Business consulting can remove some of the burden, enabling business owners to manage their time and energy better.

What is a business consultant?

A business consultant is both experienced and educated in business management and helps improve efficiency and the performance of the business they are working with. They can provide solutions to help strategy management, smoother running of operations and with increasing revenue. Any challenges the company is facing can be tackled in partnership with the consultant, who is fundamentally an asset to the growth of the business.

Having an objective, expert opinion can save both time and resources for a company director. Consultants aren’t as personally invested in operations in the way that managers or employees may be, so having an outside view is helpful in making improvements. A consultant’s broader knowledge in business trends, new processes and industry challenges enables them to give relevant advice. They know the best practices and can identify inefficiencies or issues quickly.

So, how do small business consulting services work?

Good consultants will customise their services to your business, rather than use a generic toolkit. Consulting should be tailored to the individual, or the company, so a consultant should first learn about your business and goals, before devising a strategy that works for you.

Consultants can:

• Provide expertise in specific markets
• Provide advice for financial planning or funding
• Identify challenges and problems and offer practical and pragmatic solutions
• Provide training
• Strategically refocus the business to increase revenue and reduce costs
• Expand the business into new markets or target growth in current markets
• Reorganise the business model.

Once the consultant has learnt as much as possible about the business from the owner and employees, including the physical space, company materials and, of course, finances, they can implement and plan for any of the above changes.

Consultants should do this with empathy for the client’s situation, discretion about operations, flexibility to adapt to the company environment and openness to adapt to the situation, including what resources are available and the lengths the client is willing to go to make changes to the company.

The evaluation phase comes next, where the business consultant has reached a deeper understanding of the company and then works to identify where change is needed. Strengths, weaknesses and problems are evaluated here, alongside solutions and ideas of opportunities to increase profits and grow the business.

During this phase, the consultant should communicate with the client and employees throughout and begin to implement changes, so it is important for everyone within the company to remain open and cooperative. The client and consultant will then agree on a plan to make adjustments to, or restructure, the business. Here, the consultant may have to eliminate liabilities, for instance by making recommendations based on staff performance or disposing of old systems. They should also build on assets, expanding what already works well.

“Consultants bring their ‘best practice’, as they draw on their experience from across many companies and a number of sector specific industries in order to make the relevant changes and improvements to your business.”

Business growth consultants can help you plan for the future to achieve long-term goals, but also provide short-term solutions and advice. Consultants know effective strategies for expansion that have already been tried and tested, so in this way can effectively help your business grow.

Business consulting is like a partnership that helps business owners save money and time and reduces the stress of running all aspects of the business.

If you require small business consulting services or advice on managing company finances and improving your strategy, please contact Charlie Batho, Financial and Forensic Accounting Consultant, at charlie.batho@esarisk.com or on +44 (0)843 515 8686 or via our contact form.