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Good small business consultants can help business owners and entrepreneurs discover more ways to make profit on a regular basis. A lot of people who seek the help of a small business consultant wind up pleasantly surprised at just how many areas of expertise that consultant actually has.

Outsourcing some of your processes, such as marketing, or getting help coming up with a plan of action to tackle your existing business challenges could make a big difference to the success of your business; and fast, too. Small business consultants can help you go after new business as well as help you to ensure that you can effectively handle a spike in volume. Growth is good but you need to be able to handle that growth and to be able to sustain it as well. Getting help from an expert just makes sense. A consultant has expertise working with many industries and can help you market to expand as well as correct operational deficiencies that could be limiting or potentially dangerous to your reputation and future growth possibilities.

Most business consultants have a wide array of experience and have been entrepreneurs themselves. Their knowledge and experience puts them in a good position to look at businesses with challenges or goals that require direction and action plans and then provide small business owners or entrepreneurs with info that can help them move forward.

Finding New Customers

Most businesses are on the constant lookout for new customers. Why wouldn’t you want to capture more market share than you have today? Your business consultant can help you find customers that don’t know how much value you can add to their lives yet as well as help you position your company’s products or services so that you can take market share from dissatisfied or disloyal customers of your competitors.

Capitalising on Existing Customers

Some businesses have a more loyal customer base than others. But many small businesses who first start out don’t realise the full potential in your first few customers. Not only could they become repeat customers but they could also be case studies that help you demonstrate your capabilities in your industry.

If your business has an existing client base, it makes sense to spend a bit of time marketing to those people. After all, they have already shown that they are confident enough in you to place an initial order. If you have done your job well, subsequent sales should be much easier to achieve and those businesses could prove to be valuable for their testimonials, the business you can begin forecasting for based on trends, and for their word of mouth referral power.

Small business consultants help small businesses capitalise on existing customers while helping them to expand to attract new clients as well. By investing in expertise you can expand quickly and with confidence that you have the infrastructure in place to support new business.

Today we are going to talk about the power of your intention. Every business that is built has a reason for its existence and this reason determines the path the business will take to achieve its goals. Your business can only be as unique as its intention.

What I believe. I believe in your intention to create the kind of consulting business no one has ever seen. Your goal is to create a business that gives advice in a different way to a different audience. You are trying to elevate your art form by being more valuable, not just more intelligent. I understand you’re trying to do consulting differently and I believe in the picture you have created.

Why I believe it. I believe you are an expert. You have the experience and background that gives particular insight into you marketplace. I believe you plan to use your insight for good. I also know that you’re irritated. You have seen so many other experts do the same thing repeatedly and their approach adds little value. You aren’t impressed that the status-quo gets reinforced year after year with no real movement in the marketplace. You know it’s time to shake it up and you know your company can do it.

Being in business means more to you than just the money itself. You could’ve taken a more lucrative path if you wanted, but instead you chose a path that has meaning in it. At the same time, you understand that being a responsible business means making a profit. You plan to continue your profitable ways, but you also understand that there needs to be some substance in your business if you are going to stay excited.

Relevance to you. I realize that you are not a normal consultant. You don’t give normal advice and you don’t work with normal clients. You created your business to have a specific impact on the world. That’s a different kind of intention and as a company we know your kind of intention requires a different kind of care.

At the same time, you understand that the typical business, marketing, and management advice will not satisfy your desire to grow. You know you need something different. Perhaps you already have grasped those basics, but you’re looking for the next level of insight to help your particular kind of business grow. We understand that the support you need is more than just informative resources. Your business needs to be cultivated and that is why we include measures of accountability into our programming. We want to be sure the cultivation process happens. Your business should get a little better quarter after quarter, year after year.

Your intention has the power to make a difference in your chosen path. The more unique the intention you choose, the more unique the care needs to be in order to push your intention forward in the right direction. We accept the responsibility of working with you as you build your awesome consulting business.

With the diversification of computer industry and rapid changes in technology, careers related to computer and information technology are one of the fields most people are trying to fill. The competition in this field has doubled every year. However, with the vast array of industries requiring IT experts and other IT consulting jobs, this profession is still viable and profitable.

One of the best positions to consider is being a computer consultant. Computer consulting career is one of the most exciting fields to look at, not only because it offers big compensation but it offers the flexibility in schedules and the freedom to choose the people you want to work with. However, the decision to become consultant should not be taken lightly. It needs proper education, several experience related to this profession as well as skills that you can use during IT consulting jobs. As a computer consultant, your clients trust and recognize you as the expert in this field expecting you to deliver results.

To enter in this profession, you should already have many marketable skills that you can offer to your client. It will be an advantage if you have many years working experience in one of many fields in computer industry. If not, you can partner with qualified consultant and subcontract with them. This technique will help you build the list of possible clients that you can work with in the future. Your client will be your bread and butter in advancing to this profession. It is important to leave a positive impression to every client that you work with. One client may result to another client if you did a good job.

Aside from being technically well verse, there are also other aspects that you should consider like: marketing skills, entrepreneurship skills, planning skills, time management skills and other skills needed for successful IT consulting jobs. Above all, you should be a self motivated individual because it is not always a happy day in this profession. There are times that you will not get a single client especially if you are just starting. The good thing about this profession is once you set your momentum there will be no stopping unless you said so.

The importance of SEO Consultants…

Now, you might know already what SEO means, but only few know how it really works and do wonders in your business. Having your own website is just a start of marketing your services or products worldwide. You need to make it visible to your potential clients or customers when they search the web. This is where the search engine optimisation experts come in, they are individuals and firms who know just what to do.

Benefits you can get from SEO Consultants:

1. SEO consulting is easier since they can explain to you the process and possible ways to increase the page rank of your website in popular search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.

2. Everything will be clear to you through the reports they submit, so you can definitely monitor the progress of your pages every now and then.

3. You can save time and effort trying to increase the ranks of your pages on your own.

4. Being number 1 ranked in the search engine results means an increase of visitors looking for what you have to offer. More clicks on your website and potentially more clients, which can lead to higher revenues.

5. Visibility of your site and pages to your target market will be maintained which is a great advantage for you towards other competitors in the same category.

6. Assurance that you can contend with whatever problems in your online marketing strategy with the help of your search engine consultant.

7. If the results are unsatisfactory, you have the option to either continue or terminate your contract with that the seo consultant. Thus, finding an excellent professional to do the job for you is critical and must be done wisely.

8. More time for your other marketing strategies since you don’t have to worry about your page rankings.

9. Faster output when it comes to generating human traffic through keyword optimization because every keyword will be utilized properly according to your target URL.

10. All the important pages in your website will be focused and promoted by your SEO Consultant, so all of them will appear in the results list when they are searched.

SEO consultants understand what you need

Search engine optimization is a very broad topic and a complex process. It’s not easy to understand especially if you are new to it, that’s why there are SEO Consultants who help business and company owners kick start their visibility in the search engines. Don’t be hesitant to ask for help and hire someone knowledgeable about the whole SEO process as you will be the one to benefit from it in the long run. Just be sure that you employ someone whom you can trust and is an expert in this field. That person must be reliable enough and can carry out good results in a matter of time. If you have this kind of SEO Consultant then you’re in good hands because that individual will certainly maintain your high page ranking.

Depending on the size of a company and its computer culture, implementing new computer solutions can range from being a quick, hassle free process to a complex process that requires a computer consultant to consider various criteria before proposing solution. In most cases, large companies where multiple employees will access a new computer system require computer consultants to conduct an in depth needs assessment that considers computer solutions form a variety of company angles, including a company’s organizational structure, its human resources, its competition, its customers, its employees at all levels, its staffing and employee turnover, its management and employee reward programs, its sales figures, its marketing strategy and its mission, goals and objectives, among other concerns.

In a needs assessment of this depth, the goal is to provide solutions that increase a company’s effectiveness without first resulting in a learning curve that compromises employee productivity and negatively impact a company’s bottom line. Nevertheless, some managers exhibit an unwillingness to pay for in depth needs assessments and instead prefer that a computer consulting firm implement solutions from a more superficial standpoint. In most cases, a manager’s reluctance to opt for an needs assessment results from the belief that the money would be better invested in specific remedial sessions, which leaves a computer consulting firm with two options: give the company what they want, even if it won’t result in the long-term benefits that the company desires, or insist on the importance of conducting a needs assessment in the face of losing business.

In addition to these two scenarios, some computer consulting firms take the approach that, if they give a client what they want, the client will return for additional consulting after discovering that the consultant was right about a needs assessment. However, the likelihood of a company returning to a consultant that didn’t implement an effective solution the first time is risky at best, even as the poor results came from stubbornness on the part of management. The optimal outcome for implementing complex solutions depends on two things: the consultant’s remaining set on an in depth needs analysis and management’s willingness to balance start up cost against long term cost savings and profits.

When a computer consultant dialogues with a company whose solutions implementation involves a variety of concerns, the consultant becomes a guide and mentor in addition to a technical specialist. Whereas management is usually in the position of asking questions and considering answers, its role is usually reversed in the case of large-scale computer solutions. In addition, because computer consultants are expensive and management’s job is to cut costs, the reluctance to perform an in depth needs analysis is understandable. Nevertheless, having a reputable computer consulting firm perform a thorough needs assessment is one of the most critical investments a company can make.

One of the most commonplace complaints encountered within professional IT Departments working as part of a larger organisation is that they have somehow ‘lost control’ of a group of external consultants originally introduced to assist with a particular project.

The problem

There are many excellent IT Support Consultancies delivering real benefit to organisations.

Yet sometimes someone within the in-house IT Department (or the wider business sponsoring area) designated to ‘manage’ the external consultants’ activities suddenly finds that he or she has been bypassed in the management chain.

The reality becomes that the consultants are now de-facto reporting directly to someone at the top of the organisation on the business management side. This relationship is often at a senior partner level within the consultancy and executive sponsor level of the client organisation. The link is often built by a consultancy under the Trojan Horse auspices of ‘executive level relationship management’.

This can effectively blur accountability and result in nobody really being able to hold the external consultants to account for their activities, decisions, productivity and cost-effectiveness. The reality is that multiple communication channels are opened up to the client’s executive sponsorship level and the in-house project manager has become someone who can be easily bypassed when required.

The result is that the in-house PM becomes not the controller of the external consultants but rather an ‘administrative facilitator’ to assist with their largely independent activities.

Worse, blurring the lines of management accountability is sometimes used intentionally by consultants with a view to providing opportunities for cross-selling their services to other areas of the organisation.

Given that very significant numbers of major IT projects fail and post mortems often cite a contributory cause as being a failure to control and integrate external consultants, it’s imperative that organisations should be aware of this potentially very serious issue and address it accordingly.

What can be done

To ensure that the project remains under tight control and to reduce the chances of failure, the following governance steps should be taken:

1. It should be recognised that many external consultancies will naturally have an unspoken and usually unacknowledged objective to avoid being controlled and held accountable by senior management anywhere in the sponsoring organisation.

Their intention will usually be to secure an executive-level relationship with the sponsoring company whilst notionally recognising the project manager’s authority.

2. The governance structures of the client organisation should understand this to be ‘business as usual’ but also something which is fundamentally in conflict with basic project control disciplines and the need for the project manager to be the focus of communication and REAL total resource management.

3. If a senior partner in the consultancy wishes to have a direct engagement at relationship management level, the sponsoring organisation should insist this is through their appointed project manager. Insisting upon this will typically result in the consultancy’s senior partner rarely, if ever, appearing on the scene.

Removing exclusive project manager control of external consultancy communications and their engagement/relationship management with his or her own company effectively undermines the PM and removes his or her ability to totally control external consultancy resources on a daily basis.

To ensure project success, there should never be any doubt as to who is ‘in charge’ and that person should be at a senior operational management or junior executive level within the sponsoring organization.

Of course, it should also be recognised that controlling highly-professional and very well-qualified external IT consultants demands the highest calibre of internal project management. Asking someone with relatively little experience of managing a major project to deliver it safely and to take control of powerful external provider organisations in doing so, may be unrealistic bordering naïve.

However, even the most experienced and capable project managers must have the full and unqualified support of their executive level if they are going to successfully manage and rein-in those occasionally difficult-to-control major external consultancies.

Do you wonder how professional athletes keep in shape? How an actor keeps up on his or her ability to be a consistent entertainer? Have you ever wondered how YOU can become good at something? The answers are practice and coaching. A Business Consultant is a coach for your business, who should be able to help you practice the traits needed to be successful in your business.

How you choose a coach is a matter of personal preference. You can choose an online entity, a company in town, or an individual consultant. It does not matter, as long as you understand the requirements a consultant or business coach should have, prior to making a final decision. The fact is that you cannot accept everyone or every company at face value, especially in today’s volatile business world. This premise is exceptionally true for business consultants and coaches, because the entity you choose could ultimately be holding your livelihood in their hands. So, with this understanding, there are a few things you should know about any potential consultant, coach or firm prior to engaging them within your company.
The very first thing you should measure a coach or consultant on is his credentials. Any true quality consultant or firm will have their credentials available to you at any time. In fact, most reputable firms will already have the permission to use a cross-section of their clients as marketing references, giving you a glimpse of whom has hired them to date. It is very important that you contact a client or two, making sure any information given was accurate.

Second, you need to make sure your consultant has some experience, or is at least managed by someone who does. Many times, firms will introduce new consultants into a business, without letting the clients know they are new. You do not want to pay fees for an inexperienced consultant, to help train someone’s staff. Further, if you are going to allow a less experienced consultant work in your business, you want to know that an experienced mentor is working with them to make sure your company is successful.

Third, accreditations and reputation. Hiring a firm that has a broad experience base and has backed that experience up by joining industry groups, associations, public groups like the Chamber of Commerce or Better Business Bureau; show some integrity in their approach toward their own business. Also, industry specific training, that shows an investment to learn more about an industry or consulting, will always be beneficial to a business.

Fourth, beyond reference checking, meet some of the stakeholders who will be working with you. You can gain a lot of information by having a conversation on the phone, or even an email exchange with your potential consultant or coach. One thing you can ask is if you will be working with more than one person and if you can speak to more than one of them, which creates an opportunity to learn about the team.

Fifth, do they have a structured plan? It is an undeniable truth that organization and communication will make or break any business. Having a consultant that does not approach each client with a plan, will most likely cause a failure in your business. This does not mean your business will fail, but the objective of the consultant is to fix something, this cannot happen without a structured approach. Make sure that each firm or consultant being considered presents a plan that is clear and concise. There are no shortcuts to learning new things in your business.

Choosing a consultant is a big step for any business owner or manager. There are so many areas within a business that can be affected by multiple issues, many of which are third party or seemingly uncontrolled. By engaging a coach or consultant with a structured plan, you and your company will have the practice it needs to react consistently to business issues, over the life of your company.

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