First, small enterprises should not fall into the misunderstanding of scale and fame.
Some consultants pay as much as 1 10,000 yuan for lectures every day. How can small businesses afford such a high cost? Is it possible to expect a famous consulting company to fully implement it for you (and it is implemented in different places)? Several disputes between small enterprises and famous consultants in the industry are caused by this. The overall liquidity of the enterprise is less than several hundred thousand, so please ask a famous consulting company to do overall consultation, thinking that an idea and a set of plans can make a lot of money and goods flow smoothly. However, it took hundreds of thousands to name a product, design a package and do a preliminary market survey. If you want to consult the company for a complete marketing plan, the consulting company will say that your consulting project with a planning fee of 65438+ 10,000 yuan and 65438+ 10,000 yuan has ended. The business owner was dumbfounded and thought he had been cheated. Tens of thousands of RMB 10 got a product name and a "useless" planning scheme. But from the perspective of planning a company, my mental work is worth the price. Your business owner took the initiative to seek cooperation and signed a contract to act according to the contract. Why should I say I lied to you? The public says that the public is right, and the woman says that the woman is right. In fact, the key to the problem is that the door is not right, and cooperation is a mistake from the beginning.
When choosing a consulting company, try to find local companies as the mainstay. If the cost of consultation, communication and auxiliary execution in different places is too high, or the enterprise itself has some high-quality employees, you only need to buy the management consulting scheme of a famous consulting company, and you have considerable execution and application ability. Consulting companies do not need to invest too much manpower to implement and guide, so there is still the possibility of successful cooperation. Otherwise, no matter how good the consulting scheme is, it often ends in failure because it is not implemented in place.
In addition, famous consulting companies often have several first-class experts, and negotiation is their top expert, but the person in charge of your list is a novice, even a fresh graduate, so your chances of getting first-class service are slim. When negotiating, it is necessary to confirm the specific personnel responsible for consulting and implementation, and also to communicate with the specific implementation personnel. One or two experts cannot be used to select partners.
Second, know clearly what you want.
How to judge which consulting projects are urgently needed by enterprises? Which consulting companies in China do the best in this respect? What are the affordable companies for my small business? Search company information on the internet. What are its successful cases? What is the key to the success of its case? Can its successful experience adapt to its own enterprise? What are the failure cases? What is the reason for the failure? What consulting projects does my enterprise need? What are you not good at? How to make up for what you are not good at?
The boss of an enterprise first listens to the consultant who intends to cooperate, or invites the consultant to give a lecture in the enterprise, digest all his articles, works, internal publications and previous works, and find out what the characteristics of the consultant are. What industries are you familiar with? What are you good at?
First of all, we should save face and put the most difficult things first. Before cooperation, it is best to increase the time of "falling in love" and deepen understanding by inviting the creative staff to give lectures. If we are together, we will get married. If not, we will go our separate ways. Not only should I listen to the lectures of the boss of the consulting company (that is, the person with the highest level), but also listen to the lectures of the employees who plan to be responsible for my project. Prevent the "trap" of negotiating with first-class talents and implementing third-rate talents. The business environment in China is not perfect. There are many enterprises in the market that default on consulting fees or defraud business owners of consulting ideas, and there are also many consultants who use a universal template to conquer the world. China people generally lack the tradition of sincere cooperation, but they also lack the system design of how to make both parties have to abide by the contract. Before the formal implementation, the negotiation process should be considered as complicated as possible, and the responsibilities and rights of both parties should be expressed in black and white. The more careful the preliminary negotiation, the greater the possibility of successful implementation in the later stage. Compared with the initiative of business owners and consultants, business owners are in an advantageous position and consultants are in a weak position. Relatively speaking, the proportion of corporate default is greater. In order to reduce the transaction cost, we can adopt the method of "step-by-step pricing and step-by-step implementation" to avoid the risks of both parties. There is another way for business owners to get more professional services. The consulting company sets up a project team, and the salary and expenses of the project team are borne by the enterprise, and the consulting fee is calculated separately.
Third, we must find the key points that our enterprise needs to solve most urgently.
Some companies are good at creative production of TV advertisements, some companies are good at graphic advertisement design, some companies are good at event planning, some consulting companies are good at human resources, and some companies are good at financial management consulting. Enterprises mainly find shortcomings according to their own characteristics, and then find suitable consulting companies that can fill this shortcoming. For marketing management projects, some consulting companies have mastered a set of marketing management processes of foreign companies or large enterprises, but this process is based on the standardized, large-scale and modular management model of large enterprises, which has certain reference and reference significance, but it is often "painting a tiger without turning it into a dog" to completely copy it. Finally, the enterprise was not worth the loss, because it was too different from the actual operation of the enterprise and had to stop using it. As a result, the consulting fee was spent, which harmed the market and everything went back to the original point. With the intensification of competition in China's market, it is difficult for enterprises to solve problems in advertising creativity and product development by only one move and one type, and only one or two ideas. If the consultant doesn't know marketing management, distribution and terminal operation, and talks about creativity and enterprise strategy every day, it is basically impossible to play.
Fourth, give priority to me, supplemented by consultation.
A lion leading a flock of sheep often defeats a flock of lions led by a sheep. The quality of business owners determines how far an enterprise can go. If the business owner can't understand the case and article of the consultant, can't see the bright spot in the other party's article, just feels "good", or doesn't pretend to understand, you have no condition to communicate with it. Because even if you have a good plan, you will not appreciate it and be "shot", or fail to implement it properly. Consultants also pursue the maximization of benefits. Enterprises don't know anything. It is estimated that it is difficult for enterprises to grow bigger. It can be handled by making a general template in three situations. Naturally, this kind of negotiation can't maximize the benefits. Sometimes, even if the consultant takes it seriously, the business owner may not appreciate it, or the execution is too weak, but the output is not pleasing.
The level of business owners is limited. On the one hand, they should speed up their study. On the other hand, they can also hire third-party people (such as marketing teachers in colleges and universities and friends who know management consulting) as consultants. Although they can't think of good ideas and ideas themselves, they still have the ability to judge good or bad. But you can't choose a company recommended by a third party, and there are often benefits in it. The third party collects service fees from enterprises and referral fees from consulting companies, which makes it easy to stand on the same front with consultants. When you have the idea of worshipping your partner, you are often not on the same communication platform, and you often start in the best way and end in the worst way. The greater the hope, the greater the disappointment.
Enterprises should pay attention to cultivating the overall professional quality of the boss himself and employees, among which the quality of the boss is the most important. Although the business owner is a person with high comprehensive quality in the enterprise, the quality of the enterprise he manages often cannot keep up with the pace of enterprise development. Therefore, it is necessary to take the re-learning of senior managers of enterprises as the top priority of enterprise training projects. The quality of employees can be improved through the survival of the fittest and the recruitment of high-quality employees, but the quality of business owners can only be solved through their own rapid learning. In the current business environment, if you want to rely on professional managers to manage enterprises, business owners should at least have the ability to control and effectively motivate foreign professional managers. Hire a professional consulting company, but also "know the goods", learn to use and implement.
Therefore, improving the comprehensive quality of enterprise bosses is the fundamental problem of sustainable development of enterprises. For business owners, it should be the best policy to improve the quality of themselves and their employees, apply it to marketing practice, take themselves as the main body, supplemented by external professional forces, and introduce the best professional companies from the society to make up for the needs of enterprises, which is also the way to solve the lack of professional ability of enterprises once and for all.
Verb (abbreviation of verb) sincerity is the prerequisite for successful cooperation.
Enterprises should not hold me to talk about cooperation with all consulting companies. What they want to talk about is tens of thousands of planning fees (usually about five to ten times the actual budget), and some say that as long as the product sales reach tens of thousands, I will give you tens of thousands or the proportion of consulting fees. The sales volume of products mainly depends on the overall competitiveness of enterprises. Now it is difficult to increase sales in an all-round way by one or two ideas, and it can't solve the deep-seated problems of enterprises. Moreover, there are business owners who hide the risk of sales or default, so they can only find consulting companies that can't pull business, and companies with a certain level will not take this risk. Business owners should not expect too much from consultants, let alone be superstitious. At the same time, they should respect each other's mental work and don't have the idea of deceiving each other's plans. You can cheat others today, and smarter people will cheat you tomorrow.
To make a good consulting plan, if the consultant is not particularly familiar with this industry, it usually takes half a month to get started and master the characteristics of this industry, and it takes about ten days to go deep into the enterprise market to investigate the personality of the enterprise. It takes time to come up with creative and practical consulting solutions. The quality of the scheme is based on the time of thinking. The longer you think about it, the more likely you are to get a plan with higher gold content.
6. Long-term cooperation can maximize the interests of both parties.
Few domestic enterprises and consulting companies have heard that they can cooperate for a long time, and most of them do not exceed two or three years. It can be said that it is on and off. But what is the root of restricting the long-term cooperation between the two sides? In my opinion, the key is that enterprises are too eager for quick success and instant benefit, while consulting companies pursue the maximization of short-term interests, which makes the two sides fall into the dilemma of mutual vigilance. The negotiation and communication of the whole enterprise must be smooth. My suggestion is that enterprises and consulting companies send at least one employee to each other. Employees of enterprises should go to work in consulting companies every day and communicate at any time, while consulting companies should send employees to work in various departments of enterprises for a long time to gain a deep understanding of the operation and market situation of enterprises. This makes it easier to make a plan that conforms to the actual situation of the enterprise.
Finally, I give two words to the business owners: the premise of successful cooperation is to understand their own business, and improving their professional quality is fundamental; You can disagree with the consultant, but you must respect the consultant's right to express his views. There are many companies that can do financial brand planning. Our brand planning is done in a company in Beijing.
I didn't know which company to look for at first, but later I found one online.