Small management consulting firms help the growth of small businesses by identifying factors that their business lacks and coming up with the best possible solutions. They develop new ideas and strategies to help small businesses grow to a larger scale and reach a greater mass of people.
What do small business consultants do?
They carry out case studies comparing their client’s company to similar companies in the same market. This shall help them identify the loopholes in their client’s company and mend them. Then, they conduct a research analysis on the market, its needs and demands, and come up with an extremely innovative idea to boost the sales and customer database of the company. Small management consulting firms also get into the company with their employees. They help you identify the employees which are fruitful for your company. They also help you to lead campaigns for better sales of your products.
When to hire a management consulting firm?
The perfect time to hire a small management consulting firm would be when you are either facing a loss, stagnancy in your business, or if your business is not growing as per the way you imagined. Once you accept the fact that there is some problem with your company, that would be the perfect time to start looking for consultants outside your company. Do you know how much a management consulting firm costs? It is way too expensive. At the same time, imagine what would happen if you invest in the wrong firm or at the wrong time—such a waste of money. The correct time to invest in a marketing firm is when you need a consultation on your current business. The market trends, costs and needs change dynamically. Every company or individual needs someone, time in and out, to understand this need and implement it to favour the company. You can always opt for small management consulting firms rather than invest in a top branding agency. This way, you will get many minds coming up with better ideas each time. They will help you develop a strategy for you to market your brand. When you involve a couple of small management consulting firms, you will get many ideas and different approaches and angles for the same. It will help you establish the best option for you. Primarily, a management consulting firm will identify the existing problems in your company or brand. Then, they will come up with solutions for them. Once a perfect solution has been established, they shall study the existing market and customers for your company, along with a competitive study on the leading companies related to your product. Based on this, they curate newer and innovative product ideas and creative marketing strategies.
How much should you pay a marketing consultant?
Paying people for their ideas is such an unnecessary idea. How many of you think about management consulting firms in this way? That is a completely bogus and useless idea. First of all, consider the conversion rates that these firms can offer you. Think about the growth rate you shall have in exchange for this consultation fee. The consultation charges that you need to pay depend on the type of marketing consultant group you will opt for. For example, there are big firms, small firms, personal consultants and freelance consultants. Big firms are generally expensive. But at the same time, they tend to have loads of experienced consultants with qualified degrees. However, you might miss out on a personal touch while working with them. When you are in touch with small management consulting firms, it is cost-efficient and can provide you with a personal touch to some extent. If you have a bigger budget, it would be ideal to opt for a few small management consulting firms. This will invite more ideas and creative insights for you. Personal management consultants can either be extremely expensive or pocket friendly. It all depends on the experience and degree your consultant has. If you are looking for contract-based consulting firms, freelancing consultants might be the best option for you. This will be a budget-friendly option for you. But, at the same time, this is completely based on contracts and depends on the availability of the freelance consultant.
Find The Perfect Small Business Consultant
Having a consultant for your company or brand is a necessity these days. As the platform is being shifted to an online platform, this need has just aggravated. From SEO driven content, ranking on Google to conducting sales and online webinars. As we have already concluded that small business consulting firms are a better option for small scale business and entrepreneurs, let us now have a close look at how to decide which small management consulting firm is the best option for you.
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Degree and experience of your consultant
On a general note, smaller firms have fewer employees. They tend to allow a manager just for you and your project, who shall give personal attention to you. You can start by checking their degree and field of experience within their resume. In our opinion, experience outranks a degree at any time. What is your opinion on this?
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The feedback and testimonials of their customers
Feedbacks and testimonials matter a lot. If you are planning on investing your money in themselves and relying on their ideas for your business, you need to know whether or not it works. The best way to understand this is through the feedback and testimonials they have. You can ask them to share their testimonials or check for the testimonials they might have received on their LinkedIn profile. Testimonials will help you understand their work and help you understand their temperament, working pattern, and understanding.
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Are they consultants or have a degree?
To help promote a small business owner, hiring a consultant who himself or herself was one previously would be the best idea. This will help them understand what it is like to be a small business owner, where their happiness lies and what it is like to be one. It shall help them understand the difficulties that all small business owners face. Ask you to be a consultant for their experience as a small business owner. In our opinion, select a consultant who was a small business owner and did great with their own business before moving on to a small management consulting firm.
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Availability of time
This is a crucial factor that people often tend to forget. Try opting for a consulting firm that can take care of your long-term and urgent needs. You don’t want to pay and then be in a waiting period of three long weeks for a meeting with your consultant. An ideal way to take care of this problem would be to fix the number, duration and frequency of regular meetings beforehand, and add them to your contract. You can also mention a clause about urgent meetings.
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Area of expertise
Just like an engineer cannot hear surgeries in the place of a cardiologist, there are areas where consultants have expertise. While some may be the best in the field of attracting high profile clients, some may be better at driving a mass of customers. A few may hold ranks in the technical sector; some may be better off with creative and handmade products. Hence, selecting a small management consulting firm that lays its expertise dealing in your company’s market would be an ideal option.
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Calculate your expenses
Being from a small business, expenses would be the first thing to pop in your head. Once you determine a few small management consulting firms for you, look into their charges. Select the one that is the best for you in terms of quality and finance.
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Terms of contract
Once you have decided on a company, draw up a detailed contract. This must include all the services that the consulting firm shall be providing you, along with the delivery time. Also, keep a bracket for revisions and additional services.
What Does a Management Consultancy Do?
If you are the owner of a small business in London and are currently looking for some consultancy firms for your business, it would be ideal to look out for management consultants. Small management consulting firms have a look at the various facets of a business. It is not only related to improving the sales of your business but looks at its overall development. Different entrepreneurs may have different issues that they face in their business. Some may be dealing with the problem of dealing with clients and retaining them, while someone may have taken their business in the wrong direction. These business owners that might be you in this case need to identify their problems and be guided on the right path. Here are some of the things that management consultancies do for you.
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Develop a sense of their business
This is the prime service that any small management consulting firm can offer to its clients. They do an in-depth study of the business of their clients. Everything from their task force, employees to the raw materials, products and services they offer. Then they identify how the company is currently carrying out its operations and what mistakes are they making presently. Even the smallest mistake in operations, such as the colour of the product or the size of the product or the pattern of services, is marked and identified. Then, a plan is made to work on the development of these mistakes.
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Marketing the brand and increase the sales
Be it a company selling its services or products; it cannot succeed without increasing the number of its customers and sales. To make this happen, it is essential to market the company in the right direction and to the correct audience. There are over hundreds of different ways in which marketing can go wrong. Hence, developing the perfect plan for it is a necessity.
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Develop and exhibit the perfect business plan
Next, the Consulting firm will help you read its stepwise guide on how you can enhance your business. The structure of this business plan not only talks about the business strategies that you need to incur but also the ways in which you can establish them.
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The growth of your business model
If a Consulting firm talks about the current day position of your company and how you can improve over the next six weeks, you might be in the same position after a while. To avoid this stagnancy, the small management consulting firms also provide you with how you can implement their business strategies in the long run. It shall talk about how you can grow your business exponentially, then just in the present day. A Consulting firm that provides you with better information on how you can grow over the next few years is better than the one that talks about the next few months. This section might also include graphs and pictorial presentations for you to judge your growth weather.
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The growth of your employees
Employees are the body of any company. The people that you hire directly or indirectly affect the future of your company. Consultancies will help you identify the employees of your company that are both retaining as well as terminating. The employees that you can retain must also be given proper training for the growth of the company. In the coming time, as a company grows, there might be a need for them to be promoted to better positions. At this time, they must be capable enough to handle it.
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Enhance the skill of your employees
Management consultancy formed will help you curate or advise you on how you can help your employees enhance leadership and staff management skills. At the same time, call to teach you or advise you on how you must take and hold a position of power.
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Identifying the need to alter or change the composition of an organization
As a business progresses, there should be scope to adapt to new changes and openness to learn new things. Consultancy firms advise on managing organizational change in a proper way only to help your employees function better and enhance their morale during the period of change. Under this segment, it also advises you on employees you must train and retain and employees that you should get rid off.
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Improvise on the margins of profit
Other than the number of sales, the profit margin also plays an important role in determining any company’s financial growth. Once the management consultancy firm has established their grounds after completing an in-depth study company, they shall be able to identify how and where you can increase your profit margins. Profit can be increased by decreasing the production cost involved in the making of your product. At the same time, if the small management consultancy firm feels that you or your company would be better off at making profits by increasing the amount of the primary cause of your product, they shall suggest so. The increase in the profit margin, even by a small amount contributes enormously at the end. This amount is an additional income for you, for which you need not work extra.
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Adapt to new changes that are digitalization
The current market is progressing towards digitalization. This is what the consultancy firm should advise you to operate on. They shall identify how you can bring your business up on the digital platform. They will also help you identify the platforms where you must promote your business. This platform shall be identified based on your product or service and your targeted audience. Selecting a firm that specializes in digital marketing and media will help you in today’s times. A firm that can adapt to the changing market and provide you insights on the same to carry out business better is the one that should be selected.
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Improvisations that can be done in your business process
Let us suppose that you are a service providing firm that delivers graphic designing facilities to your customers. Now, you must have fixed an amount ‘x’ for delivering the product ‘y’ in ‘z’ time. However, you have not fixed the number of changes or revisions you would provide to your customer. This shall now create a backlog of work, where your clients keep asking you to revise the design you created for them. This will also affect your future work and be troublesome. Now there is a scope of improvisation in this business process that includes the number of additions, subtractions, or revisions you would provide to your client. This shall not only help you to save some time but will also smoothen your process of work.
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Legal advising
Lastly, any consultancy firm shall be able to advise you on legal grounds. They shall advise you on updates in terms of certificates for registration that you might need to make for your business. They shall also help you to develop a contract that you can sign between you and your client. Under legal advising they also help you to develop the terms and conditions that you can offer your customers.
Best small management consulting firms
Now, let us have a look at the best small management consulting firms that will help your business bloom.
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Argon Partners
At Algona, we focus on your personal brand as well as the foundation of your business. This enables them to establish a mutual ground between their small management consulting firm and you, their client. They do an in-depth analysis, which they call their ‘Discovery Sessions’. They focus not only on the existing projects of the company but also evaluate the possibility of future projects. Then, they develop a customized plan to increase the engagement of the business.
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Out2Bound
Outbound provides you with a step by step method to boost the growth of the business. First, they learn about your company and its ideology and understand where they can work upon. Then they develop a small sales team for your company which shall represent your company and generate sales leads for you. They provide you with updates every week and schedule meetings every month where they discuss your sales strategy. This sales team will also help you do research in the niche of your business. Based on this research, they will plan and execute strategies that will help the company’s overall growth.
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Orchid Black
Orchid Black prides itself on having a strong team that focuses on the details of your company and its products. They have a phenomenal record which marks the excellence of their company. They understand how hard and important it is for you to make decisions. They also give importance to what your visions are concerning your company. Based on this, they follow a three-layer model to uplift the market position of your company.
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BS LLC
BS LLC follows the transition system for their client’s brand and helps them develop a better strategy. They feel designing also plays an essential role in the system. According to BS LLC, customers tend to fall for more unique and innovative concepts or products rather than sticking to the old ones on the market shelves.
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Usman Group
Usman Group is a firm that lays its grounds in digital strategy to help the upliftment of a business. They combine the three pillars of digital marketing that is communication strategy and technology. They feel their digital consultancy provides the best means to solve any and all problems their client’s company faces.
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Flobotics
At Flobotics, they operate with the help of services provided by robotic process automation, commonly known as the RPA. The usage of this technology ensures that your data is consistently processed with great accuracy. It reduces the monotonous and hard work that your employees would need to put in otherwise. The RPA technology at Flobotics eliminates the scope of human error and increases the revenue of your company. With Flobotics, managing audits would be as easy as providing customer service.
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Spectacle Strategy
At Spectacle Strategy, they believe in challenging the existing market ideologies and inculcating innovative and creative ideas. They pair their analysis with a strong creative motive to produce the best business strategy for their customers. Their team is diversified and adapts to inspiration from the real world. They have expanded their services to small scale companies as well as larger ones.
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McKinsey
Mckinsey, one of the leading management consulting firms of its respective industry, is also one of the oldest firms one can find. It has more than a hundred and thirty offices in more than sixty-five countries. After doing an in-depth analysis of your company, McKinsey helps you establish the perfect marketing pitch to help your business flourish.
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Boston Consulting Group
For along. Time consulting a group has been a leader in business strategy. From the CEO of the company to the senior consultant, it has expanded its hands to provide management consulting to all company sectors. Milk company was founded in the year 1963 until it has marked success in terms of with customers. Take Pride in their teams who are extremely passionate about helping the business of the clients grow on a larger scale.
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Meranti Consulting
This firm will help you develop strategies specifically tailored to expand your business exponentially. It helps you to develop engagement programs that will help you to connect with your clients better. This consultancy is based in London. It helps you to develop a perfect business strategy to boost your sales and the overall growth of the company. It also provides assistance for your operations and caters to your needs.
Conclusion
In the end, remember a small management consulting firm has the power to help you with the overall growth of your company. It not only helps you to boost your sales in the present time but also focuses on long term goals. These firms also help you to develop essential leadership skills and understand the position of the employees of your companies. They are also extremely budget-friendly and help get innovative and creative ideas for your services and products. Selecting the perfect small management consulting firm is also a crucial part. If you end up selecting the wrong company, you might end up spoiling your business even more than what it already is and end up in a great monetary loss. You must keep in mind the ways of selecting the right company that we discussed above. Last, all that remains is to see your company grow at a rate that you would have never imagined.
FAQS:
Q1: Are business consultants worth the money?
Ans: On a general note, yes, business consultants are worth your money. They provide you with an outside insight and perspective of your company, identify the problems and their solutions. They come up with unique ways to increase the sales of your company. But, if you land on hiring a wrong and unworthy business consultant, everything can go South.
Q2: How much do consultants charge per hour in the UK?
Ans: Based on the niche of consultancy and the experience of the consultant, they charge somewhere between thirty to one hundred and thirty euros per hour.
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Author Bio
Abhay is a Digital Marketing Guru and an accomplished entrepreneur with an experience of a decade working with various businesses varying from startups to established brands. He co-founded many companies like Logicsofts, PrintYo, CrazyRise and more. He is passionate about SEO and Online Data Analytics, which play a vital role in any business growing and mutating as per the data results. Follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram