Business Consultant

Benefits of Hiring a Business Consultant

The pressures that small and medium-sized business owners face can be intense. Starting, taking over, or learning to manage a business is hard enough as it is, but such owners also often find themselves having to play the roles of VP Finance, Head of HR, Director of Sales, Marketing Specialist, and many more, all at once. With so many hats to wear, small business owners can quickly run out of capacity and mental strength as well. In fact, having no time to “do it all” is one of the top stresses of small business owners according to Forbes Magazine.

For businesses small, medium, or large, hiring a consultant can be a huge time-saver, and a real asset to growth, while removing direct pressure from business owners.

Consultants can provide expertise and an objective eye to help guide a business, with different consultants specializing in various industries and areas, including strategy and management, operations, human resources, finances, funding opportunities, IT, and sales and marketing. If you are seeking Canadian government grants or wage subsidies for hiring a business consultant, you can view our hiring & training program directory page for a filterable list of available federal and provincial funding programs.

Hiring a Business Consultant: What are the Benefits?

Consultants work closely with business owners and managers to help identify challenges, offer advice, and propose practical solutions. You might think of consultants as doctors who diagnose the problem and prescribe a remedy that alleviates pain. The benefits of hiring a strategy consultant include the following:

Expertise

The main values of consultants include their knowledge, expert skills, and influence. Because consultants work with a variety of businesses, they may have a much broader and deeper knowledge of business trends, industry challenges, and new technologies and processes than internal employees.

In fact, according to Harvard Business School, consultants are fundamental in disseminating innovation and new knowledge within their industries.

Cost Savings

When you hire a consultant, you pay only for the services that you need, when you need them. This can provide substantial savings over hiring a salaried employee with the same level of expertise to complete similar tasks.

Further, consultants in multiple areas—lean manufacturing, proactive funding, financial planning, etc.—can identify areas where you are currently spending more than you need to and help you cut costs.

Time Savings

The experience of consultants means that they know best practices already. For example, a lean consultant can look at a client’s manufacturing process and very quickly identify inefficiencies. With a consultant, there is no need for business owners to reinvent the wheel or lose valuable time to something that can be completed by an expert contractor.

Objectivity

Consultants provide a useful distance from business challenges; they are not emotionally invested in operations in the same way that business owners are and they can more easily identify and address challenges, whether the issue is implementing a new technology or completing a merger or acquisition.

The consultant’s objectivity can be especially important in family-run businesses, where dynamics could be emotional and core problems more difficult to discuss.

Customization

Consultants do not offer a one-size-fits-all solution. Their value comes in learning about each client’s business and goals and tailoring advice and strategy consulting to the specific challenges that the business faces.

This customization means that a consultant’s solutions are much more effective than generic advisory services. For example, a government grant consultant can select funding programs for which your business is clearly eligible and has the greatest chance of success.

Unsure about Hiring a Business Consultant?

Despite the benefits of business consulting services, some business owners may be wary of engaging them. Researcher Lance Lindon has complained that consultants “would borrow our watch to tell us what time it is.” That is, some business owners may feel that consultants cannot tell them anything that they don’t already know. Other business owners and managers may reject consultants out of a discomfort with sharing the business’s problems with an outsider.

However, both concerns can be alleviated by choosing the right consultant for your business, one whose expertise will make a real difference to your firm’s growth. 

For example, consultants can often find opportunities like the Canada Summer Jobs (CSJ) program, businesses that are eligible can receive up to 50-100% of the minimum wage as grants for hiring youth. The CSJ grant is a Canadian government grants program that supports employers who provide supervised career-related work experience to youth employees. Funded placements should provide students with an opportunity to develop their skills and knowledge, preparing them for employment.

Choosing the Right Consultant

Select a consultant with a proven record of results. You might speak to other business owners and managers in your circle and see if you can get a recommendation.

You can also dig into the backgrounds of potential consultants through their websites and social media sites. Who have consultants worked for and what is their educational background? How long have they been in business? Such information will help ensure that your chosen consultant is a qualified expert who will provide concrete results.

As well, in choosing your consultant, remember that the best consultants meet both the technical and psychological needs of their clients.

For instance, your government funding consultants should not only understand funding programs but possess sharp project management abilities; your ideal IT consultant should not only have a deep understanding of the relevant hardware and software, but also possess excellent communication skills.

The Journal of International Management Studies identifies the following additional key soft skills for consultants:

  • Capacity to cognitively collect, synthesize, and analyze information about a business
  • Empathy for the client’s situation
  • Discretion about the client’s operations
  • Adaptation to the client’s readiness for change and available resources
  • Ability to “read” the client’s environment and fit in

Consultants should understand your motives for engaging them and should approach the consulting work as a partnership. Development of this partnership can be the key to a business owner saving time and money and reducing stress while positioning the company for longevity and success. 

Receiving Expert Advice and Growing Your Business

If your business is looking at hiring a business consultant or train your employees, you can view the available list of Canadian federal and provincial programs by viewing our hiring & training program directory page. For application assistance, contact the professional government grant and wage subsidy application writers at Mentor Works, a Ryan company.

Learn how to support your business’s growth by registering for one of Mentor Works’ upcoming events. The events table is frequently updated with webinars and live events covering topics of interest for Canadian SMEs such as government grants and loans, manufacturing trends, software implementation, and more.

Register for A Canadian Government Funding Webinar

22 Comments

  1. I can imagine that a business could really benefit from better management to help them be more productive. Getting a professional that can consult them on how to do better could help them be more efficient. It was interesting to learn about how they will have a lot of advice that is tailored to their challenges and hardships.

  2. If I had more communication support, I would gain—many more clients. These benefits will help applicants to decide what aspect should be chosen.

    1. Well said, Brielle. While there are ways to automate some of your client communication, the more teammates you have that are focused on client engagement, the more impact your business will have on your clients’ success.

  3. There comes a time in the growth and evolution of every business when some key Hiring a Strategic Consultant decisions must be made about how to push the company forward. You may have built a solid foundation and framework for your business and now it is time to streamline your processes or consider hiring C-Level executives. Or perhaps you are in the process of expanding and would benefit from the expertise of someone who has already blazed the path before you. You wrote a very informative post, thanks for sharing.

  4. There are several benefit that consultants can offer to businesses such as, they can provide expertise, best opinion for task. internal and external workshops, help formulate and produce a strategy and much more.

  5. A good consultant should be able to articulate their thoughts in a clear and concise manner. They should also be able to communicate with the client on an intellectual level, while still being able to understand the client’s needs.

  6. Hey! What an informative blog you have penned about the Benefits of Hiring a Business Consultant. Choosing an experienced and skilled business consultant does enable an organization to understand valuable insights and strategies for optimum business development.

  7. Took me time to read all the comments, but I really enjoyed the article. It proved to be Very helpful to me and I am sure to all the commenters here! Its always nice when you can not only be informed, but also entertained! Im sure you had fun writing this article.

  8. Nice tips and details about benefits of hiring a business consultant. I like the best thing about this article is that you have mentioned the difficulties faced by the small business owners. A business consultant can help them in the right direction. Great Article.

  9. This article was so useful for me it really interests me to read such articles, thanks for sharing. Blogs like yours it really helps me learn more day by day, Thanks a lot for this. Really makes things clear and simple.

  10. Informative & knowledgeable blog! Getting a professional to advise you on how to improve could help you become more efficient and help you take your business to the next level. It was fascinating to read why hiring a consultant is crucial since they can assist you in your business and help you make the better decisions.

  11. I have gone through the blog post and I must admit it is very informative. I liked the writing style too. Keep up the good work and share more contents. Cheers!

  12. this article serves as a compelling reminder of the strategic importance of hiring business consultants and leveraging their expertise to drive success.

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