A Small Business Consultant Can Help in Many Ways…But One Th

Kelvyn Peters An owner must realise that the 'oomph' must come from the owner. It is no benefit if all the passion and drive to improve the business comes from the consultant. It will not work that way.

Owners must be excited and driven to succeed. If they are not then their business will always be ordinary. The consultant's role is to guide and direct that passion in the correct direction.

A consultant must remember that the business belongs to the client. There is always a danger that the consultant will take a dominant position to the detriment of both of them.

Let me tell you a story of when this was forgotten…

It’s not often a small business consultant will admit to a failure in a small business but my first adventure into small business consulting was a failure. I closed the business within two years.

In 1980 I had planned to offer Mom-and-Pop sized businesses cheap but effective small business help. I saw many who badly needed some activity to pull their businesses out of the doldrums. But consultants were asking minimum fees of $3,000 which they could not afford.

My thinking was that if I computerized and systemized my services I could offer them a low-cost service which rejuvenated their enterprises. They, of course, would be so thrilled that they would retain my firm to do their general tax and accounting work.

Like the curate’s egg I was partly right. Kelvyn Peters CPA and Associates still retain clients from that era who still think I’m wonderful (but expensive). And my small success blinded me for a while to where my plan was doomed to fail.

The first trap was that the ‘oomph’ for the business had to be supplied by the client. It did no matter how passionate and excited I was in improving a sick business if the client had no exitement. The punch and the drive to run a business have to come from the owner. The consultant can only steer that drive in the right direction.

The second pitfall was in not realizing that small businesses are sometimes run by ‘small’ people. Nice people; generous and kind people who you’d be glad to have as friends…but people with low horizons who are comfortable where they are. They know they should be concerned about their business. Everybody tells them so.

But in their hearts they are not.

When these people engaged my services it was because they felt they had to. The bank or a creditor had advised it. Sometimes a well-meaning son or daughter had said, ”Pop you’ve gotta get some help! You’re killing yourself here!”

However, what had to be done made them so uncomfortable that they just did not do anything and fell by the wayside. (probably blaming the consultant).

If they retained our services they became high maintenance clients phoning us (no e-mails then) before they made almost every new decision. Sending out a mailbox drop? Please design and produce it for me. A monthly newsletter? Could you do it for me because you are so good at it.

This normally would have been great except in this case they could not pay for the service and felt it should be included in the initial fee. We lost heaps of money providing these extra services without charge.

My staff said I was too good-hearted. I do not agree. Here were people really needed our service and they couldn’t pay for it. How could we let them die alone.

But we could not continue and had to close the service…and the world continued. ‘Mom-and-Pop’ businesses still need help but now we know how to interact with them so that neither of us get burnt.

So now our one criteria for accepting a new client is that they should have the passion and persistence to see it through. An ailing business shows signs of improvement week by week but sometimes it will be two years before vigilance can be relaxed. Those two years are too hard to deal with for some people.

Previously, I have said that to me accounting wasn’t boring or dull. I am passionate about being an accountant. I have an excitement about helping people because I can make a difference to their lives.

If my experience and knowledge is added to the excitement and drive of a business owner we, together, can really make things happen. Dreams really will come true.

Keep the dream alive. Kelvyn Peters CPA and Associates is only an e-mail away.

http://www.profitstrategies4business.com



Kelvyn Peters is one of Australia's longest serving Tax Agents having been registered in 1962. He became a CPA in 1964. Kelvyn is known for his ability to rescue ailing businesses.