant might be a good fit for you and your team.

Finally, once you have chosen the consultant, it’s time to get specific and get things in writing. Make sure the consultant is available for the duration required as some consultants take on multiple clients simultaneously. Be sure to write an agreement outlining what your business needs and the scope of the work required. Deadlines and goals are important tools for gauging success and should be included this agreement. Writing down who is responsible for what is also important. Within this agreement, you should outline the pay schedule as well as any types of reimbursements and how they will be paid. Furthermore, it should detail the working relationship between the consultant and you and your business. Don’t leave anything unspoken, even if the matter seems obvious and even if (or especially if) the topics are uncomfortable to talk about. Don’t assume anything. Assumptions can cost you time, money, energy and the will to see the project through to completion. Both parties should sign this agreement as means of protection for you and your business. 

Finding a consultant can be scary but it doesn’t have to be hard. The biggest challenge is finding an appropriate pool of potential consultants, then wading through the candidates and finding the right match for your business. While you may not find the perfect consultant that fits all of your requirements, using these tips you should find someone who matches most of them. At the same time, if you go through this process and don’t find a consultant you are excited about hiring, DON’T HIRE ONE! Take a step back, review the process, then try again. You know what’s worse than not finding the right consultant? Settling for the wrong one because you’re tired of looking or because you believe “something is better than nothing.” That’s not true. A good friend of mine told me he’d rather be married to the right girl for 10 years than the wrong girl for 20. The same can and should be said when it comes to hiring a small business consultant.

If you have questions or comments, please email me or leave a comment below.

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Hiring a Business Consultant for Small Businesses: Pros and Cons

Consulting Pros and Cons DoThisNotThatMarketing.comWhen people ask me whether hiring a business consultant is a good idea, I am torn. 

My answer is usually “it depends” or “maybe.” There are so many red flags. As a business owner you may have identified problems in your company, yet you just can’t figure out how to get over that particular hurdle. Perhaps you can’t quite pinpoint what would make your business run more efficiently. Or maybe you have a project that only requires someone for a short period or a specific task. Hiring a business consultant can help you tackle these problems more efficiently and improve your bottom line. At the same time, many of the consultants I have hired have been terrible, costing a lot of money and not helping me very much. Working with the wrong consultant feels like speeding down the highway throwing money out your car window. I hated that for me and I would hate that for you. So let’s take an in depth look at the pros and cons of hiring a business consultant.

PROS

First, a good business consultant (or consulting firm) can help find and implement solutions to problems you have already pinpointed in your business. If you keep banging your head against a problem, a business consultant might be able to get you over, around, or through that problem. If that’s what you’re looking for, make sure when you are interviewing potential consultants that you ask that person for their specific experience in addressing this type of problem. “Just to make sure we’re on the same page, I’d like you to share three to five times you’ve worked with a company like mine to address a problem like this. What went well? What went poorly? What were the main reasons those projects succeeded or failed? Of course I don’t want you to reveal any private or proprietary information.” If they can’t give you at least three projects they’ve personally worked on like yours, be very careful. If they can’t give you any, but talk about how their firm “has been doing this sort of work for 87 years,” RUN!

A good business consultant can also guide you and your business in a direction needed for greater growth and efficiency. By mapping out a clear cut plan, business consultants can give you feedback about your goals and, if appropriate, can help get you to your next goal. A good business consultant should always be looking for the right opportunity, making sure you have the right resources to achieve the goal, and making it clear how they are going to provide you with the right solution for your problem. Do NOT settle for glittering generalities or base your hiring decision on hope.  As former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani once famously said, “Hope is not a strategy.”

Business consultants can also provide a sounding board for business owners. If you are going to use a business consultant as a sounding board, make sure they have either worked in companies like yours, consulted with companies like yours, or preferably both. I once hired a consulting firm dripping with MBAs. I figured these guys were the masters of the universe so they would obviously have all the answers to my problems. The problem was NONE of them had ever worked for a small business like mine or done enough consulting in businesses like mine to offer me real, helpful advice/feedback/guidance. Their advice might have been helpful for a hundred million dollar company, but not for a five million dollar company like mine.

Another potential advantage of business consultants is the ability to reduce overhead. Some projects may only require a certain amount of time. Hiring an employee in this case could be costly due to labor burden (insurance and benefits, etc.), work space, and more. By hiring a consultant, you only use them when needed and thus save on paying a salary for the same type of position had you hired an employee. Remember though, consultant fees vary based on the work, so weighing the length of time needed and type of consulting required are important factors in deciding on hiring a consultant.

CONS

The biggest potential disadvantage of hiring a business consultant is hiring the wrong one. That’s painful and can be costly in terms of morale and money. If their advice is misguided, it could actually sink your company, so be careful. Another potential downside is consultants can create a relationship of dependency for businesses. In this case, the business owner spends more time and money with the consultant and thereby the business ends up losing money. Let me be clear, in the long run, the wrong consultant can end up costing you truckloads of money. Being clear about the specific problems you need help with, checking out references, and performing a rigorous interview is crucial. If the potential consultant bristle at your vetting process, move along. You’re not hiring a best friend, you’re hiring a consultant to have a positive impact on your bottom line.

The bottom line: consultants can be an important member of your business team, especially in situations where hiring a full time employee for a particular project would be overkill. Weighing your options and your business needs is paramount when deciding on whether or not to hire a business consultant. Take enough time to know exactly what problem you want to address, what goal you want to achieve, and why you think hiring a consultant may be the best option to fix the problem or achieve the goal. Once you know those things, you can decide whether hiring a consultant is really the best thing for you, and you can find the right consultant for your situation.

When people approach me by asking why they should hire me as a consultant, my response is something along the lines of, “I don’t know. Maybe you shouldn’t.” Until both of us know your specific needs and situation, neither of us has any idea whether I can help you or not. Neither does any other consultant worth his or her salt. Don’t be bamboozled. As a small business owner, you’ve worked to hard to let someone else screw this up.

If you’d like to discuss your situation and see if I might be able to help you, please email me so we can set up a time to talk. If you’re afraid I’m going to try to smooth talk my way into some sweet consulting gig, don’t worry. I won’t. I’ve been in your shoes and I know what it’s like.

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What is Marketing?

What is Marketing DoThisNotThatMarketing.comMarketing: what exactly is it and why is it so important for your small business?

Marketing involves any action you take to put your service or product in front of your customers and potential customers. The great thing about marketing is that, when done well, it makes you money by meeting your customer’s wants and needs. Marketing includes researching and targeting as well as communicating with your customers. Some people think about marketing as advertising or public relations. It is, but it’s a lot more than that, too. Advertising and public relations are just a part of a comprehensive marketing plan.

With target marketing, businesses can pinpoint their audience. John McCarthy revised Neil Borden’s idea of the “ Marketing Mix” and observed that there are four variables within a business’ control to target their customers. These are referred to as the Four P’s of Marketing: product (or service), pricing, placement, and promotion.  Where these four ingredients overlap, your target market can been identified. 

Another model for target marketing is Robert Lauterborn’s Four C’s of Marketing. This model of target marketing centers on the consumer rather than the producer. The Four C’s of Marketing include Consumer wants and needs, cost to satisfy those wants and needs, convenience or ease of buying, and communication. For smaller businesses, using the Four C’s of Marketing is usually a better way to establish a two-way relationship with their desired audience.

Marketing comes in a variety of forms these days. The oldest and most familiar form of marketing is word of mouth, in which customers simply tell others about the experiences they had with a particular business, product, or service. Another form of marketing includes direct marketing. With direct marketing, businesses have direct contact with their audience through promotional material via mail, email, texts, and fliers.  Some companies utilize promotional marketing through contests, coupons, or samples. 

Marketing through social media has quickly become a popular means of marketing to customers. Larger companies have created special departments for social media marketing where the employees’ main responsibility is to communicate with customers through social media. Another more recent form of marketing involves mobile devices, allowing for location and time sensitive promotions. With these and many other forms of marketing, creating a plan to incorporate them will help focus your business’ resources. 

While marketing can be expensive, creating a marketing strategy for your business is crucial to your business’ survival. Using a variety of forms of marketing gives your business the best chance, but the form of marketing you choose should be based on reason and evidence and not picked haphazardly because “that’s what to competition is doing.”

To recap, marketing targets your audience and establishes a relationship with them. If you’re not marketing your business, your business’ growth will be limited and likely will become stagnant. Marketing allows your business to find more customers and clients and allows for them to find you as well. It’s what we all want, right?

Have you taken a hard look at your marketing recently? Are you doing more than ads in the newspaper or the occasional tweet? To be the most successful, you need a comprehensive plan that you can implement consistently. If you’re not sure how to do that, please email me and let me know how I can help.