Utility Consultants – How to Choose One

You are a manufacturing company that spends several thousand dollars per month on utility costs and would like to know if you are getting a fair deal from your utility providers. Each month you get your statement of charges that are often so complicated that after very little scrutiny you surrender to the unavoidable facts that you are helpless in determining whether the charges are valid and that you must pay. In the back of your mind you have always wondered if erroneous charges do exist and if so, are they widespread? Believe it or not, you are among the vast majority of utility customers who repeat this episodic ritual every month. Utility Consultants have popped up everywhere as a direct result of the need for guidance on this issue. For the most part, they have mastered the art of cutting through the convoluted mess of the common utility bill. Following are some guidelines to follow in choosing utility consultants.

What Type of Consultant Do You Need?

Utility Consultants come in many shapes and sizes each with their own specialty. If you are a fairly big energy user, you will probably want to engage the services of each kind in their own due time. The different types of companies include a bill auditing, facilities auditing, power consulting, and for large natural gas users a gas marketing. Regardless of your company’s size and energy use, you should start with a standard utility bill auditing company. These companies can verify that your charges and usage patterns are consistent with what they should be given your company’s equipment, operation, and industry. For example, a large printer’s power usage should exhibit large kWhs and relatively low demands, whereas a large cement plant should exhibit the exact opposite.

Another reason to engage the bill auditing company first is that before you can lower the amount of energy used, it is good to verify that you are actually using the energy stated on the bill. More than once a bill has been found to contain erroneous charges. A water bill that one company is paying might actually be the usage of two or more buildings or meters. A gas bill that reads 1000 dekatherms used might actually have been programmed with the wrong multiplier and so actually only used half that. A no-cost rate schedule change for one big power meter might eliminate the need for very costly power factor correction equipment. These are just a few examples of why the bill audit should be first. Most bill auditing companies work on a performance basis and so only get paid if they find you a savings. This type of pay plan can be beneficial especially when working with a tight budget.

The Right Company Can Save You Money

Now that we have established what the different utility consultants do, establishing a strategic plan to engage each type will likely save you money. After the bill audit is complete, the facilities audit is in order. These audits will calculate where your energy ‘hot spots’ are, these are the areas where the bulk of your usage lies. You should go after these first. For a large building with lots of lights a lighting retrofit analysis is a good start. This type of study will put at your fingertips the costs and benefits of changing out your lights for more efficient lighting.

For a company with large motors, power factor penalties can be pervasive; hence, an analysis of power factor limiting equipment, like capacitors might be the answer. Facility audit typically call for capital investments to implement and so must be weighed against budget limitations. In short, each utility consultant has its place and should be dealt with in proper order. In choosing a utility consultant, you should use those that have been in business for at least five years and have a good list of references, particularly in your industry. In the end, the right consultants should be able to save your company a fair amount of money.

Why Use an IT Consulting Company Instead of Hiring Your Own Staff?

Information technology is actively part of businesses and relied upon for productivity and accuracy by everyone. What is information technology? This is a fairly broad term that encompasses networks, hardware, personal computers, applications, and basically just about anything involving computer technology. For businesses, information technology has four big components. First and foremost the network protects data and monitors traffic flow. Web applications and development facilitate all online transactions and gathering of customer data. Personal computers and hardware allow employees to do their work productively and relay correct information to customers. These four components require a knowledgeable IT staff to be well maintained for a business. Finding people who have skills and experience in all of these areas can be very hard. Anyone can say they are an expert in network security, but may not be able to do the job once hired. Using an IT consulting company can reduce these hassles and make sure each component is running properly, up-to-date, and secure.

The process of hiring someone takes enough time. Nothing is worse than hiring someone and then finding out that you must start the process all over again due to lack of experience or other issues. Since information technology is such a large part of business, it makes sense to obtain the right person for the job the first time. Wasted time in areas such as network security can be devastating. Someone who is inexperienced can leave your network wide open for system failures and virus threats. There are so many factors in a businesses computer technology and data housing that must be consistently monitored and maintained. Firewalls and virus software need to be current and installed correctly. These applications must have the right settings to work as they should. Sharing of data over the network must be secure and protect data integrity. Employees need to be monitored and prevented from going to sites and opening attachments that contain viruses and malware. The abundance of threats along with necessary maintenance procedures requires someone to not only be well-informed but ahead of the game with the most current applications and information. This is the main reason why businesses choose IT consulting companies over taking the time to create their own IT staff in house.

Computer consulting is a solution that can help companies that are unsure of what they need. An IT professional cannot be successful if they do not know what they are trying to accomplish. Many businesses do not know how their data and systems need to be handled. In these situations, hiring an in house staff can be a bad business decision. Systems are not well maintained and may be not be compatible. Information is often not stored correctly, hard to access, and lost easily. IT consulting companies have the experience to map out a businesses entire system and implement processes for complete efficiency. The benefits are worth investing in the services of an IT consulting company. If your company is struggling with internal system issues or does not know what needs to be done to employ or improve information technology, consider computer consulting for the best solutions.

Marketing Consultants – Targeting for Your Business’s Success

Marketing consultants showcase a company’s best features so that its brand will be front and centre in the minds of potential clients. There are a number of ways to effectively do so, and professional marketers tend to use a multi prong approach. This multi prong approach is an ideal way to reach a large target audience.

Analytics

Depending on the level of expertise that is needed, marketing consultants could simply analyse a company’s website and advise them of their options when they are trying to expand their marketing reach. It is then up to the company to implement those recommendation. Many companies, however, use these experts to not only analyse their website but to also ensure that those recommendations are implemented as well. For this reason, it is then the marketing consultant’s responsibility to stock the website with the proper content and manage it on an ongoing basis. In addition, the consultant is often charged with creating the pay per click (PPCs) campaigns as well as a plan to generate the back links within the company’s website.

Targeting

In order to be truly effective and eye catching, a company’s marketing campaign should offer something for the targeted demographic. For example, some people want their information in short and quick little increments that are concise while inviting them to learn more at the company website. For those people, marketing consultants use social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to deliver interesting news and other bits of information that is of interest to a wide variety of people.

Click Through Rates

A rich and vibrant website is a key point in order to ensure the success of a company. Marketing consultants are knowledgeable in the key elements that bring people to a website and keep them there clicking through the pages. This includes content that is highly relevant to the product or service the company is offering. This is accomplished by determining the keywords that people likely use in order to find services and products such as the company’s. Analysing click through rates can help a consultant test and formulate a winning combination of graphics, words, and visuals to appeal to a broad audience.

A targeted email marketing campaign carefully screens those visitors that are more likely to convert to sales of a company’s products and services. Marketing consultants issue carefully crafted calls to action designed to bring people to a company’s website.

Advantage of Hiring Professional SEO Consultants

SEO services firm are chargeable service agencies who are there to deliver quality SEO services for your website and uses mostly legal and popular search engines like Google & Yahoo approved methods of search engine optimization. For these things, various SEO consultants work under them in these firms. It is the sole responsibility of the consultants to deal with the customers for any query and also provide meaningful solution to domain and website related problems.

They define the clients that why a change is necessary and what contents are missing from the particular website. They also provide solution in how to increase and improve the traffic rate of the particular webpage.

It is the work of these consultants mostly to try and analyze the right kind of keywords (among from the most popular and searched ones) according to the site’s need in the specific mentioned industry. The clients will only provide some data about what he/she wants. To give it a meaningful shape is the work of the consultants.

The SEO consultants also emphasizes on improving the ranking of webpage in search engines by improving the layout and contents of a webpage. They also try to make the contents exclusive and original for their website & website visitors.

A good consultant always tries to find a balance between the proper listing of keywords present in your page and maximum effectiveness to attract readers to search and enter the search engine.

The consultants will also try to maintain and improve link building ability by directing your site towards various sources like web directories, blogs, forums and SMOs. These will automatically result in building backlinks for the website which in turn will help to increase the traffic content of the site and will slowly result in high ranking of the website.

While building a website, it is extremely important to focus on reputation management for that particular site. In this competitive world, it becomes immensely vital to build and maintain a good reputation with clients and consumers. Every day millions of consumers are searching for products, services, and companies in search engines before convincing their mind to do business or even purchase. A healthy website with proper original information helps in improving the business as well as creating goodwill among surfers.

Now, before hiring a SEO consultant, it’s always important to have a thorough discussion on how and what type of help and commitment the consultant will provide. But still hiring a consultant from SEO services firm has its advantages, including diverse experience, a network of resources, quicker rankings and time savings although it may costs you a lot of money, time and you have to keep in touch with the consultant at a regular basis for getting that proper desired result.

SEO Consultancy – What it Can Do to Your Business

For this, your first and foremost consideration would be to look for SEO services. Proper marketing of your business and brand calls for SEO consultancy. A good consultancy will open doors to venture into online branding. When you are able to create a better brand and make use of SEO tools, you are likely to develop a stronger online presence, thereby, improving your business venture.

A SEO consultancy will provide with important marketing tools such as that of SEO services, brand management with brand protection, along with e- trading. An efficient SEO consultant firm also includes services such as that of podcasting, blogs, email marketing techniques, and social network marketing to boost your brand image and making it omnipresent. E- Trading optimization with a good SEO firm helps you to get listed among the top searches in the related databases, while also improving your website’s online catalogue simultaneously increasing your commerce.

Through a good SEO consultancy, you will be able to dominate the world of search marketing. This feature of the SEO services includes internet marketing with the help of search engine optimizations, paid inclusions, and contextual advertising, thus, making your website prominent on search engines. Imagine when someone types a product you deal with on Google and your website shows up in the top- ten sites. This increases your chances of improving your potential customer base, thus, boosting your business to larger domains.

SEO consultancy services, thus, have unlimited options for changing the dimensions of your business, improving your profits and your customer base.

A Possible New Career Move – Commercial Cleaning Consultant

In the last five years, numerous businesses have popped up that may require services of consultants. So with new buildings and more people working inside, more and more cleaning is needed. No other time could be better than now to become a commercial cleaning consultant and earn big bucks!

So what exactly does a cleaning consultant do? Basically a cleaning consultant is a person who observes a company’s cleaning expenses and suggests ways or plans that can help them save more. By helping the company earn more, consultants earn a good pay. They can also earn by charging referral fees to the cleaning companies that work with them.

To become a consultant a person needs to acquire new knowledge. It might sound like hard work but actually, it’s really easy. All you have to do is to become acquainted with the different cleaning companies in your area. Due to the fact that they have a lot of competitors, cleaning companies would love to pay you to send some jobs their way. You can start by just browsing through your phonebook and taking note of all the significant cleaning companies that you plan on working with.

Starting a business means money. This is why companies would be glad to hire your services since, you can assure them that you will be able to save more money for them. When you have found a prospective client the next step is to refer some cleaning companies.

The easiest way to do this would be to pick the cleaning businesses which are just starting out. After agreeing on the terms and others concerns, you can then set a referral fee for them. One tip so you can earn more is to have partners that cover specific areas of cleaning like carpet cleaning, basic cleaning needs, and duct cleaning companies. Be sure to pick at least 3 companies from the given categories so they can bid for the lowest price. After you agree on your rates it’s time to present them to companies who need their services.

When you deal with the prospective clients, get their trust by telling them that if they don’t see any improvement in their finances, they don’t have to pay you. Explain to them that you are here to help them save more money by watching over their expenses and referring to them the cleaning companies that you have selected and interviewed.

You should also take note of what is in the supply closet. Take note of how much they spend for products, labor, sanitary supply and even waste management needs. When these have all been recorded, start creating bids for the cleaning companies that are working with you.

Thoroughly arrange and make sure that your cleaning bids are detailed before presenting them to the prospective cleaning companies.. Also present to them the particulars and standards of all the jobs that have to be done before they fill out the bids. Present the winners and compare them for the lowest prices to your clients.

You can also make extra money by referring sources for the janitorial and cleaning supplies of the company. You can check out your local providers or look on the internet so you can compare the prices of the products. You can then make a brochure with the noted prices and then present them to both the cleaning companies and the other companies that they work for.

After getting a sort of overview of the job, we can say that working as a cleaning consultant is a very rewarding job. It’s not too tiring and in the end you get to earn more than enough to support yourself and your family.

Consulting Jobs – How to Pass the Interview

What if you discovered some simple tips and tricks that you can follow easily to increase your chances in getting a powerful consultation based job?

Here are 3 simple steps to get you started…

Step 1 – Purchase a coaching or consulting course online.

Step 2 – Hire a consulting coach to train you one on one.

Step 3 – Build a small consulting business of your own, it is easy.

Here are step by step details that you can apply quickly and easily…

Step 1 – Purchase a coaching or consulting course online.

There are many coaching related courses available on the Internet, all you need to do is select the one you want to get started with and this will get you started providing you tons of knowledge in this area.

Your knowledge that you will gain out of this coaching course will help you to pass your interview very easily.

It is important that you hire a consulting-based coach who will train you one-on-one basis…

Step 2 – Hire a consulting coach to train you one on one.

To make sure that you gain tremendous knowledge out of this area you can easily get started hiring a coach who will help you out and train you easily.

Your coach will also help you to get started with your own consulting-based business which will easily create an additional income source for you.

Get started with your own business…

Step 3 – Build a small consulting business of your own, it is easy.

Your business will help you to make an extra source of income. Also it will help you to show your practical knowledge in your interview which will in turn boost your chances to get recruited.

Make sure you get started applying the information provided in this article and this will make you rapidly successful very quickly starting today.

7 More Valuable Tips For the Newly Self-Employed Consultant

1. Partner with other businesses that serve the same market as you. This can be particularly effective when you have two up-and-coming start-up companies who service complimentary, yet not competitive markets. It can also help to talk to people who work for established companies that serve the demographic you wish to reach.

2. Create free publicity for yourself whenever possible. Even if it means giving away some of your work for free. There are times when the “2 birds in the bush” are worth more than the ”one in the hand”.

3. By transferring the risk to yourself and you will ultimately profit. A realistic guarantee makes it safe for potential customers/clients to confidently try your services. Very few people will take advantage of a generous guarantee compared to the extra business it will generate for you.

4. Be personable. To build relationships you have to build rapport with people. It is essential that you can be friendly without coming across as phony.

5. Be opportunistic. A career as a consultant means that you always have to be on your toes and on the lookout for opportunities whenever and wherever they may arise. Always be prepared to do business in a variety of different way and you’ll be pleasantly surprised by what comes your way. By looking ou for various opportunities you also need to be…

6. Flexible. Flexibility is one of the key qualities of all successful consultants. Whilst you can never be all things to all people, it is important that you are always as “much as you can be” at any given time. Consultants are not hired on as extraneous staff for “just in case” scenarios. Consultants get hired because their client needs a specific result right now and as an experienced consultant you are the best person to deliver what they want. The best consultants get things done and they get them done quickly.

7. Don’t be too proud to give work away. There will be times, especially at the beginning of your career that you may find the need to work a little overtime without charging for it, or perhaps even be prepared to give away a complete project or two. While giving away your skills may not seem like a very cost effective thing to do, if you understood point 5 above, you will realise that a little freebie here and there can ultimately win you a lot of paid work at a later date. Generosity will definitely pay off.

Business Development Consultants Share Experience, Know-How

Most business people can say that they have been involved in a situation where they later determined that they hadn’t seen the whole picture, and as a result they didn’t solve a problem or take advantage of an opportunity like they maybe should have. In other words, they didn’t see for forest for the trees. This type of situation is the primary reason why business development consulting is important.

Regardless of the situation, business development consulting can be an important step in the life of any business. With an experienced consultant, owners and managers of a company can learn new ways of doing things, or just bounce ideas off of a well-versed coach. This is someone who may have been in a very similar situation, and can teach others how to deal with such a situation effectively, efficiently, and most importantly, profitably.

Business development consulting gives company owners and managers first-hand experience in dealing with situations, whether problems or opportunities. Unlike books or many workshops, the owners have the benefit of a consultant’s full attention, as well as the opportunity to get answers to direct, real-world problems. Advice is not based on a lot of theory. It is real-world guidance to deal with concrete problems.

In recent years, these types of professionals have enjoyed exponential growth, due mainly to the success stories that have been told by their former clients.

Whether the situation has to do with financing, accounting, marketing, sales, administration or other areas of a company, there is probably a consultant that is available for the task, one who will give owners and managers the benefit of their knowledge, the good as well as the bad.

It is also important to note that just as is the case with any financial expense, since development consultants are not employees, their cost is a tax-deductible expense. They can be used when a company is considering expansion into foreign or domestic markets, or when an underdeveloped market in a foreign country is suspected.

Most importantly, these consulting professionals can offer experience and solutions from as wide or as narrow a scope as an owner or manager desires. Whether it’s an issue of making a company grow in general, or to focus on a particular aspect of marketing, sales and accounting, designing, development or a new product, service or project, a business development consultant can make the difference between success and failure.

Consultative Selling – Job Duties of a Salesperson

Consultative selling is a highly evolved and strikingly successful approach to selling, but it has unique job needs, ones not necessarily required in all selling circumstances.

In consultative selling, the entire sales process is oriented toward the salesperson or ‘consultant’ understanding the character of, and aiding his possible client in the solving of the client’s product-related Problems. As example, this would apply to sales in the PC industry for software, channel partners, and service products on big installations, as well as to businesses like promoting companies that need to appreciate their clients business absolutely re products, placement, share of the market and the like.

While just about all colleges of selling require that the salesperson, to a certain level, get the prospect into good, trusting, open communication ; in consultative selling it is of even greater significance that the salesperson have glorious ‘opening’ abilities.

The job skills for consultative selling needs an individual who totally understands, or can learn, the relationship building process. Listening conscientiously is so important. It’s also necessary to make sure that one recollects what the client said exactly and to that end, the salesperson should take as many notes as mandatory, with the tenet of thinking ahead to what’s going to be in the final presentation to this client later.

Any sales training worth its salt requires that the salesperson discovers the prospect’s major desires and wants before proceeding into the actual sales presentation ; in the case of consultative selling, it is totally necessary that the prospect be thoroughly ‘qualified’ before the sales representative attempts to enter the show. Qualifying a potential client is at the heart of it all, since if you do not know what the client desires and wants, you will be wasting their time in any display. In consultative selling, the qualifying step, so that the salesperson knows the right information about the possible client is totally necessary.

Unlike conventional selling, in which a salesperson will often present his products in a pretty similar demeanour, one prospect to the next ; in consultative selling the sales consultant is required to carefully take and research the data he has gathered from his prospect, and from that info, make a unique display, customized particularly for that particular prospect’s desires and wants. This part of a salespersons requirements can, and regularly should be supported by other staff, for example market researchers, accountants, underwriters or analysts.

but , irrespective of how many support staff are behind him or her, the salesperson involved in consultative selling, has to have awfully strong talents which are not ordinarily needed in plenty of other schools of selling.

When looking for this type of worker salesperson, or in making an attempt to become this kind of sales specialist, one has to be responsible for all of these other job requirements that become part of the selling process, too.

A well rounded consultative salesperson mixes the analysis, research, and customization of the data which matches the client’s wants, along with the original, full communication process, to establish wants and especially, the prospect’s wishes. This type of salesperson has the facility to adjust to changing conditions and requests. Therefore , it requires a particularly detailed evaluation of the situation and the facility to bring the diverse info together for a very robust display to occur.

However, once this is done by the salesperson, and the end result of the show clearly addresses the prospect’s, or possible customer company’s desires ; it will demonstrate that the salesperson has actively listened ; has evaluated the prospect’s situation ; and then has given an excellent and totally relevant answer to those wishes. This will make the sale a ‘done’ at that point, needing no further steps.

Consultative sales is about becoming an ‘expert’ in what the possible client desires. This is a singular ability, but can be easily learned. Knowing what the potential client does not want ( or need ) is as important as knowing what they do want. Once a sales expert has that info and knows the customer’s expectations totally, the salesperson can ask suitable questions that raise the profile in the client’s mind. With this information the salesperson also knows which of his products will essentially work properly for the client, making the right suggestions, and thus, credibility is established.

This area of sales training is highly over look in the “today method” of sales training. Being educated with this type of sales training requires processes and the drilling of those processes, on a regular bases until the sales person has the techniques as part of their everyday sales call.

The book, How to SELL – Clear and Simple is the classical source for the effective application of the highly workable tools of consultative selling. View it at prosales101.com.