The Top 5 Mistakes Businesses Make When Hiring a Consultant

Blacksburg, VA, February 26, 2009 --(PR.com)-- When it’s time to bring in some specialized knowledge or inject some strategic insight into your business, no one can perform like the right consultant. You can get the work done quickly and properly, and you don’t have to spend time and money training an employee and paying them benefits. Hiring a consultant seems like an easy choice.

However, it’s just as easy to hire the wrong consultant. Here are seven common mistakes that businesses make when hiring a consultant:

1. Hiring a consultant with insufficient skill. This one seems obvious and most competent business owners can probably avoid it. But sometimes a very experienced consultant can have a low skill level in the precise areas that you need help with. Can that 25-year veteran help you implement agile management practices in your IT department? Better be sure.

2. Hiring a consultant that doesn’t have experience in your industry. It’s true that many industries and skill sets are easily transferable between industries. However, having a consultant on your team that knows the ins and outs and all the terminology of your industry can save a lot of time and effort. You don’t want to be paying a consultant to learn on the job.

3. Committing too early to a specific consultant. Sometimes it can seem like there is an obvious choice for who to hire to help you with your project. You are only hurting yourself if you don’t spend at least a couple of days seeking out alternatives. Not only will your search give you piece of mind that you made the right choice, but you will also have a stronger negotiating position when it comes to agreeing on a fee.

4. Hiring a friend or acquaintance. There are two good reasons for this – first, you might hire the consultant out of convenience, without doing the proper research into the skills and abilities you really need. Second, you might have a falling out that can affect your personal relationships, slow down your business, and cause great stress. Reason enough to stay away from hiring that friend of a friend.

5. Indecision. As easy as it is to move too quickly and hire the first choice you see, it’s also easy to have too many options and delay moving forward. Like most endeavors, at some point you’ll reach diminishing returns. Nothing can kill momentum and innovation like indecision – the worst decision is no decision at all.

So, how can a prudent business owner find a consultant with the proper skill set and the right industry experience in the shortest time and for the right price? Let me present 88owls.com as a strong solution to the problems of consultant search.

88owls.com members are consultants and advisors with more than 10 years of industry experience and who have passed our strict requirements for training and skill levels. The consultant matching page of 88owls.com allows you to perform a free search for up to three consultants by choosing the function, industry, skills, and location you require. Each 88owls.com member has agreed to consult with you about your business for up to one hour at no charge. Use this time to decide if they are the right fit for your project.

Select. Team up. Succeed. Visit 88owls.com to find the right consultant for your project today!

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