Every entrepreneur gets to a point when they aren’t an expert in a particular aspect of their business. This could be any aspect such as hiring, finances, communications, marketing, quality control etc. You can’t feel bad about it, it's totally normal. Nobody is an expert in everything and you shouldn’t expect to be. So how do you deal with difficulties that are out of your expertise? 

When we are sick we consult a doctor. When we don’t know an answer, we ask an expert. In business, the answer is the same, we ask an expert. That is why there are consultants for every expertise. 

Why Should You Hire A Consultant?

A consultant is an expert in a topic with extensive experience in the field. Hiring a consultant is tapping into their experience, an experience that is developed through years of making mistakes and trial and error. A consultant has learned from mistakes and has found what works and what hasn’t. When hiring a consultant, you are not hiring a person, you are hiring a history, a history of experience that can help you avoid making the same mistakes they did. They can fast-track you to the place you want to be wasting less time. 

Benefits of Hiring A Consultant

Objectivity

Entrepreneurs often get blinded by their love for their company. A good consultant has a neutral perspective on your business where roadblocks and clear problems in your business may be more evident to an independent consultant than the business owner. 

Bias 

A consultant is an independent contractor without a place in the hierarchy of a business. In such a position, a consultant has the convenience of a viewpoint without consequence throughout every level of the business. A consultant, though paid by you, is not an employee and is not affected by any decisions made for the business and has not built a relationship with the staff which could affect their judgment. 

Further to this, an employee can endure consequences as a result of a decision that might be best for your business, but not for the employee (or a colleague). Alternatively their opinion could also be beneficial for the employee and not the better decision for the business. This means an employee cannot really have an unbiased viewpoint. 

An employee is also influenced by their position within the company and can thus be biased telling you what you want to hear, and not necessarily what you need to hear. 

An unbiased opinion is difficult to get and is one of the major benefits of hiring a consultant. 

Cost Effectiveness

Although a consultant’s rate may seem high whether that be hourly, daily or weekly, they are still usually a cheaper option than taking on an employee whether full-time or part-time. Besides salary, you also save in benefit payments, no severance, time to hire etc. A consultant is only paid for the time they are used and this provides the best value for money. 

In addition, the value for money of a consultant cannot be overstated in that you pay for hours or days, and avoid weeks or months of trial and error or wrong choices. Hiring a consultant to improve your business means more immediate results and thus increased productivity, profits, efficiency etc. now rather than later. This alone helps you stay ahead of the curve and ahead of the competition. 

Customization

A consultant will give you direction on how to improve an aspect of your business. An added benefit is that implementing these improvements can be customized for you and your business. Although some changes may clearly be an advantage to any business, implementing them is not always as easy so your consultant should be able to build a strategy and timeline on implementing the changes within your business. 

Summary

To summarize the benefits of hiring a consultant, consider the following statement: 

“Hiring a consultant gets you an objective, honest and unbiased analysis of your business from an expert who will provide you with a strategy to implement improvements in the shortest time frame possible.”

Often, consultants are the key to moving your business forward. You don’t have to be an expert in every aspect of your business but if your business is at a standstill, you should take advantage of the power of consultants. They are there to help. You won’t regret it.