Retaining An Expert -- What Every Business Owner Needs To Know

As an entrepreneur, hiring an expert can be one of the most efficient ways to turbo-charge your business. However, thousands of consultants flood the Information Highway, and each one promises to positively impact your bottom line. How do you know which expert has the right combination of smarts, skills, experience and personality to move your company in the right direction?

It's no small feat to allow a consultant to make decisions on your behalf. Empowering a consultant to advise changes can bring up feelings of doubt and fear. To help you choose the right expert for you, here are 6 cautionary tips from Kathy Szpakowski, founder of KBS Group, one of the country's most successful, organizational development consulting companies:

1. Make sure the expert has a proven track record for delivering on their promises. Visit the consultant's web site and check on their references.

2. Pay attention to the expert's commentary after you've stated your vision. Do you feel understood? Does he or she "get" it, or do you feel like you need to keep on explaining? If, during the initial conversation stage or in the project outline stage you feel your vision is not completely understood or that there are areas being overlooked or under-valued, consider finding another expert who is more in alignment with your point of view.

3. Observe if the expert incorporates your thoughts and ideas into the conversation. Do you feel a sense of collaboration or do you feel shot down? While working with an expert, there will be times where you might take his or her well-substantiated advice and whole-heartedly agree with certain recommendations, while at other times, you might mildly agree or not agree at all. Based on your discussion, get a sense as to whether this person will be open to a collaborative arrangement, or might be intolerant of feedback or suggestions.

4. Assess if the expert understands the term 'within budget.' Rather than have an expert initially tell you all of the wonderful things they can do for you, then fall over from the sticker shock when you receive their proposal and their terms, tell them the budget you need to stay within. A consultant should not be writing from your checkbook. What is important is your budget; not their price.

5. Agree to a mutually acceptable time frame. In order to ensure that the two of you are on the same page, establish timelines to determine when you want to get started, as well as how long it will take before you can expect to receive recommendations, implement the recommendations, and see results. Make sure there is also a way to measure the results.

6. Trust your instincts. Believe in your intuition. If your instincts and experience in your business tells you to go in a different direction, do it. If you don't feel 100% committed to the recommendations, or have a 'gut feeling' that you and the expert are not on the same page ? Stop. Ignoring these feelings and going along with any recommendations that you are not committed to, or are convinced will not work, will only make you right ? they won't.

A word of caution: after a positive experience with one expert, entrepreneurs often have a tendency to get lax when evaluating additional experts to assist in other areas of their business. When talking with other experts, it can be easy to fail to completely communicate one's vision, the importance of integrating one's ideas, the necessity to stay within budget and on schedule, and the absolute need to know that your new expert 'gets it!"

Hiring the right expert can be a huge asset to your business, however, you are the only one who will know which expert is ultimately right for you. By applying the advice from the tips above, you can minimize your doubts and fears, as well as create a strategy to find an expert who can truly help you maximize your growth.

Kathy Szpakowski has 25 years of professional experience in sales, marketing, training, organizational and personal development. She is the founder of KBS Group and the creator of "Performance Management Plus" a turnkey solution that has helped entrepreneurs achieve phenomenal results worldwide. www.BetheBest-KBSgroup.com.

Kathy Szpakowski has 25 years of professional experience in sales, marketing, training, organizational and personal development. She is the founder of KBS Group and the creator of "Performance Management Plus" a turnkey solution that has helped entrepreneurs achieve phenomenal results worldwide. http://www.BetheBest-KBSgroup.com

---

How to get an Audiences Attention

A trainer dryly discussing how to motivate people in an... Read More

Recognition: A Quick, Low-cost Way to Motivate Employees

Recognizing good performance through praise or other positive action is... Read More

Meaningful Diversity: Creating Cultures of Inclusion

In the fitness room the other day, I caught a... Read More

Focus and Shoot

One of my earliest childhood memories is watching Lew Alcindor... Read More

Your Organization Is Only as Good as Your People

Let's begin by singing the jingle from an old US... Read More

Knowledge Management - Capturing And Structuring Knowledge Into Reusable Assets

Many organizations have an approach for identifying and recording lessons... Read More

Managing Change in the Workplace

Change is exhilarating. Change is terrifying. Change is badly needed... Read More

When Change Is In the Wind...Heads Up!

In these days of takeovers and mergers, of downsizings and... Read More

Strategic Clarity for Communication Management

Over the past few weeks I've been developing plans for... Read More

7 Essential Elements To Every Organizational Change

[This article is based on excerpts from the special report... Read More

Organizational Structure, Creativity, Innovation

Organizational structure can inhibit or foster creativity and innovation. The... Read More

Uncommon Common Sense ? Know What is the Most Important Thing in Your Business

Over 3 of my meetings with 3 business owners last... Read More

An Honest Look at Your Business

There is a difference between being comfortable and being in... Read More

Beyond Management Coaching: When Things Are Getting Out of Control

Leaders and Managers often ask us, 'What do you do... Read More

Delegation Obstructions

OBSTRUCTIONS: 1. Staff deficiencies. Lack of confidence in employees quite... Read More

Four Steps to Better Performance Reviews

Direct reports-people who need direction and leadership-rely on their leaders... Read More

The DNA of Motivation

It really is about motivation. After all, what impels someone... Read More

Group Decision Making : Are the Decisions Really Made by the Group?

GROUP DECISION-MAKING: Many managers feel they are well-versed in areas... Read More

IT Expenditure - Why Businesses Spend Huge Amounts on Ineffective IT Investments

Another IT White Elephant!It seems that almost every day we... Read More

Talent Recruitment Challenges of High Technology Companies

As a result of the dot com meltdown and the... Read More

11 Strategies on How to Work in An Open Plan Environment

Many work environments now are open plan, with only a... Read More

Quick Tip - Effective Meetings Earn a Profit

Most people treat meetings as a free resource that can... Read More

Innovation Management ? Emotion, Habit, and Culture can be Hard to Change!

Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation... Read More

The 10 Realities of Change

I've seen several articles that begin with lines like "the... Read More

Use Every Weapon You Have

One of the strongest weapons available allows business, non-profit and... Read More

Five Strategies To Strengthen Your Company?s Financial Management

Too many businesses wait until a crisis occurs before they... Read More

The Measurement of Manager Training

THE MEASUREMENT OF TRAINING: Evaluation is one of the most... Read More

10 Ways To Work Through A Business Slowdown

In running any kind of business, it's inevitable that sometimes... Read More

Leading Meetings: The Top Three Challenges

What do people really find challenging about leading meetings? Here... Read More

Classifying Motivational Needs

While there exist several useful definitions of motivation, for our... Read More

Sweet Parting Of Ways

Why settle for bad feelings when your employee leaves the... Read More

The Seven Cs: Partnership Danger Signs - Conflict Becoming the Norm ? Part 2

A series of articles exploring the seven critical areas that... Read More

The Retailers Calendar

The Julian calendar we use to pass the time every... Read More