Finding a great consultant will be the difference between staying on the ordinary road to success and jumping on the expressway to success. Jumping on the expressway to success will allow your business accelerate growth at record rates. A great consultant is identified as one who provides the transferal of special and unique expertise to the client in a short amount of time.
A great consultant is further defined by giving uniquely tailored solutions for your business problems, leading towards optimized success. Success is gauged by a decrease in risk, and increases in opportunities and speed, resulting in more profit for your business. Great consultants will increase your success by using some variant of these three actions or steps:
1. Scrutinizing and integrating top practices of industry leaders
2. Improving skills and systems to increase productivity
3. Identifying and removing potholes, and obstacles that will hinder growth
1. Scrutinizing and integrating top practices of industry leaders
Consultants who spend little time on researching the client’s competitors and top practices are poor consultants. A great consultant will spend significant time to learn and incorporate what other industry professionals are doing into your business.
For example, a consultant for a new grocery store needs to know who the competition is, what services other grocers are offering, what typical facility costs are, what niche other grocers are occupying, what pricing systems competitors are using, how other grocers are advertising, and why the industry leaders are successful, along with a host of other questions. Answering these questions will enable the consultant to glean out the vital ingredients to a successful grocery store business and create a tailored solution to integrate the top practices and capture the client’s target market.
2. Improving skills and systems to increase productivity
A large store of value is unlocked when great consultants improve skills and systems to increase productivity. Many companies are infiltrated by a scattering of small inefficiencies. Occasionally, the inefficiencies are large enough to cause a decrease in productivity which results in a drop in profit. An example of a loss in productivity is a sales team that struggles at closing sales. The sales team may have a large network of contacts and prospects, may get ample numbers of appointments, and may create interest in the prospective clients; however, if the team cannot close the sale, the value of the sales team hovers near zero.
How will a great consultant resolve the problem of the struggling sales team? A great consultant will allot ample time to cataloging the methodology of the sales team, analyzing where productivity gains can be made, and put forward a plan to increase the number of closed sales. The plan might include changing the commitment (i.e. Sales) section of the script from a weak “Do these services interest you . . . ” to a strong “Will you allow my company to perform these services for you . . .” A seemingly small alteration of the commitment section of the script will empower the sales team, causing an increase in completed sales and a leap onto the expressway to success.
3. Looking for and eliminating pitfalls, and future obstacles to growth
The third action a great consultant will take is to identify and eliminate pitfalls and possible problems that will hinder growth. This action is crucial to the survival of your business because it clears the expressway to success of potholes and detours that will hinder or halt your growth.
A great consultant will take another large chunk of time to project your business into the future, looking for any conceivable problem, and creating specific solutions to eliminate or minimize any obstacle. If your business is a construction business in California, this step will involve making sure that all buildings are earthquake proof and adequately insured. Preparing for pitfalls now shrinks the probability of future disasters.
All great consultants will have some variation on these three steps or actions. Taking the time to ensure that your consultant is taking these three actions will increase your probability of finding the best consultant for your business.
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