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A consultant is a provider of consulting services. Consultants are often grouped within consulting firms, or operate independently.According to the dictionary, the English word consultant means that the specialist from outside the organization who are called to give an opinion on an issue or help to solve a specific problem.

A consultant is exactly a counsellor. The business advisor - or so of "consultant" can apply to many trades: Consultant ERP, IT, financial management, human resource management, strategy, management and so on.

Reasons to hire a marketing consultant

There are several reasons to motivate business leaders to hire a marketing consultant.

·         Specialized expertise: In general, the director of a company uses the services of a consultant when they need specialized expertise and not have the skills required within the business. These cases involve new technologies or new management methods.

·         Privacy: Sometimes the business executive wants to conduct a study and keep their identity confidential. A consultant can be very useful for this kind of study that relates to either market research.

·         Credibility: A consultant may be asked to submit a report in order to support a decision that was taken by a company director. A director may know exactly what he wants and what decision to take, but rather refer to a consultant to get the necessary support in the realization of the project.

The services offered by a marketing consultant

It is important for the marketing consultant to identify the areas that require his intervention. When internal resources involved in the preparation of the intervention program, it can be defined more precisely, participants may be more motivated to achieve and chances of success are increased.

The customer must define as precisely as possible the work to be done by describing the activities that will be considered by the consultant and the targets for specifying the conditions and the reasons for the commitment of the consultant, identifying the potential problems, internal resources and setting the constraints of time and money.

The consultant will define its understanding of the problem and the work plan necessary.The work plan should include the objectives activities, professional resources used and the budget consultation.

Measuring the performance of a marketing consultant

A consultant is hired mainly because he has certain skills required by the customer. His work should be assessed in terms of ability to apply his talents to the needs of the customer. Three methods can be used to measure his performance.

·         Job specifications

This method involves an item by item review of the provision of service to check if the consultant has completed all activities and he has met his all commitments.

·         The short-term benefits

The second method is to measure the contribution of the consultant on improving the financial position of the company. Normally, there is a causal relationship between the consultant's work and some direct benefits. That the consultant was hired specifically to make some changes, the impact of its work should normally be reflected in the statement of financial performance.

·         The long-term benefits

The third method and perhaps the most important is the contribution of the consultant in the long-term benefits to the company. In carrying out its work, the consultant should help to raise the skill level of the staff of the company transmitting the maximum knowledge.

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