Consulting plays an often underrated role in business. Without consulting, many companies would have failed very quickly while others would be unable to grow and develop. This is precisely why so many entrepreneurs and business owners today get in touch with consulting agencies to get advice from them.
However, it’s not always necessary to look for an agency to help you. You can develop your own consulting process to use during various projects. Hence, here are the six steps to developing a proven consulting process for successfully executing your projects.
What Are the Benefits of a Consulting Process?
Before you get to know how to create your own consulting process, it’s worth discussing why you need a proper consulting process in the first place. Here are the three most important reasons why you need one:
- By creating your own consulting process, you will make your own life easier. Organizing the delivery of your projects, creating to-do lists, assigning roles, delegating tasks, etc. will become much simpler.
- You will be able to run through the process multiple times and find the strengths and weaknesses in your inner operations. In turn, this will allow you to find ways to make all your processes more efficient.
- Lastly, you will create a more respectable image for your business and your team. Customers like to know that the company they buy products or services from has its own process, so they will be more eager to trust you and be loyal to you.
#1 Assess the Current Situation
First of all, you will need to assess the current situation that you are in. What are the circumstances in which you want to implement a specific project? How is your company doing at the moment? What are its strengths and weaknesses? What are its opportunities and threats? At this stage, you need to come up with the things that can be improved to make the success of the project possible.
You need to have clarity about your further plan of action, and to have that clarity, your assessment should be as thorough as it can possibly be. As a result of your assessment and further self-consultancy, you should be able to implement your project in an efficient and effective way, so this first stage is perhaps the most important one. That being said, every one of the six tips is essential for you to follow.
It’s a good idea to create a detailed report on the results of your assessment. A report will help you organize all your findings in a logical, cohesive, and comprehensive way. You can use this report for the next steps in your self-consulting process.
#2 Plan Your Further Actions
The next step is to plan your further actions based on your assessment. Which strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats did you find? Which methods for improvement did you think about? This is the stage when you brainstorm all of these and write about them in great detail. Your plan of action will have to include a step-by-step guide that you can follow for implementing necessary changes in your company.
Try to make your plan something you can use both in the nearest future and in the long run. In other words, think about both short-term and long-term goals. This way, you can ensure the longevity and impact of the changes you make in your company. After all, it’s not just about creating the right conditions for the project you want to take on – it’s also about improving your company to grow and develop over time.
#3 Implement Your Plan
The next step is quite straightforward – you need to implement the plan you created. Of course, it sounds quite easy, but things are never as simple as just the way they are said. You need to take into account the changing circumstances, new challenges that arise, mistakes that you make, and errors that will likely be present in some way in your plan. There are ways to deal with all of these:
- If there are errors in your plan, you need to edit them as soon as you find them.
- If there are new challenges or circumstances, don’t be afraid to change your plan of action. If you deviate from it a little, there won’t be much of an issue for the big picture. That being said, you should still keep in mind the difference between small changes and a complete shift in the course of action you take.
- If you make mistakes while implementing your plan, try to correct them as best as you can and move forward. Mistakes will help – and that is completely normal. You don’t need to stress about them too much. Just try to handle them in your own way.
#4 Optimize Your Strategy
Even after you have implemented your plan, your job isn’t done yet. This is the stage where you need to optimize your strategy. In a way, this is the continuation of the self-consulting process because you will be getting feedback on the effectiveness of your plan in the form of data and employee feedback.
Don’t ignore the feedback you get but use it to further improve and optimize your strategy. In the future, when you decide to use a self-consulting process again, you will already know how to do it and you will also have the experience of mistakes and feedback from this time to keep you alert to potential issues.
#5 Work with the Culture
One of the things many managers forget about when performing consulting in their teams and companies is that they shouldn’t just work with processes – they should also work with the people. In other words, they should work with the culture if they want to make real, long-term changes.
For instance, you may need to create a crisis communication protocol to change the way your team handles crises.
#6 Engage and Communicate
Last but not least, always make sure to engage with your team and communicate with employees clearly. The best part about having your own consulting process is that you are in control and that you also have direct contact with your team. This means that you have the unique opportunity to have a high level of interaction with your employees.
Always ask for feedback and brainstorm ideas with your team instead of doing it all on your own. Likewise, talk with the higher-ups to discuss major changes and the like. It should be a continuous and very engaging process.
Wrapping Up
All in all, it’s not very difficult to develop your own consulting process that can be used on different projects. Follow the tips in this article and you will be on your way to creating your own efficient consulting process.
