Why Your Business Needs a Consultant Now!
Many small and mid-sized businesses do not start out with niche professionals running each division, organized roles for employees or formal corporate hierarchy. The founder(s), regardless of their education or training are wearing all hats including; accounting, sales, marketing, logistics, human resources, etc.. Let’s play out a scenario in which a new company is in its infancy and experiencing growth. As it expands employees are generally added due to the owner being maxed out. While many times these new hires come with specialties in one or more of these areas the intention of their hiring is to be individual contributors to help the team grow. As time continues to pass and assuming the company has continued success, additional personnel is needed and you naturally have the original hires supervise the fresh blood. This trend continues and repeats itself. Now let’s fast forward 5–10 years.
The business now has a team of 35 employees and although they continue to experience growth the owner instinctively feels they are still falling short of their full potential. They begin brainstorming ways to avoid the dreaded plateau that they find themselves in. They begin experimenting with different ideas and none of them are getting the company over that next tall hurdle. Why? While there could be many reasons for this it is generally not a new product, service or marketing campaign that is needed. The owner built the company from scratch based on their view of how a company should run and when new challenges arose they found whatever fix worked in that moment.
When a company transitions from startup to established brand what is really needed is an objective point of view. Anyone who is involved in the day to day will have trouble seeing beyond “this is the way we do things”. Bringing someone in with a diverse resume of previous experiences in individual contributor and leadership roles can really help. They may see the bigger picture and help you evaluate what is being done while providing fresh ideas as to how to take protocol to the next level. Owners though have a habit of thinking they know best, especially when it comes to their own business. The key to making this work effectively is actually allowing the consultant to implement their recommendations, within the owner’s budget. Many owners and consultants they work with will agree that the consultant will give their recommendations and hit the road, looking to move on to the next project. This type of arrangement will hardly ever work as those who build and drive the ship are not the ones who devised the plan.
The only effective way to implement this new plan is that the architect of the new system and protocol needs to be the one to both implement and stick around long enough to make sure the implementation is both complete and consistent. That may take anywhere from one month to years after the implementation of the plan, depending how robust it may be. Once the plan is fully implemented the consultant should then make sure that those in a supervisory capacity are trained to continue leading the plan, troubleshoot challenges and pivot as required. Only once there is someone in place qualified to take the wheel can the consultant step away from the project for something new.
This process can repeat itself with the same organization as needs arise. More than likely you will be less hesitant the next time around because you are already reaping the benefits of the first plan that was put in place.
