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Business Consultancy |
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In the current economic climate many businesses are struggling to survive. Often, caught up in the day to day executive tasks the proprietor or managing director is fighting to put out fires, going from one crisis to another, and not being able to stand back to ‘see the wood from the trees’. I know the feeling only too well, for as managing director of the Team Group I find that I am best positioned to think strategically when I’m away from the day to day activities that take up so much time. This most often occurs when I’m 35,000 feet up in the air heading for one or other of the overseas conferences that I attend every year.
Because of this situation it often needs an outsider to come to the rescue, someone who is not so involved in the business, someone who can take an overview and recommend particular courses of action to the struggling business owner. This could involve creative ways to unload stock, do cross promotions, joint ventures, shared advertising and numerous other ways to give the business being consulted with a new start.
Some years ago I was hired by the Chairman of a large Asian printing and publishing group to take charge of their publishing division which was losing over $1 million annually. Coming as I did from the outside I very quickly saw the cause of the haemorrhaging, applied the appropriate cures and within 6 months the group was again trading profitably. This is the role of the consultant.
Because of the recession there are many well qualified people out there (you may be one of them) who through no fault of their own find themselves currently unemployed. These include marketing managers and directors of companies that have gone into administration; sales managers; accountants; admin managers and so on.
Here at the Team Group we have amassed a wealth of marketing information in the form of thousands of books, white papers, audio programs, videos and the like covering the whole spectrum of business – both online and offline. It is the sort of material that many consultants would die for and has cost us many, many thousands of pounds to accumulate.
With all this material at our fingertips coupled with over 40 years of running several successful businesses we intend to launch in April 2009 a business consultancy division.
Our USP (Unique Selling Proposition) will be value for money consulting by people with real life, hands on business experience – unlike many consultancies, staffed by fresh young graduates with theoretical knowledge but no ‘real world’ experience, whose principals charge excessive rates – and quite unaffordable to the smaller business.
Accordingly we are looking for suitably qualified businessmen and women, with the right background and experience to act as consultants at a local and regional level, advising small to medium sized businesses on how to get through the current tough times, so that they emerge in due course, leaner, fitter and stronger.
With the material in our position we intend to create a unique resource library of online literature that can be accessed by our consultants and printed off or downloaded as appropriate. These materials will only be available to our registered consultants.
We will also be undertaking a fairly ambitious marketing program via fax / email / PR / newsletters / advertising and the like with a view to generating leads for the consulting business. These will be passed to the nearest consultant in the area from where the enquiry came.
As a consultant your task will be to meet with the potential client, assess his/her needs, and then if appropriate to have them engage you to help them through the difficulties in which they may have found themselves.
During the course of your consulting work it may be appropriate to recommend that your client use some of our other services such as low cost fax broadcasting or email marketing. As a consultant we offer you generous commission rates on all our services. If you are consulting with a client and you recommend our services such as fax, email or voice marketing you should declare your ‘interest’ to your client so that he/she is aware that you are receiving a commission. You can point out that your relatively low consulting fees take into account the occasionally earned commission from recommended services. You may choose to rebate part of this back to the client. If you are not receiving consulting fees, and simply marketing our services, then clearly there is no need to disclose your commission.
As to the proposed level of fees it is our intention to keep these at a very reasonable level given the nature of the market we will be active in (the hard pressed small to medium size business market).
It is intended at this stage to charge just £49.50 per hour or £375 for a
full day. If the nature of the work necessitates your being involved in a company for a week or more then we propose charging 4 days fees for every 5 days worked. Thus a one week engagement would cost £375 x 4 = £1,500. The fee split would be in the order of 2/3 to you as consultant, 1/3 to Team for doing the marketing / advertising, providing leads, the resource materials and generally being available to act as ‘the consultant’s consultant’. In other words if you have a particular consulting job to do and would like to discuss with us your proposed strategy, or even develop a strategy, then we’re only a phone call away.
Until a relationship is established clients will be required to pay fees in advance, and you would be paid within 7 days of our receiving payment. If at some point, in the event of an ongoing consultancy, you feel that a particular client deserves credit then we would be happy to discuss this. As a consultant with the Team Group you can ask us to do credit checks on any client where it is proposed to offer credit.
To become a fee earning consultant you must have had at least 5 years practical business experience (with a strong emphasis on marketing) and with a demonstrable track record of success. It would be better if you were a graduate but this is not essential. If you have previously been involved in any ‘turnaround’ situations where you’ve brought a business back from the brink this definitely gives you an edge. It does not matter whether you’ve run your own business or been employed. The most important criteria is being able to identify with the smaller business, develop clear objectives and then work with the business towards achieving the agreed goals.
To become a fee earning consultant requires a small financial commitment from you to cover our time spent with you and to ensure that you are serious about working the leads that we’ll send you – both for consulting work and for expressed interest in our other services (which may in turn lead to consulting work).
Subject to your being suitably qualified the fee for becoming a business consultant with the Team Group involves a one-off payment of £495 + VAT.
If you are not qualified or do not wish to become a fee generating business consultant but wish instead to focus on selling our products and services as a marketing consultant then you can do this without any payment (see the section
Become a Consultant).
The first step towards becoming a Business Consultant with Team is to pick up the phone and call Managing Director, Henry Newrick on his direct line 0845 222 0053. To become a Marketing Consultant please complete the application form on this site.
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