Hardly a week goes by without my being contacted by someone posing the question: “How do I become a business efficiency consultant?” After repeatedly (and inefficiently) responding to many of those emails with similar advice, I’m now sitting down to hopefully write out that advice in a more permanent form.
Before I begin, however, let me give a word of clear warning. There is no set, required pathway an individual must take in order to “arrive” at being a successful business consultant. What is required is much patience, diligent study and work, along with the right connections.
An individual may have an MBA from a prominent business school, and they may have ten years of practical experience in business management and consulting; however, without the right connections, a business consultant will be hard pressed to find true success. Along a similar line, an individual may have academic training and degrees unrelated to business management; however, their experience and, especially, connections can place them in the right location at the right time, which can lead to their success as a consultant.
Perhaps I should have actually rephrased my article title as “How to Become a Successful Efficiency Expert,” since the “successful” aspect differentiates the vast number of want-to-be consultants from those who have actually “arrived.”
My advice for those pursuing this field of business consultancy stems largely from my experience as the lead consultant of a small firm. While I am somewhat familiar with the internal politics and evolution of a consultant at a large business consultancy firm, I am not in a position to provide advice regarding how to worm your way from entry level to senior consultant at such a firm.
My experience also falls in the fields of working largely with small businesses and nonprofit organizations, particularly in regards to performance, efficiency, production, growth, cost savings, marketing, and customer interaction. There are many specialized fields within the broad “business efficiency” realm for which I cannot speak. As an example, if an individual desired to pursue the field of manufacturing efficiency to provide Six Sigma recommendations, that is outside of my experience. Thus, I will provide recommendations to those interested in serving smaller businesses as independent consultants who evaluate and analyze a company’s status quo and provide recommendations for improvement.
Academic Preparation
Ideally, a Master’s in Business Administration would provide a strong foundation for a business consultant. A Bachelor’s in Accounting or a Bachelor’s in Business Administration would also be good. If an individual had completed college in the past and had a bachelor’s degree unrelated to the field of business, working on a second business-related bachelors or pursuing a business related masters would be a smart option. Additional options include a law degree or a degree in communication, psychology or human resources.
While a bachelor’s and master’s degree in the field of business are ideal, real life experience and personalized study can more than make up for any perceived “academic deficiencies.” If, however, you are hoping to gain employment at a large business consultancy firm, I would strongly recommend you pursue the business degree option (particularly the MBA).
Personal Preparation
Personal PreparationBecoming a successful business consultant rarely (if ever) happens overnight. Treat it as a long term dream, and plan every portion of your life with your dream in mind.
Be selective in the jobs you accept (whenever possible), choosing employment that will broaden your perspective within the workplace. While most people prefer to work at the same company, search for jobs at varied places of work in order to expand your understanding of contrasting workplace cultures.
Become a lover of knowledge and a student of people and history. Exercise your mind with problem solving, both real and fictional. Read the biographies of corporate and nonprofit leaders and learn from their mistakes and successes.
Recommended Reading List
Here’s a short list for those beginning or contemplating an entrance into the field of business consulting.
- The Ultimate Consultant (Weiss; Amazon)
- Great Consulting Challenges (Weiss; Amazon)
- Life Balance (Weiss; Amazon)
- Process Consulting (Weiss; Amazon)
- How to Acquire Clients (Weiss; Amazon)
- Value-Based Fees (Weiss; Amazon)
- How to Establish a Unique Brand in the Consulting Profession (Weiss; Amazon)
- Million Dollar Consulting (Weiss; Amazon)
- Thrive! Stop Wishing Your Life Away (Weiss; Amazon)
- Flawless Consulting (Block; Amazon)
Gain Experience
Seek an internship with a local established business coach or business advisor. If your city (or a city nearby) has a business consultancy firm that offers opportunities for internships or apprenticeships, work toward acquiring a position there. If a business consulting firm is hiring entry level positions (part time or full time), take the pay cut and jump on the opportunity to gain first hand experience.
Establish Yourself
During college, take speaking and writing classes. If you are beyond your collegiate years, take private speech or writing classes to refine your personal presentation.
Contact local colleges and universities, offering to hold free seminars related to your topics of interest (cost cutting, business growth, customer service, etc.).
Extend your services pro bono to a handful of local influential nonprofit organizations.
Become active online. Contribute to LinkedIn and other websites where you can provide answers to submitted questions. Contribute articles to newspapers and other outlets. Establish a website and develop an online personality through social media.
In Conclusion
If you are considering pursuing the field of business consulting, my initial recommendation would be to read a couple of the books listed above (particularly The Ultimate Consultant and Flawless Consulting) and to pick the brain of a local business consultant. As with any career change or career goal, it’s key to make sure that you know what you are getting yourself into. While being a business growth & improvement consultant is enjoyable for me, it’s not without its challenges and its mountain peaks as well as deep valleys. If you begin your own small business consulting firm, it will take considerable work to establish your reputation and to develop a network of connections that will ultimately place you within the “Executive Club” where the high dollar decisions are made.
Most of my new clients result as referrals from existing clients, and I find that to be the same with many other business consultants. Establishing yourself with the first couple of clients will be the typical hurdle; once you’ve crossed that and done well, the journey will gradually become easier.
Inevitably, I’ll return to this article and be occasionally adding to it and refining it. Feel free to leave questions, comments & tips below in the comments area.
Note: In answer to many questions I receive, while I have operated an internship program in the past, at the present I am not taking on any interns. Down the road, however I may resume our intern program.
Image credits: Top by Martin Fischer / Fotolia; Second by TheSupe87 / Fotolia; Third by Andres Rodriguez / Fotolia; Fourth by Monkey Business / Fotolia; Fifth by nyu / Fotolia.
Andrew,
Thank you for this article. I’m currently beginning my journey as a business efficiency consultant. I have worked at a local coin shop / gold buyer in San Francisco for the last 6 years (I am now 24), and I am ready to take what I have learned through experience and acquired knowledge from books and articles such as yours and begin my own independent business efficiency consulting firm here in the bay area. I have worked exhaustively to learn as much as I could in this time about creating standard operating procedures to improve core business processes, identifying technology to automate these processes, developing and maintaining web presence (content generation, website development and SEO outsourcing, social media management, adwords and adsense, etc.), small business accounting (Quickbooks management, spending and budget auditing, etc.), offline marketing (print, radio, television, trade shows, etc.).
If there’s any tips, advice, and additional recommended readings you can provide to me at the beginning stages of my journey I would be very grateful.
All the best,
Joseph Polyak
Joseph
I would verse yourself, on a Quickbooks system for your business. As for the client, please get versed on a couple of different systems. RFMS, JDE these systems have been exspanding into the smaller business feilds. They have instructional videos online, and are very informative. Good luck on your journey.
Honestly, when you look at the amount of people who give out advice, not one of them have walked the path. To be clear, they never worked the jobs or in the environment they are overseeing- or even bothered to do so.
You see this over and over again in all companies and all trades. Folly really in many cases. If you have been on the receiving end of these people, you can armchair warriors: what happens on the ground and real time is not their concern 9 out of 10 time.
Just recently, I saw the DNC company at work: They sent their cashiers to a room with broken lights, with paper on the floor, and a long counter with no coin catcher. Their adding machines were out of ink, leaving a faded park on the paper. In this, they demanded a 2,000 drawer be counted in 20 minutes.
There kitchen had no matts down and they had fryer going. They did not label their food or anything. No one knew how old the food was or where anything was. The kitchen had a design that not only insured harm, but that every person was taking 6 extra steps as well. They taught no one how to work in the kitchen or gave breaks. It gets much worse with them, too. Fully DNC is management that has held the contract too, long or even cared at the start. This huge company and you can see it has never gotten any good minds to help them.
In Yosemite Valley you will find their workforce is sad and depressed for the most part. Why?
Management by derision is one. Then you have a lack of peer to peer education, a lack respect and dignity is there from the top down, for people copy the top (Lead by Example is gone) if it is not, then they work to allow: schadenfreude.
Instead insuring all their employees are docents, have the capacity of host in knowledge, they insure, idleness, avoidance and alcoholism.
There is not one learning tool in their housing, no mandate to make their staff go to at least 6 Ranger led interpretive programs. Zero buy in there or for the parks. They should be made to take all of FEMA’S, free classes on (ICS) Incident Command Systems, Communications, Leadership….. and get free wilderness first aid training. In all this they would learn and be asset to the parks and their guests.
DNC is not alone in this, all the people they hire to help them have spent too, much time, in the office, never have they ever, had their boots on the ground.
Hi Andrew,
Thanks for the insight. Could you share more details about the specific skills required to become a successful efficiency expert? You mentioned presentation and communication skills, the important of learning first hand from a business coach/advisor, and building your credibility to help gain and keep customers; however, you didn’t touch on what a good resume looks like, the specific skills required (hard or soft) to make the first couple of customers happy, the importance of partnerships, etc.
Which of the books in the reading list do you think best answer this question?
Thanks,
Craig
Andrew, thanks for your insightful article. A hospitality professional for over 25 years I have seen it all and being a concierge especially. Interested in being on the consulting end for small businesses the efficiency or let me rephrase, the inefficiency of so many in mind blowing. I got to get into this field and use my insider knowledge to help improve what is out there. Question: what materials would you suggest I have written up and presentable as I would be approaching small businesses and offer my services pro bono. Business cards, letter head?
Thanks for writing this Andrew. My background is primarily in Healthcare which is what introduced me to LEAN methodologies. I would like to take the experience I’ve gained to pivot into a Process Improvement Consultant capacity where, hopefully I can work with other industries besides healthcare. As you have stated, I’m having difficulty making this transition because I do have Lean training and experience, a BSN and an MHA but am not getting any bites on the job front. According to what you wrote, do you feel that the lynchpin in this situation is not enough connections? Thank you! Jocelyn
Jocelyn, I’m sorry to hear about your struggles. From my experience, around 80% of efficiency projects come from referrals (with Business A recommending a consultant they have successfully used to Business B). A small percentage of businesses are just looking around “blindly,” trying to find a good match for their project with a “stranger” (ie a consultant they are unfamiliar with and who comes to them without the stamp of approval from an associate). For myself, the referrals are as good as gold, and I do my best to reward those making the referrals in order to encourage that steady stream of business.
Your best bet to attempt to “get into the inner circle” will be to do some pro bono work with some local nonprofits, or if you have influential friends be certain to educate them about what you are doing and what you hope to do and encourage them to spread the word. Start a website – even a simple one – and be sure to let me know about it. I frequently refer to other consultants as my own project load over the past couple of years seems to be always filled to the brim.
Best of luck!
Andrew Jensen
Oh my goodness, Andrew, thank you for writing this article. It’s helped so much. I’ve not been a “consultant” (as it were) but I’ve gone into organizations and shaved hours off processing time in varied functions of their businesses. I actually have a MBA and a BA, I also just finished my CAPM (Certified Associate in Project Management) certification and decided that the best way to a great future was to just do it. Just start my own consultancy, but I’m doing it slowly, it’s my journey and my mission is to help businesses become more efficient in order to spur increased profitability. As I’m writing this, I’m creating my business plan and SWOTT analysis (which is how I came upon your article). Through the next year, I’m in a contract position at a local utility, I’m working to get into some of the larger business networking organizations in my area so I can make those all important connections and start helping people meet their goals and build their businesses. This article was so encouraging. Thank you again and no matter what you do keep your head up and keep moving forward!
Thank You and Happy New Year!
I am also starting my own Efficiency Consulting Business in Los Angeles and would like some suggestions on specific calculations and projects done to demonstrate efficiency improvements. I am currently using excel and starting with a programming platform. Any advice would be much appreciated.
Thank you!
A Master’s in Operations Research/Management Science or a concentration in an MBA program.