Are You Partnering with the Right Business Consultant?

When inviting a business consulting firm to get to know your business, it is a delicate dance to find the best corporate qualifications, experience, and ability to navigate the inevitable invisible issues that will come up. It is also important to make sure your own corporate culture and on-going business do not get lost in the process.

In the marketplace of Business Consultants or Management Consulting, competitors generally fall into just a few categories:

• Sole proprietor are exclusively niched and geographically based
• Big, multi-niched consulting firms that have the ability to reach out to other cities or regions
• Regional small consulting firms that are mostly team oriented

Sole Proprietors: Personal Touch

Smaller and sole proprietor business consultants get to know the client and their needs personally. They start from exceptional business acumen, and make sure to create buy-in within the company. The client company is trusted to know their core business and its people very, very well. There is often not a pre-conceived corporate formula other than profitability, efficiency, and better managerial controls through feedback. Such consultants are often found to deal with the major startup issues where the owner is often unsure about the problem. The job of a consultant here is that of a business advisor, who needs to identify the problem areas and take care of it.

Large Consulting Firms: Depth and Breadth

Larger firms come with strong business acumen, and an in-depth understanding about market trends, business structure, customer behavior, and so on. To make any consulting project stick, it has to come from within, which starts from leadership. Once leadership gets in line with the goals and strategies recommended by the business consultant, the latter assists in rolling out change. This change management takes place by setting measurable goals, actionable plan, evaluating ROI, and staying in regular touch with the feedback loop.

Small Consulting Firms: Personal touch and depth

What makes the smaller business consultants different is the unique blend of these styles. You are not likely to meet them every day, but definitely work with them. You will have a small, personal team, but enough distance to call their supervisor if necessary. A small firm has 8–30 employees, and is generally based in a single city office. Conversely, the consulting firm is big enough to have scheduling and launching flexibility more like a larger consultancy. Small consulting firms cannot do everything involved for a larger project, so they are forced to rely on (and train) the employee team. This strategy keeps the consulting team in alignment with owners, in order to organize which work is done by which team. It is necessary to work alongside the employee team constantly in order to on board change at a pace owners and employees can handle.

Read more: Why You Should Need Business Consultant

How Much Do They Cost?

Price is an unavoidable topic of discussion when we it is about availing the service of business consultants. If you don’t care how much the consulting firm costs, you are not in the market. Clients’ care, even when they can’t afford it. Sole proprietors charge a lower rate mostly to attract clients. However, if they are busy, they simply cannot take the work, or quickly bump up to the rates of larger firms. Larger firms have additional overhead for travel, benched employees and significant benefit packages at all levels. These higher prices are significant and consistent. Often they are business mentors, and help entrepreneurs venture successfully in a volatile market.

Final Thoughts

When you are considering outside consulting for your operations, spend some time considering the depth and breadth of the project, the budget you expect, and then consider requesting proposals or conversations from varying firms. But, keep in mind that the medium scale projects can take a good deal of time to evolve are a likely fit for a blended small consulting firm. If you go that route, you will save significant money and train your staff along the way.