There are three types of business leaders in this world:
- Those that think they don’t need assistance with their executive leadership skills.
- Those that know they could benefit from executive leadership development but are afraid to ask for help.
- Those that know that outside perspective is essential for growth and the success of their business and actively seek it.
When it comes to startup businesses, founders usually find themselves in the one of the first two categories. This can be a dangerous place to stay. Recognizing when it’s necessary to explore assistive options can ultimately mean the difference between success and failure for your business.
So, what is a Business Consultant?
At Free Range Thinking, we view a business consultant in several different ways. Firstly, consider us as a business guide. We’re your wise advisor who helps you determine which strategic moves to make to grow and evolve your business. It takes strategic planning to build your company from it’s “childhood” and “tween” phase into a grownup. Primarily, this begins with helping leaders prioritize. Time is your most valuable currency. It is crucial to know when and who to hire while building your team. What direction do you take when you find yourself at a crossroads? How do you grow and scale your startup? It must be done efficiently. By utilizing and leveraging our expertise, we can help develop your leadership and management skills to optimize the growth of your business.
Alternatively, a business consultant can help you develop the necessary leadership qualities to work through the mental and emotional burdens of being the leader of your business. Whether this is helping you figure out what kind of leader you are, building a process for making smart decisions, allowing you to surround yourself with the right people and build the best team to help you achieve your goals, or assisting you in breaking destructive patterns and behaviors that are harmful to your business. The best leaders understand that they can sometimes be blind to this. If they don’t act, it can mean the downfall of their business.
Do you need one?
Your business consultant should have your back, speak the truth and help you see through the sometimes muddied waters of your headspace. A good business consultant will help you organize your thoughts, priorities, and all the internal and external factors that go into running a business. Doing so will help you to align the company you’re building with your vision and ensure you have the leadership qualities for continued success.
So, how do you know when you need to bring in a business consultant? The simple answer is before you actually need one. If you’re already feeling the pressure, you may be in more trouble than you know. There are a lot of great reasons to work with a consultant. We’re breaking them down for you, below.
Do any of these apply to you and your business?
Reason 1: Go further, faster
The first reason is simple: when you’re embarking on something you’ve never done before, it’s better to have someone with experience help you develop an informed strategy to successfully guide you through the process. If you’re leading a new company, you need to be as efficient with your time and energy as possible. These are invaluable resources that need to be dedicated to moving your business further, faster. If you were learning how to golf or write code, working with a pro who can share insider information and show you all the shortcuts, tips and tricks to avoid the standard pitfalls would be exponentially faster than trying to teach yourself. You may get to the same result but with infinitely less stress. Building a business is no different. Makes sense, right?
Reason 2: Before you create problems that are unfixable.
This seems a bit obvious but it’s not to be overstated that the best time to invest in a business consultant is before you create irreparable problems that cause you to either burnout, destroy relationships or do permanent damage to your business. The point is: be proactive and get help before you really need it. Taking this approach is the absolute best way to get the most out of the experience of working with a business consultant. It will help your business grow and evolve, with you as the strong leader at the helm that the team looks up to. The old adage goes, “done once, done right” and when it comes to building a successful business, doing it right the first time will save you time, money and stress vs. costly course-corrections down the line.
Reason 3: When you feel constantly overwhelmed, overworked or overtired
We know, as a startup founder, there are never enough hours in the day to get everything that you need to do, done. That doesn’t mean you should ignore the signs of being overwhelmed or overworked. This could cause you to become irritable, emotional or cause your health to deteriorate. Your business should inspire and excite you. If you start to notice the stress taking its toll, a business consultant can be the sounding board you need. We’re there to show you a different perspective on your priorities. Sometimes having a neutral party you can confide in outside your company is the best thing you can do for yourself (and your team). The Free Range Thinking team can help you keep perspective and prioritize your and your teams’ time and effort to meet your startup goals.
Reason 4: When hiring is difficult or turnover in your startup is high
Turnover is a normal part of any business. When it gets high (above 30% annually), it’s often a sign that things need to change. Working with a business consultant is a great way to help you identify the pain points your employees and direct reports are feeling. Together we can work to resolve them keeping in mind your leadership style, your team’s feedback and your overall strategic situation.
Reason 5: When you’re having difficulty with your partner or investors.
For this, we’ll turn to a real-life example. Our clients “Rob” and “Sarah” own a mid-stage startup that has undergone three rounds of fundraising. They’re quickly burning through their capital because of leadership and priority differences around producing their product. This stress is straining their relationship, impacting their employees productivity and could ultimately destroy their startup long term. They came to Free Range Thinking with these issues and we acted as a mediator. We helped them resolve their interpersonal communication challenges, resolve product issues and create a clear fundraising road map.
Sometimes as a business leader, you are your own worst enemy. As an unbiased third party, we thrive in helping founders get out of their own way. We aid them in dealing with the stress of building and growing a business, and ultimately prioritize their time, efforts and funding to create exceptional results.
Reason 6: When you’re hearing the same feedback
Are you noticing that exit interview feedback is consistent across departments?
Are you even looking at exit interview feedback?
Are you finding that your relationships with your team are all going downhill, but you can’t figure out why?
Are you hearing the same client feedback time and again?
Are you finding yourself nearly in tears at the end of consistently brutal weeks?
Don’t kid yourself. These are negative patterns, and if left unchecked can cause a successful business to erode and eventually fall apart. Taking the time to notice these trends is necessary to overcoming them. Working with a business consultant will help you to not only see these issues, but tackle them head on.
This could be an issue with your leadership or management style. It could be an issue with company culture or your consistent poor feedback from clients. Hearing the same assessments repeatedly is not something to avoid. It’s a growth opportunity. All feedback creates teachable moments. As a business consulting firm, we help our clients work through and learn from these nuggets of wisdom. It’s not about the feedback you hear but what you do with it that really counts. Patting yourself on the back does nothing for the strategic development of your company. A consultant can help you read between the lines. Either pivot or lean into it in a tactical and thoughtful way.
Your business consultant should understand the kind of leader you strive to be
The key to success when utilizing a business consultant is to find the right one for you and your business and for what stage your business is in. It is important to find someone who understands you and can see what kind of leader you are. Or the kind of leader you strive to be. They must be willing to work with you to identify the strengths and weaknesses in both you and your business. This consultant needs to let you be yourself. You need to let out the good, the bad, and the ugly. A safe environment tom communicate will help you improve on your opportunity areas. A business consultant can help improve your team dynamics, improve your relationships with your team members, co-founders, investors and clients and ultimately help your business find success.
Interested in learning more about Free Range Thinking?
Reach out to set up a meeting!
