How exactly does business consulting work?  Are you really just paying someone to walk in, tell you your business is failing miserably, and then leave?  Isn’t this just paying to be insulted?  Business consulting is not paying someone to criticize you; it’s paying someone to tell you how to improve your business.  That’s why people like Phillip Thow can make money.  Phillip Thow, along with many other advisors and consultants, make their money by telling people how to make their business more effective.

So, let’s say you’ve just started a pizza shop – just for illustration.  You aren’t really selling too many pizzas, and you know that’s a problem.  Anyone can walk in, tell you the place is a dump, and walk out – but an advisor like Phillip Thow can walk in, tell you the place is a dump, and give you the number for a roach exterminator, a good painter and a cheap interior designer.  It’s not just an issue of locating and stating the problem; it’s an issue of being able to fix the problem.  A business consultant is trained to help you through that process.

Essentially, the job of a consultant like Phillip Thow is to make a contract with your company, enabling them to be paid for their services.  After a contract is written up, the consultant will observe and even work with your company while they figure out just how your business works.  They’ll take careful notes and come up with a general list of things that can be improved.  At the end of their observation period, the consultant will come to you with their suggestions, and a plan for implementing them.  They’ll help you work through the implementation, making the change to a more efficient system.  It’s only after they’ve helped you to make that change and checked up with you to make certain it’s working out alright that your consultant will say farewell.