Dear Dan: When I started my business, I did everything. Now we’ve grown, and I find that I sometimes need more specialized help in certain areas. How do I find outside advice without paying a fortune on consultants? – Advice Seeker
Dear Advice Seeker: Here are some great places to find consulting help, starting with the ones offering free services.
SCORE calls it “counseling” or “mentoring,” but it’s just consulting by another name, and this non-profit organization is one of the best places around to get free and confidential advice from successful business advisors. You have two basic choices: Search for a specific mentor online, based on keywords (like “pet store” or “accounting”), or location, and submit questions via e-mail.
Or locate the nearest SCORE office and get paired with a counselor face-to-face. SCORE’s 10,500 volunteers give free, confidential advice to help hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs each year. The group also has hundreds of specialty experts to answer specific questions. Visit www.score.org.
Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs) are also fertile territory for finding free or low-cost business counseling, from help with writing a business plan to specialized help with manufacturing processes, Web marketing skills, budgeting and many other business topics. There are some 1,500 SBDC locations nationwide, sponsored by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). You’ll find an SBDC Locator on the SBA site at www.sba.gov/sbdc.
Minority Business Development Centers (MBDAs), which operate under the U.S. Department of Commerce, offer access to consulting and mentoring services for minority business owners. Learn more and locate a center at www.mbda.gov.
A network of 99 Women’s Business Centers (WBCs) in nearly every state provide women business owners with long-term training, counseling and mentoring. To locate the nearest center, visit the SBA’s Office of Women’s Business Ownership Web site at www.sba.gov/onlinewbc.
For a business that needs a total turnaround, the Turnaround Management Association (TMA) is where you can find a turnaround professional. Turnaround specialists have no political agenda or other obligations to bias the decision-making process, allowing them to take sometimes unpopular, but necessary, steps required for a company’s survival. Visit www.turnaround.org.
HRadvice.com is a low-cost consulting alternative for getting your employee-related questions answered. For $7.95 per month you get online or phone access (2 hours monthly) to an HR consultant. •
Daniel Kehrer can be reached at
editor@business.com.
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