How to Find the right Consultant By: Ceci Amador

Hiring a consultant can help small businesses, startups, and workspace operators in various ways. From helping with accounting and legal matters, to marketing efforts and providing specialized know-how, consultants can help ease the stress associated with day to day tasks necessary to get a business going and keeping it afloat.

However, finding the right consultant for your business isn’t an easy task, especially when there are various candidates out there. We spoke with Karen Condi, founder of Lexington based consulting company, Office Suite Strategies, to get some pointers on how to choose the right business consultant when opening your workspace.

Below, you’ll find Karen’s top 6 things to keep in mind when hiring a business consultant.

1. Consider how long the consultant has been in practice and the experience and background they have in the serviced workspace industry.
   
2. It’s important to see if the consultant has worked with different types of centers (coworking, virtual offices, business centers) or if they specialize in a particular kind.
3. Do they have experience across various markets? This is particularly important when considering opening a workspace location across different countries and cultures.
4. Does the consultant manage or has he/she opened a workspace of his/her own? “At Office Suite Strategies, we believe that managing and running our own centers allows us to practice what we preach and gives us a leg up as we’re actually implementing our own best practices on a daily basis.”  
5. Get a feel of the consultant and see if your personalities are a good fit. A consultant will become a key part of your team, so you need to make sure that it’s someone that will fit well with the rest of the staff, your business’ culture, and will understand how your invoicing and payment model works.
6. And lastly, make sure references are checked and that you they sign a confidentiality agreement (even if you really like them and they’re super friendly…it’s simply not a risk worth taking).

Hiring a business consultant is no light matter. Considering that your business will be in the hands of the consultant, it’s vital that whomever you hire is someone that you trust, feel comfortable with, can effectively communicate with, and also has a track record of consulting success stories.

There’s no such thing as a ‘perfect’ consultant, but right matches do exist. Just remember, you’re hiring a consultant to steer you in the right direction, so make sure that you heed their advice and that you compromise or find common ground on situations you don’t see eye to eye.

You’re ready to start your search and get your business going and growing. Good luck!