As a self-employed professional, how many people help you run your business?
Do you do everything yourself, with occasional help from others? Or maybe you have staff or professional colleagues to help with those many things you have to do.
Realistically, most of us do our work with little in-house help and support.
Fewer Than Three Employees
This reality is confirmed by recent research tells us that 83% of consultants have fewer than three employees. From my experience, this reality applies equally to most, if not all other categories of service professionals.
As a result, apart from our personal and professional skills, most of us face the challenge of attracting, serving and satisfying clients with very few human resources.
Unless we choose to do so, there is no reason for us to limit potentially helpful resources. There is lots of potentially helpful outside support available. All we have to do is recognize this support … and seek it out.
Suppliers Can Help
Among the more familiar sources of outside help are clients, network contacts, and yes even competitors. Certainly these people can’t be expected to help in-house with day-to-day operations. They can however offer valuable information and inspiration that will help us generate more new business as well as manage our businesses more effectively and efficiently.
Another resource, although mostly ignored, is our suppliers. Good suppliers can do more than simply provide appropriate goods and services.
In many cases, they know as much as, if not more about our market than we do. And from serving clients like us, they also pick up a fair bit of useful business and office management know-how.
When I was struggling to set up my own law practice, the Xerox sales rep did more than just sell and service the equipment. With his knowledge of law office systems, gained from both his training and his work with other small operations like mine, he was invaluable in in creating procedures that built efficiencies into my office routines.
Many of the systems that he helped develop so many years ago are just as useful in my current work.
If You Want Help, Ask For It
Not surprisingly, drawing upon the resources of your suppliers starts exactly the same way as getting such help as information, referrals or testimonials from clients and network contacts: you have to ask for it.
If you don’t ask for help, you probably won’t get it.
What issues are you struggling with that one or more of your suppliers might help you resolve?
