After losing another customer just recently to a “cost savings” consultant, I have to call a time out and ask business owners out loud: Why do you otherwise smart entrepreneurs take leave of your senses and hire these types of consultants?
I am not here to cry over spilled milk or demonize the consultant profession at large, I am sure on some level there are instances where it makes sense to pay someone from the outside to come in to your business and tell you how to run it even though they don’t know anything about it. I will concede that if you are trying to learn software or something else no one in your organization knows how to do, then yes, it makes sense to hire an expert. However, to hire someone to come in and analyze your spending and tell you where to make cuts to save money seems ridiculous. Notice I said “paying someone to tell you how to save money”. How much savings do you have to realize just to pay the consultant’s fee?
If you have not hired a cost savings consultant yet, but are thinking about it, let me save you some money and tell you what they are going to say. You are paying way too much for office supplies. But you know what? You aren’t currently being ripped off on your supplies. All the supplies and service you likely buy for your business, whether phone service or paper clips, are commodity items. What does that mean? It means the market sets the price, not the vendor. Office Max is probably 1000 times bigger than me, but we charge the same price on everything. One phone company can’t charge you whatever they want on your phone lines because the next one would give you the market rate. And so on.
Here is my no nonsense advice: Lose the consultant, and when you need something (phone service, toner, paper clips, whatever) get a couple or three quotes, make your decision, and move on. Get back to doing what you do to make money, because whatever that may be, I know it is not talking to consultants about saving more of it.
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