What Do Business Consultants Do & When You Should Get One
Major Points of the Article
What do business consultants do - essentially most things due to their extensive and diverse knowledge across multiple industries (i.e. similar to a Chief Strategy Officer CSO)
Business consultants save you time and money
Many business problems are interdisciplinary and require the broad expertise of business consultants
There are four situations when it is the right time to hire a business consultant and a fifth if you are stuck
An Introduction To The World Of ‘Consultants’
As a business owner, the type of consultants available to you is plentiful. Ranging from accounting to operations, these business professionals are specialists in their field and can help you solve specific business problems. Let’s take a look at the most frequently used ones.
1. Accountants
Accountants are among the most common business consultants, and they are responsible for managing the financials of your business. Whether you have a full-time, in-house accountant or only need to seek accounting advice every quarter, you will likely have to work with an accountant while running your business.
Accountants can help you with:
Buying, starting, or selling your business
Preparing financial statements
Managing financial records
Fulfilling employee obligations such as PAYG and superannuation
Tax requirements such as goods and services tax (GST) and business activity statements (BAS)
To ensure that you are receiving quality accounting advice and services, you should consider the following criteria when choosing an accountant:
Qualified and belong to a professional accounting body. In Australia, these include:
Familiar with the type of accounting software you use.
Have experience working with clients in a similar industry and can understand your unique business needs.
Have also worked with larger-sized clients so are capable of continuing to handle your finances as your business grows.
2. Financial Consultants
Also known as financial planners, financial consultants can assist you in making the most out of your business capital. They usually begin by collecting detailed information about your company’s financial situation and help you devise a plan that can meet your future goals. Financial consultants can give advice about investing, superannuation, retirement planning, succession planning, risk management, insurance and tax strategies.
In Australia, it is a requirement that your financial consultant holds an Australian financial services (AFS) licence.
3. Lawyers/Legal Experts
Regardless of how careful you are in managing your business, there will probably come a time when you will require legal advice. But you don’t just have to seek the advice of a lawyer when you need help getting out of a sticky situation. Legal experts can also assist you in moving forward with your business while staying compliant with all aspects of the law.
Legal experts can help you with:
Choosing or changing the structure of your business
Complying with regulations
Protecting your intellectual property
Drafting and negotiating contracts
Conducting legal analysis and research
Settling disputes and resolving conflicts
4. Marketing Consultants
Marketing consultants will use traditional and digital marketing techniques to help you define your brand, understand your target customers and develop campaigns to better reach them.
Some of the assistance you can expect to receive from a marketing consultant include:
Identifying your unique selling point that differentiates your brand from competitors
Developing a marketing plan to help your business achieve its short-term and long-term goals
Creating or redesigning your brand (e.g. logos, colours, slogans, packaging)
Building your brand equity to add value to your products/services
Implementing advertising campaigns and/or promotions
5. Digital Consultants
As the world continues to shift into the digital space, so must your business. Digital consultants offer their digital skills as a service and can help you boost your online presence through tasks such as:
Designing and managing your website
Creating engaging online content
Search engine optimisation (SEO) to increase your ranking on Google
Marketing your business online
Managing and growing your social media on platforms such as Instagram and TikTok
6. Operations Consultants
Operations are all about solving the efficiency problems of your company. By assessing your current day-to-day business activities and optimising them to improve productivity. Essentially, operations consultants can help you establish a strong workflow, giving you more time to focus on growing other aspects of your business.
7. What Do Business Consultants Do?
We mentioned how the above consultants are specialists, helping you target one specific business area. But what if you need help with your business as a whole? This is where general business consultants come in. Much like Chief Strategy Officers (CSOs), business consultants are highly skilled business professionals who have likely started their careers in a narrow area such as finance. But over the years, they have gained expertise across all areas of business to assist you in the wide array of challenges your business may face. Essentially, they can be all-encompassing of the listed consultants above and more...
Business Consultants Provide Greater Value
One of the most significant advantages of hiring a business consultant who is knowledgeable in multiple business areas is the value that they provide compared to specialty consultants. This is because the broad expertise that good business consultants possess equips them with the skills to help you with a wide range of challenges. Therefore, there is no need for you to employ several individual specialty consultants, saving you time and money.
Plus, it is very often that the business problems you face are interdisciplinary, making business consultants the perfect people to help you get through them.
When Is The Right Time To Get A Business Consultant?
Business consultants can work with your business during any stage of the business lifecycle.
While there is no “wrong” time to start talking to a business consultant, there are four situations you might encounter where hiring a business consultant would be the right thing to do before it is too late.
To make it easy for you, our experienced team of business consultants at Paradelta Strategy has bundled up a range of services into packages that will directly address each of the four situations below.
Situation 1. You are experiencing financial distress
If your business capital is continuously shrinking, you are struggling to get rid of your debt and the countless hours you are putting in don’t seem to be paying off, don’t just wait for things to get better, talk to a business consultant.
The Business Turnaround package begins with a review of your company’s debt and expenditures to pinpoint the areas of overspending that could be affecting your profit margins. Then, by identifying these immediate savings, our business consultants can work with you to distribute these savings elsewhere or help you refinance your capital structure to ensure that you are on your way to repaying your debt.
Situation 2. You want to accelerate the growth of your business
Whether you want to increase your revenue and profits, release new products or services, or are looking to expand into a new market, the Business Growth package is perfect for you.
Essentially, our business consultants will analyse the market for potential opportunities and determine the best course of action to take. These growth opportunities may include new locations, new product lines, opening new stores, franchising and much more.
Situation 3. You want to expand your customer reach and increase sales
Let’s say you are a healthy business that is making a good profit and want to further build on this momentum.
By selecting the Marketing & Sales package, our business consultants will devise an effective and achievable marketing strategy, review and improve your current sales systems, assist in training your team’s sales skills, and monitor lead generation and conversions.
Situation 4. You are being held back by inefficient business operations
As the CEO of your business, it is your responsibility to make the tough decisions and oversee your company’s vision, strategy and mission. So when the business starts growing faster than you could once handle or there are inefficiencies within your operations, it is time to talk to us about the Business Operations package.
Our consultants will take the heavy load off of your shoulders by improving operational efficiency and productivity through technology and automation which in turn, increases profitability and gives you more time to work on more important matters.
Situation 5. Unsure or you are stuck
Alternatively, if you are unsure or felt like you have tried everything and your business growth has plateaued, then Paradelta Strategy can provide fresh eyes and do a whole business review (i.e. analyse, improve, and implement)...
So is your business currently experiencing one of the four situations outlined above? If the answer is yes, you should consider Paradelta Strategy, a business strategy and brand equity building company that specialises in reviewing and improving your business. Over the years, we have helped businesses across Australia to grow and expand, nationally and internationally, and grow significantly in profits. To get assistance with your business, simply email us at hello@paradeltastrategy.com.au or schedule a no-obligation discovery call here.
