How a Business Consultant Can Help You Grow Your Business

Most people mistake professional business consultancy as a troubleshooting exercise that a company undertakes to manage crisis. Even the business owners, especially the small and relatively inexperienced ones, have similar notions and avail of their services only in cases where management looses control. However, services offered by professional consultants need not be bound by such limitations. Business consultants, in fact, are third party experts who influence how businesses, as well as governments and institutions make decisions.

Business consultancy services must be availed to look at issues related to business in a broader perspective. Consultants, helped by their expertise in a particular field, as well as being from outside the company, can see things from a point of view which the owner or the top management may fail to see, because of their being deeply involved in the business. Here, business consultants would weigh the pros and cons of the strategy and the situation, often with a fresh perspective, and advice accordingly.

Often staying out of the main picture, business consultants provide resources, which the clients may not be in a position to provide for them. Usually, this resource is expertise, which may come by experience, knowledge, creativity or special skills. Time and workforce are other resources, which the client might not be able to spare, which can be provided by business consultants. Business consultants are either management consulting firms or Technical consulting firms, with expertise in their respective areas. Management consulting firms advise on various aspects of corporate operations such as marketing; finance; corporate strategy; assembly line or other manufacturing processes; information systems and networks, data processing; e-commerce; and human resources.

On the other hand, technical consulting firms provide technical advice relating to non-management activities, including compliance with various safety and health regulations, technology application, and scientific knowledge in fields like biology, chemistry, and physics. There are many large consulting firms which provide expertise in more than one area.

Many small and medium enterprises feel that consultancy services are only meant for large organizations and are really not suited to smaller companies. Many also feel that it might not really be worth appointing consultants as they are a costly affair and that increased revenue as a result of their services would not be at par with the costs involved. Nothing could be further from truth, as big as well as small and medium enterprise benefit from business consultancy and there are many consultants who are more than happy serving smaller clients.

Business consultants advice on business start up, help make business plans, formulate marketing strategies. These are the services related to business management and it directly affects the bottom line of the company. Apart from these, there are scientific and legal consulting services, which help firms follow the legal aspects of the business that are required to be followed by law. For example, a manufacturing or utilities firm might hire environmental consultants to assess whether the firm is meeting government emissions standards, in order to avoid penalties before government regulators inspect the property in question. Necessary changes can hence be made before a potential problem arises.

Thus, instead of shying away from appointing consultants, what is required is to identify the right consultant which would help the business and who would have the correct expertise required in that particular case. This would not only help the company to focus on their core activities, but would also ensure smooth operations which will ultimately reflect on the profits as well as the overall growth of the company.

E-Business Consulting – Advantages and Disadvantages

The Internet market can be a complex landscape for the novice entrepreneur. However, in this age of advanced technology, and with the services sector expanding at a phenomenal pace, one can find a consultant for almost all business related requirements, including the increasingly popular e-business of today. E-business consultants take it upon themselves to help you to understand the intricacies of the e-business world, so that you are equipped to develop and implement winning marketing ideas, to make your business venture a success.

There are mainly two forms of e-business consultants available: paid or free e-guides, or e-business consultants, online and books. Both these provide very useful insights about handling various e-business related issues. Let us check out both, beginning with e-business consultants.

E-business Consultants:

They will help you with practically everything, from advising you on your choice of system to providing help with the installation process. The main advantage of these consultants that they reduce your workload. The consultants will share a lot of your burden. All you need to do is specify your requirements, giving the details of your choices and your budget, and the consultant will help you to acquire it.

Good e-business consultants help you to analyze your specifications and then devise a workable technical design accordingly, plus installing all the required software, hardware and network requirements, in addition to identifying the most cost-effective solutions. They also offer training, or arrange for it, and provide on-going support.

The only disadvantage of e-business consultants is the cost. The consulting fee varies anywhere from $25 to $250 per hour, depending upon the experience and the skills of the consultant. They also quote per-project based fixed fee as an alternative option to the hourly rate. Before you choose any of the options, you need to compare both carefully, and make sure that the one you choose is clearly mentioned in the contract you make with them.

E-business guidebooks:

E-business guidebooks are inanimate consultants that help in handling all kinds of issues related to an e-business. Apart from helping entrepreneurs by way of developing a business plan, you can also consult them to design and operate your website, find out how to get the website registered, find a suitable Internet service provider, and what computer equipment would be required for operating a website.

These guides also help budding entrepreneurs to avoid quick-rich schemes on the Internet and posting the privacy policies on the website. They also provide tips of how to market your business in the best possible manner, in order to differentiate your company from that of your competitors, including the various methods of advertising like making use of online communities, chats, blogs and forums, or banner advertising and podcasting.

Some guides also help entrepreneurs to find safe order solutions. They also provide tips on how to use the website to accept purchase requests, and sell software or other downloadable items. This module also includes tips to fight against viruses, and how to protect the website and computers with anti-virus software. However, of course, they can only solve common problems. If unique problems crop up, these guides would be of little help.

Both the consultants have their own advantages and disadvantages, and it is up to each entrepreneur which consultant they select. The size of the business can help in making the decision. If the business involves more than 50 PCs, then it is probably a better idea to involve a human consultant, rather than a book, so that a round-the-clock support system is available. And if the business has only two to three PCs, a guidebook can be more cost-effective and informative.

Challenges with Start-up Consulting Businesses

Consulting business start-ups face many challenges in the early days. As a start-up, your consulting business may not have any clients, brand equity, contacts, cash flow or even business cards! Weaving your way through the start-up obstacle course can be trying — to say the least.

When I started my consulting business, I was full of confidence, but not much else. I had to learn about taxes, bookkeeping, invoices, contracts and other business basics. I had a good grasp of starting and marketing my business, but I was suddenly faced with managing client politics, chasing unpaid bills, taking debtors to small claims court, and dealing with “non-consulting” aspects of my consulting business. Early on, I’d expected to spend my time on pure consulting. I soon realized just how complex a “simple” home-based business like consulting can be.

All these years later, I’m pleased to say I’m still consulting. And that should serve as encouragement to anyone else who wants to become a consultant — or simply continue to survive as one. You see, although I had a steep learning curve in becoming a consultant, I managed to get to the top of that curve. Of course, there was another curve after that, but it wasn’t quite as steep. Making it over the early hurdles is harder than anything else you’ll face in your consulting career. But, if you stick with it, you’ll get there.

How to Start a Marketing Consulting Business

There are some things to keep in mind when launching a marketing consulting company. You should remember that even small mistakes up front can have drastic effects later in the process. Below are some situations to avoid when starting a new marketing consulting company:

Don’t undervalue your employees – These days, most companies don’t care about their help because they see people as an expendable resource, when in reality there is too much lost in training and skill when you have to constantly hire on new hands. Having a strong base of core workers with knowledge and experience is worth paying a little more and treating them right. What you get in the end is immeasurable in terms of quality, and besides, if you lose them, how entrenched is the client with that person? You might be firing your business as well as your workers.

Don’t ignore the client – Many marketing consulting companies make the mistake of taking too much control in the advertising process. You need to remember that on any project, the stakeholders have the final say, so encourage their input and make changes when necessary.

Don’t take more than you can handle – Many times a company will overextend its reach by not saying no. The philosophy of satisfying all that you can in the short term never works, because as you spread yourself thin you lose the ability to focus on quality. Remember, there is no shame in passing up work to maintain a quality relationship with an existing client who may buy more in the future. Screwing up a $10,000 job is not work losing $50,000 of continuous work for the rest of the year, so take what you can manage and do it right. Your clients will notice and appreciate this.

Don’t knee jerk – So many businesses make detrimental and permanent decisions based solely on their last 30 days of business. Remember, the market isn’t always going to be great, so don’t expect it to be. If things take a sudden downturn, look at your past numbers and wait to see where things go from there. If the market is following a trend, then it’s not worth it to cut employees or other costs to handle a temporary problem.

Don’t market yourself through every channel – Despite popular opinion, most companies can get by without any direct marketing and advertising. Remember, no matter what service you offer, there’s always someone else who can offer it just as well, so get the best kind of advertising; your clients will talk you up if you do well, and that is worth more to businesses than all the ads in the world. For an example of a company that never marketed itself and succeeded, look at Starbucks. They never once filmed a commercial or radio spot, and I dare you to find a magazine ad for their stores, yet their coffee is know the world over simply by word of mouth.

Your Startup on a Shoestring

How much money do you really need to start your business? Probably not what you expect, and certainly less than before the Internet

You think you have it tough scraping together enough funding for your startup? Well, let me tell you about the old days, when funding a startup cost real money.

O.K., we didn’t have to wear second-hand clothes and skip meals. But when I became involved in helping a team of entrepreneurs launch a health-newsletter business in the mid 1980s, the expected expenses were daunting, especially for a enterprise that likely wouldn’t be specially attractive to venture capitalists.

The then-newly introduced Apple (AAPL) Macintosh computers, ideal for publishing, were $2,500 apiece, and we needed four. A laser printer (black and white was the only option available) was $5,000. There were photocopy and fax machines, which would be another few thousand dollars. A phone system was thousands more. Rent for a small office in Mansfield, Mass., would be $1,500 a month, or $18,000 annually.

The Tip-of-the-Expenses Iceberg

And then there were the marketing expenses, the main one being a direct mail campaign to obtain subscribers. We figured the cost for renting lists of potential subscribers, putting together a mailing package consisting of a pitch letter and glossy brochure, and postage at about $1 per package. Figuring a 1% response rate, it would cost us about $100,000 to send out enough pieces to reach our initial goal of 1,000 subscribers. Monthly expenses for printing and mailing the newsletter could be expected to be another $4,000, or about $50,000 annually.

So we were looking at something approaching $200,000—in the neighborhood of $400,000 in today’s dollars—and we hadn’t even begun accounting for salaries. Moreover, this was merely a test of the concept—even assuming we hit our 1% response rate, we wouldn’t know for sure if the venture was viable until a year later, when we saw what the renewal rate was. In any event, we’d have to invest possibly another $100,000 or more to go after additional subscribers.

Today, a similar consumer publishing venture could dispense with nearly all these expenses. The computers, copier, and fax, together with a color laser printer, could be had for $5,000 or less, total. No need for rent, since the team could work virtually for the first year. Forget, as well, about the phone system, since the team would communicate by e-mail and cell phone. There’d be no snail-mail direct-marketing approach, or printing expenses, since everything would be on the Internet.

Use Your Savings for Marketing

Now, this isn’t to say today’s publishing venture wouldn’t have any startup expenses. But contrary to what startup consultants may advise, the expenses for tangible things—equipment, offices, and brochures—are much lower today than they were 20 years ago or can be avoided altogether.

And even more significant, today’s startups can use the money they save on traditional fixed costs to deal with their key challenges: building and managing a web presence and marketing their products or services, online or offline.

The cost of handling these challenges can vary widely. Many startups reduce the expenses associated with building and maintaining their Web site by subcontracting out key tasks to low-wage countries such as India or the Philippines and by using free open-source software.

Money-Saving Techniques

On the marketing side, it’s possible to run up huge charges generating clicks via Google ads. One entrepreneur I know tells the story of how he neglected to cap his expenses and wound up with $4,500 of ad costs in a 36-hour period from click-throughs on his Google ads—costs that failed to generate any revenues.

Smart entrepreneurs shave such marketing costs by collecting e-mail addresses of prospects and using search engine optimization techniques to increase the rankings of their Web sites via links and traffic.

Here is how these techniques translate into an overall startup approach designed to take advantage of today’s low-startup-cost climate:

• Reduce fixed expenses by going virtual for as long as possible. To the extent the founding team members can work from home and use e-mail and cell phones to communicate, fixed expenses like office space and furniture can be minimized. At some point—usually when the team finds it must bring other people aboard to accommodate growth—an office will likely become necessary.

• Avoid hiring people—engage contractors. Even when it’s necessary to bring in additional help, using contractors can be cheaper than employees. Individual projects and per-hour expenses may be higher than employees, but using contractors enables startups to retain spending flexibility.

• Keep online development costs in check. Setting up a sophisticated Web site usually is more involved and takes more time than expected. It’s essential for startup companies to monitor progress and expenses closely, especially if offshore developers are involved. Divide such projects into segments and set a project cost for each segment, if at all possible.

• Put as much of your money into marketing as possible. Professional investors always like to see a company’s major investment going into sales, public relations, and promotion. Using Internet tools such as search engine advertising, entrepreneurs can quickly and easily test different messages and measure return on investment—say, by monitoring click through  against sales.

The main goal of any startup is to test assumptions and obtain feedback. It’s increasingly possible to carry out that goal at a lower cost than ever. The old days don’t look very romantic in today’s climate.

10 Ways to Grow Your Home Business

Home based business owners who fail to plan often fall victim to their own success. Either they burn out trying to juggle everything themselves or they spend so much time and money hiring people to help them that their profits go down the drain.Fortunately, there are some ways to take your home based business to new heights without sacrificing your business’s profitability or losing your peace of mind. Follow these 10 steps to grow your home based business into the personal and professional success it was meant to be:

1. Focus on a single product or service, and then market it, sell it, promote it, do everything you can to increase sales of that one product or service. While it’s tempting to swing for the fences and try to be all things to all people, it’s often less risky and more profitable to pick a product or two that you can execute really well and just try to get on base.

2. Expand your product line to offer complementary products or services. Once you’ve hit on a product or service that customers really like, don’t miss the opportunity to bring out related items to diversify your product line. Not only does that give your customers a wider selection, but it also makes your products more appealing to retailers who typically like to stock a line of products as opposed to a single item.

3. Find ways to increase sales to your existing customers. It’s a lot cheaper than finding new ones. Even if you can’t expand your product line, you can boost revenues by selling more of your existing product or service to the clients you already have. One easy way to do this is through volume discounts. Especially if your products cost little to produce, offering your customers the chance to buy, say, two T-shirts for the price of one lets you ring up additional sales without sacrificing much profit. Another common practice is to reward loyal customers by giving them a punch card that entitles them to a free product or service for every 10 items they buy. This technique is common at hair salons, car washes and arts-and-crafts stores, but home based businesses can use it, too.

4. Hire someone to help you out-an employee, a freelancer, an intern, an independent contractor, even your kids. Not only does this free up cash flow by adjusting your expenses to the level of work you bring in, but it also enables you to cultivate a large network of talented people you probably couldn’t afford to hire full time.

5. Create a Web site to advertise your company or sell products online. Thanks to the Internet, it’s no longer necessary to open a store to reach retail customers. For marketers of specialty products like rare books, collectibles and gourmet foods, a Web-based boutique lets you reach millions of shoppers around the world without paying for rent, utilities or garbage collection.

And while creating Web sites once required a big investment and the skills of an experienced Web designer or programmer, do-it-yourself Web sites are now available for less than $30 a month with no technical knowledge required. Typically, the companies that help you register your domain name (Web address) will provide online templates you can use to build your site, host your Web pages on their server and provide you with multiple e-mail addresses as well. E-commerce capabilities can often be had for an additional charge. You can also set up low-cost Web sites through Web hosting companies and search engines.

6. Join forces with another business to promote your company. Partnering with a company in a related industry is one of the cheapest and easiest forms of marketing that you can employ. If you make spa products, for example, you may be able to convince a local health club to carry them in its store by offering a discount to its members. Likewise, you can send a free, one-day health club pass to anybody who buys your lotions and scrubs.

7. Target other markets. If you sell to teens, start marketing to college students. If you sell to working moms, maybe your product will work for stay-at-home moms with a few modifications. Another strategy is to take a retail-oriented product or service and sell it wholesale. For example, a home based catering business that specializes in cakes, pies and other tasty desserts can contact local bakeries to sell its goods on a wholesale basis. While the price you get from the bakeries will be lower (because the bakeries need to mark it up to their customers to make a profit), you’ll sell more products and generate consistent cash flow that you can bank on.

8. Find new and different ways to market your business through e-mail newsletters or by doing guest-speaking gigs or by teaching a class. Marketing your home based business doesn’t need to involve spending big money on newspaper ads, Yellow Pages listings, or TV or radio spots. Grassroots marketing techniques cost far less and are often much more effective. Most chambers of commerce and community groups are more than happy to provide a forum to a local business owner who’s willing to share his expertise at no charge. Sending out a weekly newsletter is also a great way to get your name out in front of new and potential clients. Thanks to the Internet, you can send out your newsletter via e-mail using online templates and automated delivery systems.

9. Expand to another location. That could mean renting “virtual” office space in a business center or by sharing office space with another growing business. Brad Taylor, a CPA in Springfield, New Jersey, spends most of his time at home preparing tax returns, developing tax-planning strategies and revising his clients’ QuickBooks files. But when he needs to come to New York City for a meeting, he sometimes rents space at a Manhattan business center operated by HQ Global, a national provider of temporary office space.

For a monthly fee or a la cart, business centers like these offer everything from conference rooms and receptionist services to remote-access voicemail, high-speed Internet connectivity and tech support, offering home based business owners as much or as little outside office services as they need. Taylor pays just $10 an hour to use the space and is able to bill the cost to his client. “While I still want to run my business from home, this has allowed me to pursue new opportunities and network with other professionals,” Taylor says.

10. Think about turning your business into a franchise or business opportunity. While most homebased businesses remain small, yours may have the potential to hit the big time through franchising, licensing or wholesale distribution. The key question to ask yourself is if your business can be converted into a business format that somebody else could operate (a franchise) or if you have a standardized product or service that someone could resell multiple times (a business opportunity). While you may think that expanding your business requires raising capital, hiring employees, buying equipment and leasing office or warehouse space, it’s often more profitable-and less risky-to license your product to a big corporation with manufacturing capabilities and an existing sales force to do the work for you.