What is a consultant?

A consultant isn’t someone who’s smarter than you, or someone who has more knowledge than you do in your particular domain of work. But the consultant can help you lift certain loads more quickly than you could on your own. Believe it or not, your time is worth something.

Here’s a story to explain:

It’s kind of like hiring someone to wash the windows of your restaurant. Now, the window guy may want $50 to wash your windows. But you know it’s only gonna take him 15 minutes to do it (you saw him next door, and that guy’s a sucker). That’s like $200/hr, and you ain’t paying someone $200/hr to wash a window. That’s #%@* ridiculous.

So, you do what totally makes more sense: pay the dishwasher to do it for $minimum $wage, baby! Yeah! You hand him a bottle of windex and some paper towels, or maybe you even go out and buy a squeegee and a bucket.

The dishwasher takes an hour from start to finish to wash the windows and does a horrible job at it. So you send him back out. Plus you had to make sure he did a good job, didn’t you?

Meanwhile, the dishes are piled up because he’s ticked; washing windows sucks. So you don’t have him do it again, but he’s still ticked. You try the same thing with the fry cook.

So, you spent the first hour at $9, you had to check in on him (what’s your time worth? Hopefully more than $50/hour to the business, but let’s say $30 so you’re at least lower middle class).

So there goes $39, plus you’ve gotta send him out again to re-do it (streaks everywhere) so add another $9. Now we’re up to $48, and your dishwasher hates your guts, and you gotta fire him and train another one. I didn’t even add in the windex.

Worth two bucks, ain’t it?

So, here you are. You know you need to do something, but what?

Websites, ads, blogs, email, promotional products, myface, tweeter, spacebook, t-shirts, those stupid little neon letter openers…

Pick my brain and get insights on:

• what your website should actually say to its customers
• how to order promotional products for the most competitive prices,
• your competitors efforts and where you could make a move on their business, and
• ways your web site, logo, and social media presence can have the most impact.

Get in touch and we’ll meet downtown after work, Monday through Thursday. I’ll even buy the first round, and I don’t cost $200/hr like the window washer.