Avoiding The Pitfalls Of Pursuing A Career In Small Business Retail Consulting
As a consultant for small businesses, your main responsibilities are to offer advice, planning, identification of issues, and implementing solutions to help an organization reach its goals. But more often than not, those people who are in the business of professional consulting fail to recognize that the job can be difficultly articulating. To be specific, some consultants may find it hard to emphasize their value and specializations to help their clients achieve success.
So if you’re considering starting a consulting career soon, then it’s a must that you read today’s entry as we are going to talk about the pitfalls you need to avoid when venturing a career in small business retail consulting.
Let’s begin
Overselling Your Expertise
The first pitfall of small business retail consulting can be summed up in one word: overselling. While it’s true that most companies will go through some sort of crisis at some point, especially in a health crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic, you should not overstate your qualifications just for the sake of attracting them from acquiring your services. Otherwise, you’re just setting them up to anticipate some services that may go beyond your core expertise. And as a result, they’ll end up being disappointed because they were expecting more from you – which also affects your reputation and marketability as a small business consultant.
The trick, then, is to recognize your expertise and be transparent about what you can do as a consultant to your clients so they’ll know the things you can provide to their organization.
Not Creating A Subtitle
Now this has something to do with the first pitfall above. Sure, telling your client that you’re a small business consultant may already give an idea of the work you can do, but it really provides insufficient information that can often lead to confusion about what the type of services you can provide.
So we advise you to come up with a catchy phrase along with your job title that can somehow provide a clear description of the specialized services you can provide to meet the company’s immediate need.
For example: “A small business consultant for marketing and the promotion of products and services.”
Yes, it does make your job title appear longer, but it certainly omits the need to explain what you can do as it is already provided in the description.
Being A Victim Of A ‘Scope Creep’
And lastly, as hungry as you are to please clients, you are also prone to fall victim to scope creep. In short, you are tempted to extend your scope of service just to extend your contract and earn more money.
The truth is, venturing into other specializations while working with a client only leads to substandard results. And in turn, it may hurt your reputation as a consultant.
So it’s better to know the things you’re good at, stick to them, and elude from out of scope services to set proper boundaries in consulting that can help define your business even further.
If you want to hone your skills as a consultant, do it at a proper time and venue. There’s nothing wrong with trying out other services, just don’t do it to extend your working period with a particular client.
Final Thoughts
All in all, developing a career in small business retail consulting is not that easy for you have to define and recognize your specializations in order to meet and even exceed client expectations. So don’t make the same mistake of not avoid the pitfalls mentioned above and establish a strong foundation in your career as a small business consultant.