Reasons to Hire a Consultant

An advantage of hiring an expert is that you can get an objective opinion from someone essentially without an agenda—someone whose only stake in the outcome of your project is your success. Insiders can have their own agenda, whether it is political or just being busy with their day-to-day jobs.

Some outsiders can have an agenda, in terms of bringing in as many resources as they can, whether you need the extra bodies or not. Vendors with dollar signs in their eyes can fall into this category, and should be managed carefully. The rule of thumb is to define your own direction, or hire an independent who can help you, then look for vendors who can play a defined and carefully bounded role.

Familiar with Best Practices

A good independent consultant brings knowledge of best practices in their field. She will be able to provide a frame of reference, kept up to date by her ongoing participation in the field.

The benefit of hiring an expert is that where you have the knowledge of your business, you might not be an expert in CRM. Someone who moves around from one company to another gets to see many different ways of doing things and, just as importantly, ways not to do them.

Technology Transfer to Your Employees

Give a man a fish and you can feed him for a day, teach him to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. We're all familiar with this story, and it's still true. Hiring a consultant gives you the opportunity to provide hands-on training, coaching, and mentoring to your team.

You should expect any consultant to be able to assist with technology transfer, so even if your team depends on the consultant in the early stages of the project, eventually, the dependency decreases and the team's self-sufficiency increases. Look for consultants who believe in making your team self-sufficient as soon as possible.

Proven Methods Can Shorten Implementation Time

When your approach means trial and error for your team, you can waste the money saved on doing it yourself by just stumbling around. Hiring a consultant with proven methods developed in multiple industries can drastically shorten implementation time and help keep your project within budget.