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3 Red Flags That Indicate You Need to Hire a Consultant

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Published:
August 14, 2020
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5 minutes
consultport-author
Leo
Experienced copywriter who spends a lot of money at restaurants and regrets it later.

Sometimes, these warning signs can be dealt with internally. But there are some circumstances in which it’s best to let an expert handle the situation. However, the decision to hire a consultant itself takes some thinking and brainstorming.

If you’re still analyzing whether it’s time to hire a consultant to solve your business problems, this article is for you. Let’s discuss the top three tell-tale signs that indicate it’s finally time to visit an online consulting marketplace and find a consultant.

Red Flag #1: Lack of Expert Guidance Is Holding Your Company Back

Is your company’s latest project taking longer to complete than expected? Maybe you need a project management consultant. He will have the expertise to bring your project back on track - and put a big smile on your client’s face. Are your profit margins lower than expected? Then it’s probably time to visit a freelance platform and find the top pricing consultant. Does your company have age-old positions that aren’t relevant these days? Well, then a consultant can help you restructure your business efficiently.

The bottom line is - if you ever feel like your business could do better if you had an expert, then it’s probably time to hire one.

SMEs usually have just a few staff members working for them. Although it’s fun to work with a small and tightly knit group of people, it also comes with a downside. Your company’s collective set of skills, ideas, and perspectives becomes limited when you have a small team. It’s likely that the consultant you hire won’t literally have ten thousand hours of work experience in their field. But the principal idea here is ‘repetition’. Consultants are used to solving problems related to their field of expertise day in and day out. Even if you upskill your employees, they might lack the relevant experience that a top consultant has.

Top consultants are well-versed in solving business problems that are probably giving you a headache right now. It takes years for consultants to hone their skills and with the right consultant skills. They can find what’s holding your business back and show you the right direction. After all, even the most experienced sailor needs a compass to navigate. Okay, maybe a GPS these days. But, the key idea here is to hire an expert as soon as you can so they can guide your company towards the right path.

“Business is a 24/7 job where someone is always out there to kick your ass.” - Mark Cuban

Red Flag #2: Your Business Has More Work but Less Manpower

It’s possible that you might already have sufficient in-house expertise to handle your usual business operations. But there’s only so much an employee can do in a 40-hour workweek. That’s when you need some extra helping hands to make sure tasks get completed on time. It’s pretty straightforward - when your business has got more tasks than it can handle, you’ll need to hire new people to share the workload.

Now there are two things you could do - approach a recruitment agency to find a full-time employee, or visit an online consulting marketplace. The process is almost the same. However, hiring a full-time employee for a one-off or a short-term project doesn’t really make sense. It’s far better to hire a consultant using a freelance platform in such situations. The process of hiring a consultant is almost similar to hiring a full-time employee - a method you’re already used to.

When all your staff is busy with their usual duties and a temporary project has come your way, hiring a consultant is the best possible option. Consultants are used to working with different companies from time to time. So the process of onboarding them won’t be as challenging as hiring a full-time employee. Consultants that businesses hire using freelance platforms are fast learners, problem solvers, and extremely specific about their objectives, deliverables, and timelines. This means that every dime you spend on them will be justified in the statement of work before their engagement with your company begins - something you can’t expect when you hire an employee.

Red Flag #3: You’re Often Hesitant in Initiating the Much-Needed Improvements in Your Company

Change is very difficult. Especially if it involves a large number of employees in a business. But you already know that at some point, it needs to happen. Whether it’s restructuring your business or implementing a new operations process. The right action needs to be taken at the right time. It’s understandable if you, as a decision-maker of a company, are hesitating in taking steps that are necessary to keep the business growing. Maybe you’re afraid of how your employees will react to change or maybe you don’t feel comfortable making a major business decision without an expert third-party opinion.

hire a consultant, 3 Red Flags That Indicate You Need to Hire a Consultant

Again, when this happens, simply visit an online consulting marketplace and find a consultant who can analyze your situation and recommend the best solution. Top consultants can observe your business’s situation from an unbiased outsider perspective. A company might not realize it’s shortcomings, but a consultant surely will. It’s likely that they have seen other companies make the same mistake and can suggest the right strategies to you before it’s too late.


Let’s consider an example to make this point clearer:

A business owner is finding it very difficult to retain top millennial talent in the company. The decision-makers are confused as to why most of their young employees end up leaving their organization within a year. So they use a freelance platform to hire a consultant and to come up with a solution. The consultant notices that the company has a very strict hierarchy which might be a turn-off for modern-day professionals who prefer a flat structure and an ‘open door’ policy. The consultant then proposes a new organizational structure as a solution to maintain the top young talent in the company.

Conclusion

Just because things have been a certain way for decades doesn’t mean they have to stay the same forever. As the saying goes, “Nothing is permanent but change.” Quite often, businesses are so used to their usual ways of operating, that any change seems scary. When this happens, all you need is the right consultant skills to ensure your company stays up-to-date with the ever-changing business landscape.

Whether it’s organizational structure or project management issues, there is a consultant somewhere on a freelance platform who can recommend a foolproof solution for your business. All you need to do is find a platform that you can trust and give them a call.