Why Use a Consultant?
The beginning of a new year is often a time for reflection on the outgoing year. 2014 for me was a year full of new experiences. I would like to share a few with you.
2014 was my first full year as a consultant with EMS Cognito. If you knew me before you would know consultants are the last people I would look to for help with anything. So has my perception changed, it is probably no surprise that it has.
Consultants are no longer the money grabbing fly by night villains who show you a dream, charge you the earth and then leave so you cannot implement it yourself. I worked with one client who said of their previous consultants and the improvement they were working on, “It’s all in a box, we’ve told you what to do collect it when you are ready”.
In a world where you can get all the information from the internet when you need it, or from a book you can now easily and cheaply buy on the internet, we consultants have had to change too. The client now has the same information that a consultant has. Why then would you use a consultant? The difference is the consultant knows how to put the information in to action. It is the action that makes the difference and often having a consultant to bounce ideas off and hold your hand for the first time is very valuable indeed.
Being a consultant you have the freedom to take a step back. In line with the view held by Daniel Pink in To sell is human we are all sales people but the transaction is no longer purely financial instead it is having the ability to move people. The role of the consultant or teacher is now how much you can move the company from what they think now to where you know they are capable of being and that for me is the joy of consulting. Working with hundreds of different people yet having the ability to take a step back, stand in their shoes and see what they see to then help them move to a different view.
2014 was a success. What are my plans for 2015? More success having more IMPACT on more companies. I hope you have a successful 2015 too.
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