Six Reasons You Need To Hire A Business Consultant Today

Even if your business is meeting its goals and moving towards your vision, there is almost always an area, department, or segment that is underperforming at any given time. Whether it’s sales, finance, HR, or product development, every area of the business will struggle at some point. In some cases, it might be due to poor leadership. In others, it may be a reluctance to adopt new technology or change outdated processes. Regardless of the reason, an underperforming segment of your business can have a rippling effect across the entire organization.

Change can be difficult for any organization, but oftentimes it’s necessary in order to achieve a desired business outcome. Businesses turn to consultants to help serve as a catalyst for change, identify inefficiencies, and bring new life to outdated and ineffective processes. Consultants help businesses of all sizes take an unimpassioned look at operations (just the facts, ma’am…) and help make meaningful changes that improve performance and increase revenue. If your organization has been struggling with an underperforming segment that is leading to revenue loss, a business consultant can help. 

If you’ve been on the fence about working with a consultant, here are six reasons why you might need to hire one today:

1. Employees Are Leaving

Employee turnover can be incredibly disruptive to business processes and can have a negative impact on your bottom line. When departments face a revolving door of employees, it becomes difficult to achieve goals and objectives. Moreover, hiring, training, and onboarding new hires is incredibly expensive.

Employees often leave organizations for three reasons: they are underpaid, unfilled, or not aligned with leadership. Employees want recognition, clear career progression, and attainable goals. If employees are leaving, it’s most likely because your organization is not providing these things, and unfortunately, by the time managers identify the issue, it’s often too late.

A business consultant can serve as an objective onlooker and spot issues that may be causing employee dissatisfaction. Business consultants can also help your organization implement standard best practices for capturing, documenting, and acting on employee feedback. By helping you hear and retain key employees, a consultant can make your teams more effective and reduce onboarding costs.

2. You Can’t Retain Customers

Retaining existing customers is just as important as new customer acquisition, yet it often takes the backseat in many sales-focused organizations. Growing your customer base without growing customer lifetime value (LTV) is like flying a plane with one wing. Furthermore, acquiring new customers is often much more expensive than cross-selling or upselling existing ones.

Businesses often lose customers due to competition, a lack of satisfaction, or a lack of communication. A business consultant can help you examine your product as well as your customer retention marketing campaigns and ultimately help you determine the underlying issue. By helping you get to the root of your customer retention issues, a business consultant can help significantly increase revenue.

3. You Want To Go Agile

Large organizations have long relied on traditional planning practices and project pipelines to drive an organization towards results. However, more and more organizations are abandoning planning in favor of new, agile methodology — an iterative, flexible approach to completing projects. This approach allows businesses to remain nimble, adapt to market conditions, and produce deliverables at a faster pace.

Implementing agile often requires a culture change. It requires employees to change the way in which they work, think, communicate, and prioritize. Because change can be difficult, especially when it’s forced or required by leadership, a business consultant can step in and serve as an objective third party and a catalyst for the change. Businesses of all sizes hire consultants to implement agile methodology into their day-to-day processes. By working with a consultant to implement agile, you can make your teams significantly more productive and drive your organization towards your desired objective.

4. You’re Not Closing Deals

Closing the deal is the most important part of the sales process. If you’re moving prospects to the end of the sales pipeline, but failing to put them on the books, this could signal a major issue with your sales team, product, or company reputation. Failing to close the deal means you’re making significant investments in marketing, lead acquisition, lead qualification, and ultimately failing to recover your costs.

Whether it’s a lack of qualifying the prospect, poor relationship building, or a product issue that is not readily apparent, holes in the sales process can often be blind spots for organizations. By communicating with both won and lost customers, and your sales team, a good business consultant can help you evaluate your product, sales pitch, and sales pipeline to determine where improvements should be made.

5. You’re Not Hiring The Right Talent

There is a reason why many SMB’s outsource recruiting to an agency — it can be really hard to do it well. However, the benefits of implementing an in-house recruiting program are two-fold: you can set your business up with the talent it needs to thrive and produce results, and you can realize significant cost savings.

As the employment market continues to pick up, employers are once again competing for top talent. If you’re failing to hire the right fit for your roles, there could be real gaps in your recruiting or interviewing process. A business consultant can work with your HR staff to determine the most effective ways to source talent. They can also help internal recruiters evaluate the roles needed, what skills they should possess, and provide best practices for evaluating talent for “Fit” in these roles. By finding the right talent, your organization will be set up for success.

6. You’re Constantly Changing Directions

As a company leader, you’re responsible for your organization’s five-year plan, which means you need to constantly be thinking about how to evolve your organization, improve your products and services, and prepare for shifts in the market. Determining your organization’s five-year goals and objectives can be a challenge, but putting them into practice can be even more difficult. Leaders who struggle to determine their mission and objective, often run the risk of frequently changing directions. When organizations constantly change directions, they quickly lose employee engagement.

Consultants can help leaders step back and formulate an effective five-year vision for their organization. They can even take it one step further and help leaders figure out how to effectively communicate that vision and help prepare the organization to set sail for their intended destination. A clear vision and a strategic plan are keys to moving your organization in the direction you want it to go.

Many businesses face challenges that are not unique. Businesses of all sizes and all industries struggle with hiring, marketing, sales, and leadership. Because consultants have the opportunity to work with a diverse set of businesses, they have direct experience and proven expertise in helping businesses overcome all types of challenges. If your business is struggling with a problem that is hurting productivity or decreasing revenue, it may be time to finally hire a business consultant. Contact Lilly Consulting Group today.

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