Business growth consultants can be game-changers for businesses. Their impartial view allows them to scrutinise every corner of a business, from sales and marketing to understanding market realities. While you focus on running the day-to-day, they offer crucial insights to propel your business forward.

Rockmission.com define a growth consultant as:

“An expert advisor who recognises the challenges a business is facing and focuses specifically on helping the business move forward in a prudent, realistic but visionary manner.”

Whether you’re launching a startup, managing rapid growth, or considering winding down, a business growth consultant can guide you. They recognize when a company stalls in sales or struggles with rapid changes. Their first step is usually an in-depth business audit to understand your market position, sales strategies, and brand essence. With these insights, they’ll craft a tailored growth plan.

Key Benefits of Hiring a Growth Consultant

Here are four primary reasons to consider bringing a consultant on board:

1. Efficiency: They identify what’s working and what’s not. By pinpointing core revenue generators, they can advise on where your attention should be, and where it shouldn’t.
2. Stimulating Growth: If you’ve hit a growth ceiling, consultants can offer fresh perspectives. They might suggest product bundling, evaluate the ROI of your advertising, or identify cross-selling opportunities.
3. Objective Insights: Being close to your business can sometimes cloud judgment. Consultants provide unbiased opinions, helping you see blind spots, outdated practices, or areas needing improvement.
4. Empowering Your Team: A significant benefit is the training growth consultants can offer your team, particularly in sales techniques. Rather than viewing training as a cost, see it as an investment. A well-trained, motivated team can potentially boost profits by over 20%.

Whether your business aims to expand further or diversify, a growth consultant can chart the best course.

Your business growth consultant will explore these aspects and more, in a bid to help your business grow. And if your business has reached its zenith, a growth consultant can help you identify opportunities for lateral expansion or diversification.

How to find the right business growth consultant

Don’t dive in and opt to work with the first business growth consultant you find.

Make sure your consultant has expertise and a track record, preferably in working with companies that are similar to yours. A good place to find the right consultant is at networking events and seminars where you will have the opportunity to have an informal discussion about your business and your goals.

If you can get feedback from a peer who has worked with a growth consultant they can give you an honest appraisal of the value the consultant brought to their organisation. Online communities are other good sources of recommendations and can help you narrow down your search.

Get everyone on board when you hire a growth consultant

It’s important that everyone understands why you’ve decided to work with a consultant. Otherwise they may be wary that you think they’ve done a bad job – or that you’re trying to replace them. This may make them react badly to constructive criticism, or be slow to implement suggestions.

Address your employees’ fears right from the start by illustrating how you think a growth consultant will benefit both the business and them in the long run. When a growth consultant first comes into the business they should in any case make a point of developing good relationships with your employees.

If you’re struggling to grow your business it may well pay you to seek the advice of a specialist growth consultant. They can help you streamline your processes, maximise your profitability and transition your company smoothly to the next stage of expansion.