Business consulting is a profitable solution for businesses that require effective changes. Whatever be the size of your business, you can benefit greatly from consulting services. Even a small business consultant can have a range of solutions to help you deal with various challenges. However, finding an efficient consultant would require you to do certain homework.
Finding the Best Consultant
Obtaining a suitable consultant can be easy if you are clear with your needs and have a fair idea of sources where you can find them.
Identify Your Requirements
The kind of expertise you must look for would depend on your requirements. It is important that you first identify whether you have a specific problem area to focus on or the entire business. Based on this you can look for a generalist or a domain expert. There might be some consultants who are more adept in addressing the issues of large-scale businesses. If your business does not belong to that category, then opting for such a consultant will not be of much help. You can then consider companies like Ma Foi that have experience in working with medium and small sized businesses too.
Prefer Action over Words
After you discuss your needs and issues with the consultants, they may provide verbal assurances and promises to help deal with the issues. However, what you would need as a practical solution is a plan of action. So, see if the consultants are able to provide a clearly written action plan with timelines. The plan must also state what measurable outcomes you can expect from the collaboration. Having a detailed action plan will help both the consultants and you to track your progress and make changes in approaches when success seems distant.
Look for Work Experience
A consultant might have a bunch of good ideas but no experience in having implemented the ideas. In that case, it might not be appropriate to approach such a consultant. For your business growth, you will need plans that work in real situations and not just in theories. Check the credentials of the consultants to understand their work experience. You can refer to their portfolios and client testimonials to assess their success rate. While you need not to focus on the years of experience the consultants have, you need to see if they have experience in the domain of your business.
Check Listening Skills
A business consultant that does not have the patience to hear you out with all details of your issues may fall behind in meeting your expectations. So, look for consultants that have a willingness to discuss challenges before jumping into solutions. There cannot be one solution for all your issues and for issues across companies. The consultants must be able to produce solutions that are specifically suitable for your problems. The consultants must also be accepting of your suggestions rather than just offering instructions for executing your project.
Ask Your Network
People who are in similar businesses as you are likely to have more or less challenges. Inquiring about a good consultant in your network can yield you with better results. You can ask your colleagues or other business associates for an introduction to consultants who can be useful for your business. They may have references to experts who helped their businesses to develop. They may also know of businesses that have benefited from any consulting service. Asking in your circle can bring you favourable outcomes.
Search on Social Platforms
There are many platforms on social media that are capable of connecting businesses with potential consultants. For instance, Twitter and LinkedIn serve as excellent platforms for employees as well as employers. You can find some great individuals or companies there who are just appropriate for your business consulting process. You can conduct searches using keywords. You can then approach people who appear with relevant tags. The tags, especially on LinkedIn, are made by third parties rather than the individuals themselves. This means you have a good chance of obtaining reliable search results, such as Ma Foi.
Look for Freelancers
Many times, it makes more sense to approach freelancers who are equally or even more skilled to work on your project. Hiring freelancers for your specific projects can be more economical and effective for your business. There are many reputed sources where you can find good freelancers. These platforms conduct an in-depth assessment of the freelancers before hiring them. You can gain valuable inputs from them on your project as they have the capability of providing quality work well within deadline. You can get your work done faster and with better quality.
Finding a business consultant, therefore, involves considering some important factors. You need to check for the hiring consultant’s experience, knowledge, and openness to suggestions. But first you need to lay down your requirements so that you can find resources that are suitable to fill in the position.