I have been receiving e-mails from a consultants who are attempting to solicit business by promising to help me grow my business exponentially.
Being a business owner who continues to want to grow the firm I have skimmed some of these e-mails. I have been intrigued by a couple of the ideas, albeit briefly hinted at. I have then investigated a couple of these ideas a bit farther; even have a friend locate a copy of the gentleman’s book.
The book was not dated, but the ideas were old. We had implemented most of them years before. So it held little value to assisting in growing the firm.
But I have had several clients who have brought in consultants to grow their firms and one had sold a portion of their business to a consultant who they expect to take them beyond the next couple of levels.
The first who brought in a huge nationally known consulting firm had little luck and no growth from the monies spent. They released the consultant after the initial contract for failure to perform. The second brought in a individual whom they knew to consult expecting to be able to tap their contact for business. That was met with a lack of success as well. The one who has sold equity is too soon to know the outcome, yet.
Another client brought in consultants to help is restructuring the firm. They brought in a cookie-cutter outline and analysis, never penetrating beyond the superfluous level and thus failed.
It seems like I am knocking consultants, but that could not be farther from the truth. I am a consultant to my clients at various entry points and at multiple levels. The above failed in my eyes, because they never got to know the true nature of the business and the personality of the employees.
Each entity is unique, even if in a common business segment. The processes and personality of the firms are based on the owner and employees and how they do work or don’t work together. You need to know this to become an agent of change, and a consultant is typically supposed to be an agent of change.
A one size fits all approach does not work, a broad outline may be a starting point, but it needs to be nuanced to fit the company and to get the appropriate buy in from the owner and employees. This means getting to know the client intimately, knowing what is working, what is not working, what to change and what to leave untouched.
This is not something that can be done in a couple of days and truly be successful.