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Consulting

We take different approaches to consulting, depending on the size of your organisation. If your business is small, we look at it as a whole and then focus on critical areas of need, such as cash flow, staffing issues or pricing strategy.

If your organisation is larger, we can take the same general strategic view, and then focus on our more specialist areas of marketing, organisation development, collaboration and change.

Here are examples of the kind of help we can provide, and three very different case studies below will give you a better feel for what we do.

If your concern is more about you, rather than your business, then coaching may be more appropriate. For example, if you don’t think you’ve got the energy to move the business to the next step, or you are finding everything an uphill struggle, then we can offer you personal coaching and combine it with business consulting if you need both.

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Case Study: Collaboration

A large construction company was faced with submitting a bid for a long term capital project in a public utilities organisation. The bid involved a key section on collaboration. We worked with the company to identify the key aspects of collaboration relevant to this bid, which they currently practise within their organisation, ensuring that we did not over-claim or over-promise. We then wrote that section of the bid for them, and coached them on responses to likely client queries.

We won the bid, just as we have helped other companies win bids in the past, as collaboration is a special focus of ours, be it on a small scale, with two individuals collaborating, or on a large scale, between organisations.

Case Study: Marketing Strategy

A software company came to us because the technology was affecting their marketplace. Their long established clients were adopting it slowly and reluctantly, and leaving space for new entrants. They had a great deal invested in their client base and wanted them to succeed. They also recognised that it is also much harder to win a new client than to keep an existing one.

We helped them to adopt a three-pronged approach:

1. Market research – what’s really happening out there

2. Leading edge trail-blazing – creating awareness and showing the way forward 

3. Product development – building new software for the future

Two years on the programme has been successful in leading the client base forward, selling them new software and re-stabilising the marketplace.

Case Study: Pricing

John decided to set up as a self-employed gardener and handyman. He carefully worked out the cost of his overheads – van, petrol, phone, etc. He asked a few friends what they would pay, and got some fairly low prices. However, he could still make a profit so he was set to fix a price, and then he decided to get advice.

When he came to us John was anxious about overcharging people and pricing himself out of the market. At our suggestion, he did a much more thorough investigation. It soon became clear that John could charge more than his friends had suggested – some had never even used a gardener!

He learned the importance of proper market research. He also saw that he could find a niche for himself that would differentiate him from the competition – he had the knowledge and flair for the delicate work, but the muscle for the bigger stuff – few combine the two. He soon found he had a growing customer base, with no price resistance at all, and a profit margin double that of his original plan. Paying for two hours business consulting has proved to be an excellent investment in his business success.