Time for You to Hire a Consultant?
Let’s imagine you’d like to reinforce your position into one of your strategic markets, close some key vital projects on time, or explore some promising niches for future growth … but you’re missing the necessary expertise right now, … and the clock is ticking! Do you leave those opportunities on the “parking lot”, or plan for next year some additional headcount? Hum, this doesn’t look like it’s going to happen soon! What if your best competitor moves quicker?
You’ve certainly considered outsourcing some part of your marketing or sales functions as you experienced some irritating gap there for various reasons. I’m not even talking about getting an external view and advice that could help you handle some delicate internal political situations … Do you have a clear picture of what kind of help you would need in the next months? Do you have a short list of people with the appropriate set of skills? People you can trust, either because you have already used their consulting services, or you’ve worked together, or they’ve been referred to you by trusted colleagues? Have you already approach those potential resources?
Let me invite you to take a piece of paper and do the following very simple exercise. You can play with a MindMap tool if you prefer …
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Define your potential gaps, prioritize or weight them
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Evaluate the gain, should you have the necessary resource available
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Check your personal network for candidates or strong references
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Get in touch and validate the fit
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Agree on the mission milestones and budget
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Deploy
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Monitor the ROI generated
Sounds obvious?
Louis Pasteur said that “chance favors the prepared mind”. A more simple and humble way to say it would be: “do you have a plan B?”
As usual, I’ll be more than happy to exchange on this topic and get comments based on your personal experience. Many Thanks!
You can find additional testimonials on this topic, and I indicated below some links to other interesting experiences.
https://www.cio.com/article/3172196/marketing/6-reasons-to-hire-a-marketing-consultant.html
http://www.afaqs.com/news/story/49106_Should-you-outsource-your-strategic-marketing
https://www.ducttapemarketing.com/hire-a-marketing-consultant/