What Can I Expect From My Consulting Engagement?

By C. Birge Sigety

You might ask how, as the principal of Bison Management Solutions, I could write such a piece? As a former CEO of a number of businesses I have purchased millions of dollars of consulting services from management consultants, bankers, accountants, computer software vendors, engineers, and more. A key motivator to formalize the consulting over the last 13 years was the value that I was able to bring to bear on my companies by knowing when and what to buy in the way of consulting services.

The purchase decision would fall into two areas, both related to the skill sets employed. Those two areas and whether I solved the problem within my company, or outside came with the answer to two questions: Did I have meaningful experience, personally, that would allow me to move forward on the problem or issue before me? Did the subordinates on my management team and down through the organization have a meaningful experience, individually or as a group, to find the solutions we needed to do the right thing?

A whole host of things come to mind when you ask yourself and the people around you those questions. You will ask yourself why you wouldn’t take the time to learn the thing you are missing and to architect the solution internally? That one is very easy to answer; you don’t have the time and you don’t have the money to recreate the experience you can buy. If you get the right help you will learn enough to do the job the second time. That is why consulting costs up front but delivers something that is usually many times the return for the engagement.

Take the sale preparation engagement which is near the top of the offerings on what BMS can help you do. If you haven’t sold a business before, even if you are planning on a sale in several years, you don’t have the time to figure out what you should do. The reason is that the answer is unique to your own situation. The structure of your firm, the real estate, if any that you own related to the business, your feelings about your staff, the market you are in, the macro financial world that affects your industry, your state of incorporation, the Federal and State tax codes... the list is endless. You would have to read hundreds of books, many that would put you to sleep fast, to get all the answers. The EXPERIENCE is what you hire the consultant to help you through, while you continue to run your business, the most essential part of making a profitable sale possible for your equity owners.

You should expect to ask a lot of questions at the front end of the engagement to ascertain that you have the right team; they have to have the experience to give you the advice on how to structure yourself to accomplish your goal, in this case, the sale of the company in the future. After you have the blueprint and the reason for its components you can marshal your staff and your professionals to make the changes needed to get you to the point when you have a very attractive company. Imagine the confidence you will have as you move toward that goal. Having a blueprint to drive forward will give you that confidence. It won’t make the path any easier from a business standpoint, as you will still have to make all the decisions to get you there, but you will know where you are going and why. And that is something that the majority of you with small companies do not think about as you deal with the day to day affairs of running your business.

The reason we at BMS take the approach of working with you for a few days before you engage us for the longer term of the project, is to give you the time to interact with us and for us to understand exactly what it is that you want us to do for you. There is no “off the shelf, one size fits all” engagement from what we have seen.

You should think long and hard about what it is that you need and then make the call. You should have a prepared list of questions to ask the people you are thinking of using to make sure they have the experience, first hand, to help you. If you choose to call BMS you can be sure that we have a list of questions that we will ask you. We want to target your specific issue(s) and ensure we can provide the help to solve it. Our job at BMS is very interesting because we get to put to use a lot of years and a lot of past experience to make you a success. You can expect a lot in return, primarily the education and the experience you may not have or that may not be resident within your staff.

Make that list of questions and make your consultants get you the blueprint. Contact us today at info@bisonmgmt.com