Small Business Consulting
Impact Washington is pleased to announce The Small Business Consulting Program, a consulting service tailored toward Washington’s smallest manufacturers.
If you are a manufacturer with 10 or less employees, or less than $1 million in annual revenue, you qualify.
- There is no charge for the first 12 hours of consultant time. The package includes a site visit, an assessment of your business, and a printed report detailing our findings and recommendations.
- Everybody loves a startup. Whether it’s a food cart focused on grilled cheese sandwiches, or an iPhone app that identifies Romulans walking among us, startups are the cute babies of business.
- Who’s your audience? What’s your unique selling proposition? Why should they buy from you and not somebody else? All good questions and just the stuff we love to address.
- But, as cute babies morph into Terrible Twos, the post-startup phase must be endured. After you’ve made a few sales, after you’ve started making a few bucks. Things are good, but they could be better.
- In the post startup phase, you learn the lessons only solitude can teach. Your bundle of joy is still a joy, but it’s also a lot of work. And you may find your focus wandering a bit.
- Instead of pounding the pavement in search of new customers, you’re spending a lot of time on Quicken. Since you’re really not a website designer, you let somebody else take care of the internet work. The crew seems happy enough, so maybe they’re best left alone.
- Slowly, almost effortlessly, you’re doing what you’re good at, not what the business needs.
- Your business needs a jump start. And that’s what The Small Business Consulting Program is all about.
- For years Impact Washington has been working with small manufacturers on the back shop issues. Helping clients eliminating waste, add value, all the behind the scenes stuff.
- Over those years we’ve seen small manufacturers make mistakes – most small, some fatal. After the crash of 2008, every manufacturer we knew had the same requirement – more customers!
Research suggests small manufacturers need help in these areas:
- Marketing and Sales
- Marketing products effectively
- Identifying a company’s unique selling proposition
- Market penetration & expansion strategy
- Evaluation of web site strategy
- Developing strategies to minimize competition
- Workforce Development
- Conflict resolution
- Teamwork and communications
- Workforce training
- Manufacturing Improvements
- Establishing and managing Quality systems
- Improving on-time delivery
- Inventory control
- Diversifying product lines
- Lean manufacturing
We are offering to help with these issues, to put another set of eyes on your business. We’ll bring our expertise, our services and network to you.
one of our Impact Washington team members out to your site for a visit. We ask detailed questions about the current state of your efforts. A few weeks later we’ll follow up with a report listing our findings and recommendations. We can refer you to experts we trust, services that can make a difference in your business.
And yes, it’s all done at no out-of-pocket cost to you. Sure, there may be fees for training sessions, outside experts or other follow on work, but the first 12 hours of consulting are on us. All we ask is that you take an online survey a few months later.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve been in business a week or a decade. For more information on Impact Washington’s Small Business Consulting Program and how it can help your business, please contact our Small Business Consulting Group at clukey@impactwashington.org.
