Q&A - Why should a small or start-up business employ consultants and advisers?

Most entrepreneurs know that making a success of a new business requires hard work, the ability to multi-task, persistence and a decent amount of good luck.

One way in which a start-up can reduce the need for good luck is to ensure that weaknesses in specific skills required by the business are covered. Many start-ups find that there are some skills for which it is always best to seek outside professional help.

A good way to think about consultants and advisers is that they are specialist suppliers of advice and guidance. They don’t tend to come cheap, but the good ones are worth it!

Professional advisers can play an important role in the planning stage for a start-up. A good adviser will help the entrepreneur avoid making the expensive mistakes and errors that can leave the business with a permanent disadvantage (or worse, failure).

Advisers and consultants for small businesses can assist in areas such as:

• Accounting and book-keeping
• Banking and finance-raising
• Legal (e.g. contracts, leases, protecting ideas via trademarks & patents)
• Design (marketing, websites etc)
• Branding & other marketing tasks
• IT (e.g. telecoms, customer systems, e-commerce)

The term consultant is generally taken to mean someone who provides a more specialist service than a business adviser and who works on specific projects. A consultancy project might last a few days, several weeks or longer. For the small business or start-up, consultancy tends to be on relatively short and inexpensive projects.

A summary of the advantages and disadvantages of using advisers and consultants is provided below: