Business Consultant vs Professionalisation: What’s the Difference?
When you start looking for help with your business, “business consultant” is usually the phrase that comes to mind. It is a broad label, and it covers some very different ways of working. Some consultants will spend an hour or two with you, talk through what is going on, and leave you with a list of things to try. Others get much more involved, and stay involved. That difference matters more than it might appear, especially if you already have customers but are struggling to make a proper profit, or simply cannot get everything done.
I run Professionalisation, so I have a view on this, and I want to be straight about it. This post is about how a typical business consultant works, and how that compares with what we do. I have written before about what a business consultant in the UK can actually do for you. Here I want to focus on the contrast that comes up most often in practice: advice you are left to put into action on your own, versus someone who gets involved and has a real interest in whether the business succeeds.
What a typical business consultant actually does
A typical business consultant is there to give you advice. You book a session, often for an hour or two, once a month or so. They listen to what is going on, look at your figures if you have them to hand, and tell you what they think you should do. Then the session ends, and it is over to you to put it into practice.
There is nothing wrong with that model in itself. If you have a specific question, enough time to act on the answer, and a business that is already running reasonably well, a good consultant can be genuinely useful, and a clear outside view is sometimes all you need.
The limitation is what happens after the meeting. The consultant has been paid for their time, and they move on to the next client. If the advice works, that is good. If it doesn’t, and the business continues to struggle, or even fails, it is no big deal to them. They have no real skin in the game. Their success is not tied to yours. Most consultants are decent people, and I don’t say this to knock them. It is simply how that way of working is set up.
Why advice on its own is often not enough
The owners I speak to are rarely short of ideas. They are short of time. They have customers, the work keeps coming in, and most days are already full. The books are a bit behind, invoices go out later than they should, and jobs that would actually improve the business, like reviewing prices, keep getting pushed to next week.
In that situation, a monthly advice session can leave you with a longer to-do list, not a lighter one. You come away knowing what you ought to do, and then you go back to serving customers and dealing with whatever has come in while you were in the meeting. A few weeks later you are back in another session, still meaning to get round to last month’s actions.
That is the gap between knowing what to do and actually doing it. A consultant who only advises cannot close that gap for you, because the work of running the business still sits with you. If you are already working in the business all day, every day, there is no space left to work on it.
How Professionalisation works differently
Our approach is different, because we are not only here to advise. We help people run their business. Most owners set up to deliver a product or a service, and then find that running a business brings a long list of other jobs with it, from accounts and admin to operations, marketing and staffing. We provide the advice, and we also take on the admin, accounting and operations, so you can focus on your work.
That means we get more involved than a typical consultant. We are not dropping in for an hour or two once a month and leaving you to it. We work alongside you. If the books need bringing up to date, or invoices are going out late, we help get that done. If something in the way the business runs is making it harder than it needs to be, we don’t just point it out. We help put it right.
We also work with our clients indefinitely, rather than on a short project. We would rather work with a business for years than for a few sessions, and that only happens if the business does well. The more our clients succeed, the more we succeed. So we have a vested interest in your success, not just in handing you a tidy set of recommendations. We are going to be there to live with the results.
The advice itself is grounded in real-world experience of building businesses that thrive, not just in theory. A plan that looks good on paper is worth very little if a busy owner cannot actually carry it out. We are interested in what will work in your business, this month, not in a perfect plan that never gets used.
From working in the business to working on it
For most owners, the first change that matters is time. When you are doing the work, running the office, chasing payments and trying to think about the future, all at once, something has to give. Usually it is the thinking, so you stay stuck working in the business.
By taking on the operational side, we free up that time so you can start working on the business. That might mean looking properly at which work is profitable, deciding what to stop doing, or putting simple systems in place so the same problems don’t keep coming back. It is not a luxury. It is how a business that is merely keeping going starts to become one that works for you.
For some owners, that is as far as they want to go. They still want to run the business, but with far less of the day-to-day weight on their shoulders. Others want to go further. Once the business is running well and the systems are in place, we can take on its full management, so you can retire, start something new, or simply do other things with your life, while still keeping an income from the business you built. Not every client wants to make that whole journey, and there is no pressure to. But it is why we think in years rather than months.
What this looks like in practice
Once you compare the two ways of working, a few practical differences stand out. With a typical consultant, the result of the relationship is usually advice: a conversation, a plan, perhaps a note of what to do next. With us, the result is also the work itself. Advice and doing sit together, so you are not left to find separate people for the accounts, the admin and the day-to-day operations, and then try to keep them all in step. A consultant’s work is often a short engagement, or a regular but brief session. We stay, which means we can see what happens when a change meets real life, and adjust if it isn’t working.
We work on a pay as you go basis, with no tie-ins, so you only use the time you need. Our clients usually spend £2,000 to £5,000 a year with us, depending on how much help they want. Some use us for a few specific jobs. Others hand over a large part of the running of their business. Unused time is refundable. We are a London-based online business, and we work with owners across the UK. A lot of the work can be done by phone and online, so you don’t have to be nearby to get help.
Which kind of help is right for you
If you have a clear question, the time to act on the answer, and you mainly want a second opinion, a typical business consultant may be all you need. Plenty of owners get value from that, and it would be unfair to suggest otherwise.
If, on the other hand, you have customers but are not making the profit you should, or you are so busy that the important work never gets done, advice on its own is unlikely to be enough. What you probably need is someone who will get involved, help run the parts of the business that are taking up your time, and stay long enough to care about the outcome.
A simple way to think about it is to ask what happens after the advice has been given. If the next step is a list for you to work through when you get a moment, you are looking at a typical consulting arrangement. If the next step is us helping to get those things done, and staying with you while the business improves, you are looking at Professionalisation.
Talk it through with us
If this sounds like the sort of help you have been looking for, the easiest first step is a conversation. There is no obligation and nothing to buy. We will listen to what is going on in your business and tell you honestly whether we think we can help.
You can book a free chat through the contact form on our website, at professionalisation.co.uk.
