Perhaps one of the most misunderstood questions in business is posed in the title, “Why use a consultant?”
I will cut straight to the chase, there is nothing a consultant can do that you could not do yourself.
There you go, I have said it, and I will say it again, anything a consultant can do you could do as well. Okay, I did change the wording slightly but I don’t want to sound like I’m repeating myself.
I am now quite sure that you are surprised, but that is only part of the story. While, of course, you can do anything that the consultant could do, you might not have the time, skills, desire or any one of another thousand things that will prevent you from doing what the consultant could do.
In the real world, it often makes business sense to hire a specialist to take care of some task or other. For example, most businesses when they require printed materials, contract this work out to a dedicated printing business. They do not try and do it themselves in-house. There are many reasons for this, which include, not part of the core business, a distraction, lack of in-house skills, lack of equipment and let’s be honest it’s just easier to have the printer do it.
So, once we accept that there are tasks that the business needs doing which can be done better by others outside of the business. All that needs to be done, is to find those things that can be done better and by better, I mean more effectively and/or more efficiently. It really doesn’t make any difference, whether the consultant is providing legal services because they are a lawyer, financial services because they are an accountant, IT services because they are technical experts or business services because they are a business expert.
What really matters, is that the business is getting expertise that it does not have in-house, for whatever reason, on a short-term basis. This means that the contracted service is significantly cheaper and then it would be to employ someone full-time to perform the same function. It has the other hidden benefit, that’s the consultant will have a broader range of experiences because they will be working with other businesses in both your and other sectors. This is ever evolving broad range of experience and skills are the real secret ingredient that a consultant brings to your business.
If the goal of the business is to be as productive and effective as possible, then it makes the most sense to leverage a diverse range of skills and experience from a wide range of consultants. Each will bring their own unique perspective, experience and practical take on any situation. After all, it is unlikely that you want a detailed report to put on the shelf. What you most likely want and why you really require any one of the three consultant types, is because you want results. and this will drive your productivity and profits.
DVANA help businesses become exceptional. We do this because we understand business. Building Exceptional Businesses.