One of the most challenging hurdles we've encountered when working with small business owners is when someone has been doing things a certain way for an extended period of time. The commentary usually goes something like this:
Me: You should take a look at changing process x, y or z.
Client: But I've been doing things this way for 10 years. It's never caused me problems before!
Ah yes, the 'this is how we've always done things' mantra. Something I ran into quite a bit as a member of large enterprises with extensive histories, but is seemingly MORE prevalent with the small businesses and startups I work with today. In many cases, 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' is a perfectly legitimate thought process. A consultant might come in and start applying their theoretical background to try and re-imagine perfectly acceptable processes and strategies. As a small business owner, you have real problems popping up that need addressing right away, you can't be focused on what may or may not go wrong in 6 months or 6 years!
I get that.
But, it's important to remember the value a consultant can bring to your organization. Sometimes, we need a third party to validate a strategy. Sometimes, you need a consultant to bring a specific set of expertise to address a gap or need that you have already identified. And SOMETIMES, you need an unbiased third party to look at your business and offer recommendations on how to improve.
On that last point, there are some uncomfortable truths about working with a consultant:
There is no way that I can know more about your business than you do.
There is no way that I can have the same biases that you do.
There is no way that your business is running perfectly.
When running the day-to-day operations of a business, it's so easy to get lost in the weeds. Problems come up and you put band-aids on them, processes fall apart and you put out fires. And that's a good thing. You've got so much to worry about, as long as you can keep the ship together and pulling in the same direction, you're doing a great job! But the best process is often not going to be a patchwork of items that only the president can deal with. On occasion, things need to be documented, broken down and put back together. Only then will you be able to build the best operational processes possible.
Recently, a client came to me with trouble regarding their marketing budget. There was a conflict between leadership regarding how best to spend their marketing funds. One leader wanted to go heavy into traditional marketing, direct mailers, industry conferences and physical ad space. The second leader wanted to re-evaluate their marketing ROI and look at digital marketing as a cost effective option.
The interesting part (to me) was that the entire discussion was predicated on 'digital marketing is less effective, but likely more efficient'. Nobody even THOUGHT to look at the books to determine how effective the company's previous marketing efforts had been. The preconceived notion that their marketing was working was not challenged.
So I actually looked at their sales results from the last few years. Turns out, not one sale could be traced back to any marketing campaign that had taken place for the past 5 years. This meant that either a) marketing efforts and associated sales were not being tracked effectively or b) marketing has been incredibly ineffective for quite some time. Either way, SOMETHING needed to be looked at in greater detail.
Anyway, the point of the story was that the entire leadership team had a preconceived notion that could not be backed up in any way by any data. It wasn't until a third party came in and started diving into the data that the company realized that there could be a very real problem with their historical marketing efforts. The discussion was centered around 'this is what we've always done, let's do it some more', but the truth is that an analysis of the marketing spend was necessary, even to confirm that traditional marketing was the way to go.
Getting a third party opinion and list of recommendations could be key to evolving a mindset, process or strategy. A new set of eyes, best practice expertise or data-driven recommendations are key to evolving with a highly changeable environment. Sometimes, your business can get by without focusing on 'efficiencies' or 'best practices'. Sometimes, you're the expert and don't need to do things differently. But every once in a while, if you are looking to get a little bit more out of your processes or switch gears ever so slightly, you don't need to try to reinvent the wheel. The right fresh set of eyes with the right data and contextual background can help you to fill your business with rocket fuel and reach the kind of unimaginable greatness you always knew your organization was destined for.
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