Risk is a common term in business and it is as simple as it sounds. Risk consultants are able to analyse risks and are therefore something that you should be very interested in as a business manager. Finding and deflating the risks that are involved with running your business can be hard but risk consultants are hired just for this. They can analyse and understand risk and help you to work more efficiently and hopefully avoid dangerous risks in the future.

Most of the time, you’ll be able to find services like this on the web. This means that you can surf the web and find a range of options available to you. This should make it easier for you to get things sorted and hopefully you’ll find it easier to make any final decisions once you’ve done some research on the subject.

Risk consulting is a specialist industry and there are literally hundreds of options available. You can either hire in house risk consultants or you can consider contracting some people for specific things you have coming up in the future – it’s entirely up to you but there are a lot of options available so you should find what you need.

Finding a service on the web is just like finding a product except for the fact that you don’t buy online. Therefore, research is just as important and you’ll need to remember that if you want a good deal, you’ll have to work for it. Finding the best options and comparing all the prices and features of their services will help you no end.

Just be sure to consider all your options before you make any final decisions. You don’t want to rush into something like this. Risk consultants are always available through the net but it’s worth remembering that you still want to get a good deal for this service – even if you have to hire them in house.

Advertising is a great way to find risk consultants but remember that as contracted workers they’re likely to be a little more expensive than in house staff. Take your time to find the options that are right for your business and your needs and you should be fine.

One of the biggest challenges faced by an Independent Computer Consultant when starting a computer consulting business, would be receiving payment on time for services rendered.

In the small business market, it is usually expected that charges are invoiced on a monthly basis for all services provided during the previous month.

Now you may be a very responsible computer consultant, and consistently mail all of your invoices out on the first of the month. But that doesn’t mean your clients will be putting a check in the mail to you on the 2nd.

As a small business owner yourself, you’re going to have financial responsibilities of your own that you’ll be required to meet on a regular basis. Regardless of how hard you work to make sure that your receivables are sufficient for meeting your expenses, it won’t do you any good if your invoice for that hard work winds up sitting in your client’s “to be paid” box, for weeks or even months.

Fortunately, there’s a very simple solution for making sure that you receive payment for your services ON THE VERY SAME DAY YOU GENERATE YOUR INVOICE.

A Factoring Company can purchase your receivables.

Once a month, or more frequently if you wish, you can email or fax a copy of each of your invoices directly to your factoring company. On the same day, the factoring company will deposit up to 85% or more of the total amount of your invoices directly into your bank account.

Then, once your client delivers payment to your factoring company, you will receive the remaining 15% of your invoice, minus the fee charged by the factoring company. The fees will vary depending on when payment was received. Fees can range from between 1.2% for payments received within 30 days to 1.6% for invoices left outstanding for longer than 90 days.

I believe these fees are well justified, just so I could know at the start of each month, EXACTLY how much money I’ll be receiving and EXACTLY on what date!

It’s also great not having to deal with making collection calls.

If a client is slow in paying an invoice, the factoring company acts on your behalf as your outsourced “receivables department”. They will make the initial collection attempts, and they will typically do it in a very professional and effective manner.

If an invoice ultimately goes unpaid, it becomes the responsibility of the computer consultant to repurchase the invoice from the factoring company and find a resolution with the client independently.

Another great benefit of factoring receivables is the ability to generate additional income outside of the regular, monthly billing cycle.

For my small business clients, my primary service is a Proactive Maintenance Plan, for which I charge a flat, monthly fee. For this fee, I provide round-the-clock network monitoring and remote computer support. These receivables are generally invoiced for and collected on or around the first of each month.

But very often, I’ll make recommendations for new projects that won’t fall under the scope of the regular, monthly maintenance plan. For example, installing a new firewall.

This project would be billed in addition to the regular, flat monthly fee. If installation of the firewall is completed to the client’s satisfaction on the 15th of the month, an invoice for the project can be created on the 15th, submitted to the factoring company, and be funded to my bank account all on the same day.

Having consistent and reliable cash-flow is critical to the survival and growth of any business. Especially to a computer consultant who’s just starting out, without substantial capital sitting in the bank. Factoring receivables can provide the financial stability necessary when you start a computer consulting business of your own as an Independent Computer Consultant.

Every consulting company needs an attractive and eye catching logo design as a branding element. Your consulting identity need not be an exquisite piece of art – it can be a simple design that works well and gets your point across.

Why You Need a Custom Consulting Logo Design

To understand what constitutes an appropriate identity for your consulting business, we must first look at the purpose that is achieved by having a logo. A logo for your consulting business is an essential branding element because it can be instrumental in building the identity that you seek among potential clients and customers. Your logo should exude your company attitude, character, values, and skills. Those looking at your new identity must gain some knowledge about your company just from its design. But an effective design does much more. Your logo can help to foster a long lasting and positive impression about your company. When existing and potential clients see your new identity, the goal is that your company is immediately recognized. Logos can be that powerful!

When working with a designer, think of the most recognizable logos in the world, like McDonald’s Restaurants and Nike. When we see these, we instantly think of the product(s) that they represent and the company that makes these products. This is proof positive that your consulting logo, with the right design and delivery, can do the same for you, even if it is on a much smaller scale and you are a small firm just starting out!

Making a Strong Impression

How you can you be ensured that your consulting logo will pack the “punch” that is found with these infamous brands? The key to making a lasting impression and strong brand identification is to make certain that your design is memorable. Many companies make the mistake of assuming that a complicated and expensive design will ensure instant acceptance by the target market for their businesses. They could not be more wrong. Complicated logos have the opposite effect – becoming just cluttered images that the brain does not easily and readily recall.

Thinking Ahead When Designing Your Consulting Logo

You should also consider the possible places and items that will display your logo when you design it. You will likely use more than one medium to get your identity out there, and your design will be used to brand your efforts in the future. Be sure your designer knows of your plans for future growth. For example, perhaps you will be using your logo immediately for business cards and letterhead, but plan to add it to your company website or maybe in a direct mail piece. Make sure that the consulting logo design that you establish for your business can be easily used in any or all places that you might choose to use it now and in the future.

Business coaches are catalysts. They inspire personal and professional growth in individuals to help businesses achieve their goals. The impact of business consulting firms on organizations cannot be overrated. They change the way executives approach their own responsibilities and how to better motivate the people they manage.

But how do you, as a business consulting firm, actively make a meaningful impact? What creative strategies can you use to promote business development, talent management, and change management?

It all starts by identifying how personal benefits are linked with business benefits. A dynamic balance between the two provides the context for a creative, strategic, and innovative business relationship. Let’s look at a few of the ways a business consulting firm impacts success:

• Commitment: As a business coach, it’s difficult to create commitment out of thin air. Executives have to be open and willing to change in the first place. But you can encourage commitment by inspiring executives to work towards goals that have a meaningful impact on their skills as well as the business’ results. Your work should empower executives to find and use their own creativity and initiative to work and perform in a way that positively impacts the business.

• Creativity: It is your job as a business consulting firm to ask a lot of questions, listen to personal and professional challenges, and provide valuable feedback to stimulate executives’ thinking. This is a very creative process that involves pushing them to discover new ideas that are both useful and practical to the success of the business. The real growth happens when executives implement the changes and stand behind their convictions.

• Empowerment: Another responsibility you have as a business consulting firm is to empower executives to pursue meaningful goals by using their own creativity and initiative to affect change. Your impact on them (for better or worse) will affect the way their subordinates think and act in a way that benefits the business.

• Accountability: Insistence on regular accountability is the cornerstone of an effective business consulting firm. Commitment, creativity, and empowerment are all important, but unless individuals are effectively directed they may not achieve the desired results. Accountability involves goal-setting, questioning, listening, providing feedback, pointing out how actions affect outcomes, and other areas that affect business success.

• Performance: Performance is, of course, the ultimate measure of success. Effective business coaching balances empowering executives with new ideas and measuring the results of their actions. Your biggest impact on performance is your ability to be decisive, be bold, be clear, and be the one person they can turn to for an objective viewpoint.

Business coaching is a vital part of taking executives and their companies to a higher level. As a business consulting firm you have the unique opportunity to help affect that change. Learn more about becoming a better coach by visiting http://www.ThinkBlueThinking.com or calling 619.550.8052.

Getting accepted into the college of your choice is a tricky thing to do at times but by using a college admissions consultant you can greatly increase your chances of getting accepted into the first college on your list. Really in this competitive day and age having a good college admissions consultant makes all the difference.

These consultants are people who specialize in getting people just like you into the college of their dreams and know all the ins and outs of the college admissions game. Here are some of the ways that a college admissions consultant can make a difference in your college admissions quest:

o Help finding schools: Perhaps you have no idea where you want to go to college and only have a vague notion as to where it is you would like to go. Your college admissions consultant can give you many ideas as to which schools would be a good fit for you and you can then go from there.

o Help with applications: College admissions consultants know exactly what schools do and do not want to see on applications. They will be able to review your application before it is sent off to the college you are applying to and be able to tell you if there is anything that needs to be added or taken away. Beyond that they will also let you know what, if any, accompanying paperwork must be sent off with the application. Imagine how terrible it would be to get excluded from the college of your choice simply because you neglected to send in a form that you didn’t even know about.

o Help with student loans: It may be necessary for you to obtain student loans in order to attend the college of your choice. Do you have any idea where to begin your search? Your admissions consultant will know exactly where to look and can even help you determine what type of aid you will be able to qualify for. In some instances they can even give you some ideas of specific scholarships that you may qualify for that you may not have otherwise found out about. While it is true that it costs money to hire a college admissions consultant, if they can provide you with ideas for scholarships that you never have to pay back it is sort of like they will be paying for themselves.

Getting into college is hard enough. Yes you can do it by yourself but why would you want to put yourself through all that aggravation? What if you leave something out in the application process? What if you miss a section on your financial aid form? The point is there are too many variables to have your college career left to chance and once you hire a college admissions consultant you will see that they make all the difference in the world. You are only going to go to college once, make the most of it and get into the school you want with these consultants help.

A few years ago I suddenly found myself without a job. This came as a bit of a shock since I had just completed my MBA degree, resigned from the government, and moved to a new city to take a senior management position with an international training agency. It had looked like my future was all set. I seemed to be on the threshold of an international career path for the remaining 15 to 20 years of my working life.

Unfortunately — or perhaps fortunately, as it turned out — when I took that new job it quickly became apparent that I had jumped aboard a sinking ship. In a matter of 17 short and hectic months, my brief career with that agency ended. Not long after, that organization lost its funding and disappeared into the sunset.

Starting Over Isn’t Always Easy

Finding myself unemployed for the first time in my 25-year working life, my initial impulse was to launch into reaction-mode and immediately start searching for another regular position, or a “job-job”, as I now call those conventional types of jobs. After all, that’s all I had really known up to that point in my life.

A few times over the years I had gotten close to escaping the bureaucracy, but fear and life circumstances always conspired against me. I invariably chose the “easier, softer way”. After all, there’s nothing much more secure than a predictable paycheck coming in every two weeks, automatically, like clockwork, for a lifetime. (Yawn… wake me up when it’s over!). As it turned out, I didn’t even have to make the decision for myself; a board of directors made it for me when it decided to eliminate my job.

Fortunately for me, before I panicked and jumped into serious job-hunting mode, I came to the realization that more than 25 years of living from paycheck-to-paycheck and achieving very little, in a lasting sense, was more than enough. It occurred to me that it was my opportunity to do something different. I reasoned that working for a large company wouldn’t be much different from the government scenario I had already endured. It’s just a function of size more than anything else. I could see that with a large company I would just be another one of thousands of “cubby-hole dwellers” waiting for retirement to eventually arrive. I cringe now, just thinking about such a fate!

Not long after that I hung out my shingle as a private business consultant and business writer. Sounds easy enough, but it wasn’t. Like everything else in life, I had to pay my dues and learn a lot of things the hard way. Because I have always been an “experiential” learner it took me almost two full years to become completely disillusioned with business consulting and copy writing. Actually, I was genuinely surprised to find out the many negative aspects of what I had always seen from the outside as “freedom”.

The Downsides of Consulting

* I soon realized that there were only so many hours in a day that I could be working as a consultant, thus limiting me to a fixed income, just like when I worked for the government — except there were no fringe benefits. Not to mention, no income between contracts or while preparing proposals.

* My previous corporate “bosses” had simply been replaced by demanding and often ungrateful “clients”. At least those bosses had a direct interest in keeping me happy as an employee by providing decent pay and working conditions. Clients had no stake whatsoever in the success or well-being of me or my business.

* I was frequently short-changed by clients. Many of them “used” their option to switch to a competitor as leverage to squeeze me down to the lowest possible per diem rate, forcing me to work for fees much lower than what I was worth.

* The only time I ever received feedback from clients was when they wanted more, or when there was a problem. No matter how hard I might have worked to produce a high quality product that I was proud of, it was rare to receive any kind of positive feedback from a client. Their attitude always seemed to be, “after all we paid for it.”

* Each time I got a new client I had to prove myself all over again from scratch. Since the new client does not know you, and you haven’t worked with them before, one often has to spend a lot of time and effort just showing them that you are indeed qualified for the job.

Transitioning Online

So, as I learned during that period, life as an independent consultant wasn’t necessarily all it was cracked up to be. Nevertheless, I am thankful for that false start in consulting, since it was that real-life experience which led me directly to my current career path of the past decade, in which I have been making my living entirely online.

In fact, it was during my time as a consultant that I had noticed that a certain group of individuals, some of them in situations similar to mine, were actually making their living online. It appeared that a few of these online entrepreneurs were doing very well.

Now that I’ve been successfully earning my living online for the past decade as an independent webmaster, I realize that my period as a consultant was a necessary transition phase on my way to becoming an online entrepreneur. I don’t regret my time as a consultant but I have to admit that the numerous downsides of that lifestyle had never occurred to me before I tried it myself. I would much rather be making my living as an independent online entrepreneur.

We all know what the economy has been like the last year, and it isn’t worth repeating. Many employers have been forced to lay off dozens, hundreds or even thousands of hard working employees. So what happens when a small business with 10 employees now has downsized to 4? Those 4 employees who are grateful they are still employed are now reassigned new and additional duties that they are not qualified to do. So what is an employer to do? Outsource. Outsource to a qualified company who can offer an affordable rate with exceptional services. By outsourcing your administrative duties, you are getting customized services without the price tag.

By outsourcing to an administrative consulting service company, you get all the benefits of an in house admin without having to pay payroll taxes, benefits or contribute to a 401k. While this is a great set up for a lot of existing businesses and start-ups, you must first understand what an administrative consultant will, and won’t do.

Admin Consultants work off site. For the most part, they are available M-F, and sometimes on weekends depending on their schedule. They may not be available the second you need them, so set up a schedule if you know you will need assistance on a certain day/time.

Many Admin Consultants will have contacts for other services you may need. A lot of consultants attend networking events and stay in contact with other consultants. If you need a special service or have a project that needs competition, ask your consultant! He/She may be able to recommend someone qualified.

Pay your Admin on time and in full. Even though Admins are not on your direct payroll, they are still providing a vital service to you. The good thing about an admin consultant is that you can set up your own payment schedule-weekly, bi-weekly or once a month!

Realize that many admin consultants, or ‘virtual assistants’ are business owners, just like you. Treat them with respect and understand that their time is valuable just like yours.

Administrative Consultants can be of a great service to you and your business, but you have to be willing to accept the trade offs. Outsourcing can save you time, money and a lot of headaches, just make sure you find an Admin Consultant who is vested in their business and it will reflect in yours.