If you’ve been in the online marketing industry for awhile now, you may be feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the different things that need to be done on a daily basis (consistently!) to create, and then grow your business. Whether you’re an affiliate marketer, web designer, writer, or involved in an MLM company, it can be quite a task, and this is where a business consultant/SEO expert can help.
You may ask why this is. Well, while most business consultant/SEO experts charge a hefty fee and don’t take the time to explain things to their clients, a good one is different. And the reason for this is that he has been where you currently are. He started out on the online business road when he realized that there were two choices: one, do like his friends were and work for someone else, not making nearly enough. Or, two, learn all he could about online marketing and put it into action.
But what will you learn from a business consultant/SEO expert? A good one takes the time to thoroughly analyse your business, and provides feedback as to what you can do to increase your profits, streamline your sales funnel and processes, and take your business to the next level.
This is the key thing that a good consultant will do: take into account your goals, analyse your current processes and then create a custom plan that they help you follow. Remember, business consultants/SEO experts can only do so much, ultimately the action is up to you.
But what if you don’t have a business model, or process? What if you’re just starting out?
In addition, most business consultants only focus on one specific method or one small part of the whole process. A proper business consultant/SEO expert focuses on: niche research, getting targeted traffic and then using the most effective methods to drive that traffic to your site, creation and refinement of your sales funnel, design and implementation of lead capture, so that you have targeted hungry prospects ready to buy the solution you over, plus much more. And he is always willing to answer questions. After all, what is the point of doing something if you don’t understand why you’re doing it?
Starting a new business is not an easy task and it requires one to have a rich corpus of knowledge from where one can draw inspiration. One of the ways that you can gain this knowledge is to browse for information through the Internet. The limitation with this is that, you may not get to synthesize the information to your benefit. You may come across terms that may not be clear to you and have no one to refer to.
This is where small business consulting comes in. It simply means that you will pay a visit to enterprise advisers and get to learn as much as you can from them. By so doing, you are less likely to go wrong in starting, growing or building your enterprise. The consultants work with you a great deal and take you through a step by step procedure on how to go about the venture. Furthermore, you can always fall back on them if something fails to work.
Some of the benefits that you draw from small business consulting are many and just to mention a few, you get a team of personal board of advisers. These are people like you who have been in your shoes and who know how to run an enterprise. Together you can form a mastermind group and learn form each others experiences.
By going the consulting way, you will be able to add value to your venture. This is by spending more time in seminars, webinars and teleconferences and getting to hear of other people success stories as well as how they got to overcome the failures, risks and challenges that came their way.
As a retired entrepreneur from the franchising sector, and doing a little consulting in my spare time, I have come across some insight that is very interesting to those who are actually in the business of consulting, information that like to share with you today. This advice is free of charge, and is most apropos to a startup consulting practice.
Often, when someone contacts me to help consult them in their company, they ask what the price will be. Interestingly enough, the price should not be the critical issue, oh sure, there are a lot of price gougers out there. Not long ago in fact, someone tried to explain how they were worth $2000 per hour to help new online marketers increase their sales, when they’ve never really done anything worthy in the industry to date. So, there are some folks out there that abuse the privilege of the word consultant.
Still, the reality is that if you find a person who has been there before and done what you wish to do, and they were successful at it, then that person is worth quite a bit. So, when a client asks you as a consultant; how much do you charge? You should give them a straightforward answer and if they balk at the price, you should ask them how much is their company worth, and how much is it worth for them to succeed in all of their goals and objectives?
You see, fast moving companies that can avoid the risks, pitfalls, barriers, and problems in their path will succeed, and those that can’t will get beat up, passed by, decimated by the competition, and all they will have to show for it all in the end is endless battle scars, pessimism, cynicism, sarcasm, and excuses. So, ask them once again; how much is your company worth to you? Please think on this.
Have you ever wondered what’s more important; having a Confident CEO, or having one that relies on coaches, mentors, and consultants? If you run a company as a CEO, and you have been hired by the board of directors, and you work for the shareholders and your job is to increase profits, maintain quarterly objectives, and create shareholders value. A CEO that is hired to run a company ought to have the experience, observational ability, strength of character, and experience to get the job done.
This is why many companies spend lots of money to hire the very best CEOs. However, if a Chief Executive Officer is constantly hiring consultants to bless their initiatives, and use them as CYAs in case a project fails, or a business unit blows up, then what good are they? If a CEO is not confident enough in their own abilities or if they lack the strength of character to carry out the mission, and worry more about hunting around to hire a coach, then perhaps you have the wrong CEO.
After all, you hired a CEO to run a company, not a coach, and a Chief Executive Officer which has experience does not need a mentor, they should use the Board of Directors as counsel. Most consultants will tell you that the reason they were hired by Fortune 500 companies to do consulting work, was not because the company didn’t know what to do, or didn’t have a plan, but rather they needed someone to fall back on in case the plan didn’t work, so they hire a consultant to look over what they are doing and give them the recommendations they are asking for, as outlined in their strategy or plan.
It seems like a silly process and it is something a bureaucrat would do. What companies need is competent CEOs that know what they’re doing, have a clear vision, and have the strength of character to get the job done. If they Board of Directors, and executive management team, or a Chief Executive Officer is constantly looking to hire consultants to back them up, then I bet Warren Buffet would want to have that team ditched, and replaced. Perhaps you should read his essays on corporate governance. Please consider all this.
Lance Winslow – Lance Winslow’s Bio [http://www.aircraftwashguys.com/historicals.shtml]. Lance Winslow says do not hire a coach or consultant unless you need one, and if you do make that call; phone card
Note: All of Lance Winslow’s articles are written by him, not by Automated Software, any Computer Program, or Artificially Intelligent Software. None of his articles are outsourced, PLR Content or written by ghost writers. Lance Winslow believes those who use these strategies lack integrity and mislead the reader. Indeed, those who use such cheating tools, crutches, and tricks of the trade may even be breaking the law by misleading the consumer and misrepresenting themselves in online marketing, which he finds completely unacceptable.