We all need to get by with a little help from our friends. When you have a small business you get by with help from advisors and helpers. Advisors have a certain expertise and wisdom that you can rely on for guidance and mentorship. Helpers are those that can help with various tasks you don’t like doing or don’t have time for with your schedule. You might have a few already but you should always be on the look out for smart people to advise and help your business.
Entrepreneur.com sums up the challenge well “The good news is that there are many ways to get access to the expertise you may need. The bad news is that just the process of managing your advisors and advice can be a challenge, especially when the advice you get from one expert conflicts with that given by another. However, the most critical mark of a good advisor is his or her ability to provide essential information that enables you to make a qualified decision.”
The article goes on to say “Learn to recognize when you are facing a decision that you feel insufficiently informed to make, then find and contact advisors. There are experts in practically every field. Make your decision only after you feel confident in your grasp of the information.”
So your next question is probably, where do I find great advisors and helpers? We did some research and came up with some great resources.
Where Do You Find Great Advisors and Helpers?
Keeping it Local
There are great local resources and development agencies that can help you with your business. There are two that come to mind – SBDC and SCORE. SBDC stands for Small business Development Center and SCORE stands for Service Corps of Retired Executives. These offices have resources and people that are experiences in startup issues and small business challenges.
Getting Your Temp On
Getting temporary help is great and you can get it from agencies like Kelly Services and Manpower but you can also get them from universities in the form of internships. I personally worked with some of the local business schools to hire MBA students looking for great consulting projects to build their resume and affordable labor for me that can do complex analyst level work.
Finding Help Online
Granted, there are many great online resources for information on small business (like the one you are reading now) there are some web sites to find people with specific skills that would work remotely. Sites like elance.com and AssistU are great for specific task based help. I also love sites like Advisor.com and PartnerUp for searching for advisors
Parting Advice on When to Know You Need Advisors and Helpers
Closing this post, I would offer this from the same Entrepreneur.com article and sums it up nicely:
“There is one other point worth making here: Experts and advisors all have limitations, and differing sets of experiences and perspectives. Your job is to factor these elements into your decision-making process. For example, if you ask a patent attorney whether you should file a patent, there’s a pretty good chance he’ll say yes. On the other hand, a business advisor may suggest you forego the cost of a patent and get to market as quickly as possible, putting your available resources into marketing rather than intellectual property.
When it comes to conflicting advice, be willing to listen to what you may not want to hear. Ultimately, you’re the one who will be dealing with the consequences of your decisions. The most important thing to remember is that the decision is yours alone. If your advisor is unable to support your independence in this way, you may want to find another advisor.”
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