When it comes to your business, sometimes you don’t have all the answers. Sometimes you need a fresh perspective outside of your team. Sometimes you simply need some guidance. This is the value of a hiring a consultant.
Consultants bring knowledge and experience, but most importantly, they bring time—time that you would normally have to spend researching or learning something on your own. There are all types of consultants—those that can help you with business strategy, marketing, operations and with understanding the competitive landscape.
Yesterday, Promotional Consultant Today shared five key reasons why it may make sense to work with a consultant from the developers of online consulting platform, Quantifye. Today, we’re sharing five more.
1. You need complete insight into what’s working or not. Data is knowledge, but both obtaining and understanding the right data and the right key metrics can be challenging. Consultants can bring this knowledge to the table and provide an objective point of view. A consultant specific to your industry can also share key benchmark metrics that your business should set based on his or her experience in working with others in your industry. By having all of the right data, you’re able to get complete transparency into your business, and how it impacts your role and bottom-line.
2. You need someone for short-term or ad-hoc projects. Not every job needs to be full-time. We all have those specific projects that would be good for the business but that we simply don’t have time to prioritize. Consultants can serve as a great resource for these ad-hoc projects that could help to move your business forward. You get the right expertise only when you need it for as long as it takes to complete your project.
3. You need to cut costs. One of the most expensive line items for a business is employee benefits. The challenge with hiring full-time employees is that you have to pay out benefits and other perks, which adds up. If your company is small and in a growth mode, a contractor is often a good comprise because you are not required to provide full medical benefits, as you do for a full-time employee.
4. You need to make the most of your limited resources. As a small business or company with limited resources, it goes without saying that you have to make the most of what you have. Tight budgets require you to get creative and “think outside of the box” to come up with ways to achieve your desired results. The fastest way to achieve your desired result, is to hire a creative and resourceful consultant who fits within your budget. While in some cases it may be a greater upfront cost, you’ll get more for your money by investing in an expert who will deliver results, rather than “going cheap” by hiring an amateur.
5. You need the most “bang” for your buck. As a small business, you need to make sure that you’re investing in the right employee, otherwise, it could end up costing you more money in the long-run. The primary reason that companies turn to consulting is to get the expertise right when they need it, and only for as long as they need it. Ultimately, investing in a consultant gets them more “bang” for their buck in the long-run.
Source: Quantifye is an online consulting platform that makes it easy for businesses to discover, hire, and work with elite independent consultants.
