How do enterprises cooperate with management consulting companies?

With the intensification of market competition, SMEs feel that relying solely on their own professional knowledge can't keep up with the development of the times, and the cooperation between SMEs and planning (consulting) companies is becoming more and more common. But what problems should SMEs pay attention to when cooperating with planning (consulting) companies? First, fame and scale may not be suitable for your SMEs. Some planners (consultants) give lectures up to 10 thousand a day. How can a small and medium-sized enterprise afford such a high cost? Is it possible to expect a famous planning (consulting) company to give you full implementation (and it is implemented in different places)? Several disputes between small and medium-sized enterprises and famous planners in the industry are caused by this. Your enterprise has less than 500,000 remaining working capital, and you need to ask a famous planning (consulting) company to do overall planning, thinking that an idea can make a lot of money and goods flow smoothly. But just doing product naming, packaging design and early market research cost 200,000 yuan. If you want the planning company to come up with a full set of marketing plans, the planning company will say that you will bring another 200,000 yuan, and the previous consulting project with a planning fee of 200,000 yuan has ended. The business owner was dumbfounded and thought he had been cheated. He got a product name and a "useless" planning scheme of 200,000 yuan. But from the perspective of planning a company, my mental work is worth the price. Your business boss came to ask for cooperation, signed a contract and acted according to the contract. What makes you say that I cheated you? The public says that the public is right, and the woman says that the woman is right. In fact, the key to the problem is that the door is not right, and cooperation is a mistake from the beginning. When choosing a planning (consulting) company, try to find a company in this province. If the cost of consultation, communication and auxiliary execution in different places is too high, or the enterprise itself has some high-quality employees, we only need to buy the marketing management process of a famous planning (consulting) company, and we have considerable execution and use ability. Planning (consulting) companies do not need to invest too much manpower to implement and guide, so there is still the possibility of successful cooperation. Otherwise, no matter how good the planning scheme is, it often ends in failure because it is not implemented in place. For example, if you are just a millionaire, it is not impossible to marry a supermodel, but the probability of success is relatively negligible. For small and medium-sized enterprises, the probability of successful cooperation with well-known multinational or national planning (consulting) companies is far less than that with growing planning (consulting) companies. Otherwise, the consulting fee of 10,000 yuan per day, the business owner only consulted some elementary knowledge, and the business owner felt that it was not worth it. The planner thinks that the feeling of having a doctoral tutor to take high school students is purely for money. As a result, both sides are not very happy. Large well-known planning (consulting) companies develop medium-sized enterprises or above. Relatively speaking, the cooperation period is longer. At the same time, it is a challenge and a learning process for planning (consulting) companies that plan (consult) large enterprises. After all, large enterprises encounter marketing problems all the time, and there are some successful ideas in practice. In addition, famous planning (consulting) companies often have several first-class experts, and negotiation is their top expert, but the person in charge of your list is a novice or even a newly graduated student, so your chances of getting first-class service are slim. When negotiating, it is necessary to confirm the specific personnel responsible for planning and implementation, and also to communicate with the specific implementation personnel. One or two experts cannot be used to select partners. Second, put the most difficult in the front. How to judge which consulting projects are urgently needed by enterprises? Which planning (consulting) companies in China are best at this? What are the affordable companies for my small and medium-sized enterprises? Search company information on the internet. What are its successful cases? What is the key to the success of its case? Can its successful experience adapt to its own enterprise? What are the failure cases? What is the reason for the failure? What consulting projects does my enterprise need? What are you not good at? How to make up for what you are not good at? The business owner first attends the class of the planner (consultant) who intends to cooperate, or invites the planner (consultant) to give a lecture in the enterprise, and digests his articles, works, internal publications and previous works to find out what the characteristics of this planner (consultant) are. What industries are you familiar with? What are you good at? First of all, you should save face and put the most difficult things first. Before cooperation, it is best to increase the time of "falling in love" and deepen understanding by inviting the creative staff to give lectures. Get married when you are together, and go their separate ways when you are not together. Not only should I listen to the lectures of the boss of the planning (consulting) company (that is, the person with the highest level), but also listen to the lectures of the employees who plan to be responsible for my project. Prevent the "trap" of negotiating with first-class talents and implementing third-rate talents. The business environment in China is not perfect. In the market, many enterprises default on planning (consulting) fees, or cheat business owners of planning (consulting) ideas, and many planners (consulting) use a universal template to conquer the world. China people generally lack the tradition of sincere cooperation, but they also lack the system design of how to make both parties have to abide by the contract. Before the formal implementation, the negotiation process should be considered as complicated as possible, and the responsibilities and rights of both parties should be expressed in black and white. The more careful the preliminary negotiation, the greater the possibility of successful implementation in the later stage. Compared with the initiative of business owners and planners (consultants), business owners are in an advantageous position and planners (consultants) are in a weak position. Relatively speaking, the proportion of corporate default is greater. In order to reduce the transaction cost, we can adopt the method of "step-by-step pricing and step-by-step implementation" to avoid the risks of both parties. There is another way for business owners to get more professional services. Planning (consulting) the company to set up a project team. The salary and expenses of the project team shall be borne by the enterprise, and the planning (consulting) fee shall be calculated separately. Third, we should find out the most urgent marketing problems for Chinese enterprises. Some companies are good at creative production of TV advertisements, some are good at graphic advertisement design, some are good at enterprise CI design, some are good at marketing management, terminal market operation and channel management, and some are good at event planning. Enterprises mainly find shortcomings according to the characteristics of their own enterprises, and then find suitable planning (consulting) companies that can fill this shortcoming. For marketing management projects, some planning (consulting) companies have mastered a set of marketing management processes of foreign companies or large enterprises, but this process is based on the standardized, large-scale and modular management model of large enterprises, which has certain reference and reference significance, but it is often "painting a tiger without turning it into a dog" completely. Finally, the enterprise was not worth the loss, because it was too different from the actual operation of the enterprise and had to stop using it. As a result, the consulting fee was spent, which harmed the market and everything went back to the original point. With the intensification of competition in China's market, it is difficult for enterprises to solve problems in advertising creativity and product development by only one move and one type, and only one or two ideas. If the planner (consultant) doesn't know marketing management, distribution and terminal operation, and talks about creativity and enterprise strategy every day, he can't basically play. For example, a fast-moving consumer goods enterprise rose rapidly in the southwest market by relying on the terminal winning strategy, but its marketing management seriously affected the efficiency of its marketing team of more than 600 people. This enterprise has a shopping guide team of more than 2,000 people, but it doesn't even have a terminal personnel management manual. According to the monthly 700 yuan expenses of 2,000 promoters, one month is 1.4 million, and one year is 1.68 million. 80,000 yuan can buy the best sales promotion staff management manual, and its benefits can improve the efficiency of the shopping guide team by more than 30%. However, business owners have invited planning companies that are good at brand planning, marketing strategy and successful training, but there is no marketing management and channel management that enterprises urgently need. No wonder the masters talk about enterprise strategy and brand building in the training class, while the sales staff sleep below. There are also successful trainings. At that time, the employees were very excited. Two days later, all the passion vanished. What the salesman cares about is how to get the payment back tomorrow and how to negotiate the new store. How to open up new markets? How can I prevent the loss of goods in my market? Corporate strategy, brand image building and successful training are not unimportant, but it is natural that this enterprise is keen on so-called fashion instead of meeting the most urgent marketing management, and the training effect is poor. Fourth, the inner brain is the main part, and the outer brain is the auxiliary part. A lion leads a flock of sheep and often defeats a flock of lions led by a sheep. The quality of business owners determines how far an enterprise can go. If the business owner can't understand the cases and articles of the planner (consultant), can't see the bright spots in the other party's articles, just feel "good", or don't pretend to understand, you have no conditions to communicate with them. Because even if you have a good plan, you will not appreciate it and be "shot", or fail to implement it properly. Planning (consulting) also pursues the maximization of interests. Enterprises don't know anything, and it is estimated that it is difficult for enterprises to become big. It is the best choice to make a universal template with three strokes and two strokes. This kind of planning naturally maximizes the benefits, and then frees up time and manpower to develop other larger and more effective projects. Moreover, even if my planner (consultant) takes it seriously, your business owner may not appreciate it, or his execution is too weak, but he is thankless. The level of business owners is limited. On the one hand, they should speed up their study. On the other hand, they can also hire third-party people (such as marketing teachers and friends who know how to plan) as consultants. Although they can't think of good ideas and ideas themselves, they still have the ability to judge good or bad. But you can't choose a company recommended by a third party, and there are often benefits in it. The third party charges the service fee from the enterprise and the introduction fee from the planning (consulting) company, which is easy to stand on the same front with the planning (consulting) party. When you have the idea of worshipping your partner, you are often not on the same communication platform, and you often start in the best way and end in the worst way. The greater the hope, the greater the disappointment. Enterprises should pay attention to cultivating the overall professional quality of the boss himself and employees, among which the quality of the boss is the most important. Although the business owner is a person with high comprehensive quality in the enterprise, the quality of the enterprise he manages often cannot keep up with the pace of enterprise development. Therefore, it is necessary to take the re-learning of senior managers of enterprises as the top priority of enterprise training projects. The quality of employees can be improved through the survival of the fittest and the recruitment of high-quality employees, but the quality of business owners can only be solved through their own rapid learning. In the current business environment, if you want to rely on professional managers to manage enterprises, business owners should at least have the ability to control and effectively motivate foreign professional managers. Hire a professional planning (consulting) company, but also "know the goods", learn to use and implement. Therefore, improving the comprehensive quality of enterprise bosses is the fundamental problem of sustainable development of enterprises. For business owners, it should be the best policy to improve the quality of themselves and their employees, apply it to marketing practice, take themselves as the main body, supplemented by external professional forces, and introduce the best professional companies from society to make up for the needs of enterprises, which should also be the way to solve the shortage of professional ability of enterprises once and for all. 5. Intellectual labor is a dollar and a commodity. It is impossible for an enterprise to talk to me about the cooperation of all planning (consulting) companies. They asked how many tens of thousands of planning fees were invested (generally about ten times the actual budget), and some said that as long as the product sales reached tens of thousands, I would give you how many tens of thousands or what proportion of planning fees. The sales volume of products mainly depends on the overall competitiveness of enterprises. Now it is difficult to increase sales in an all-round way by one or two ideas, and it can't solve the deep-seated problems of enterprises. Moreover, there is also the risk that the business owner conceals sales or defaults on accounts, so he can only find a business planning (consulting) company, and a company with a certain level will not take this risk. Business owners should not expect too much from the planner (consultant), let alone be superstitious, and at the same time, they should respect each other's mental work and not have the idea of deceiving each other's plans. You can cheat others today, and smarter people will cheat you tomorrow. To make a good planning (consulting) plan, if the planning (consulting) is not particularly familiar with this industry, it usually takes half a month to get started and master the characteristics of this industry, plus about ten days to go deep into the enterprise market to inspect the enterprise's personality. It also takes time to put forward creative and feasible planning (consulting) schemes. The quality of the scheme is based on the time of thinking. The longer you think about it, the more likely you are to get a plan with higher gold content. 6. Long-term cooperation can maximize the interests of both parties. It is rarely heard that domestic enterprises and planning (consulting) companies can cooperate for a long time, most of which do not exceed two years. It can be said that it is on and off. But what is the root of restricting the long-term cooperation between the two sides? In my opinion, the key is that enterprises are too eager for quick success and instant benefit, while planning (consulting) companies to pursue the maximization of short-term interests, which makes both sides fall into the dilemma of mutual vigilance. The overall planning and communication of enterprises must be smooth. My suggestion is that the enterprise and the planning company send at least one employee to each other. The employees of the enterprise planning department go to work in the planning company every day and communicate at any time, while the planning company sends employees to work in various departments of the enterprise for a long time to gain a deep understanding of the operation and market situation of the enterprise. This makes it easier to make a plan that conforms to the actual situation of the enterprise. There are also small and medium-sized enterprises and planning (consulting) companies with long-term successful cooperation. For example, Guilin Liquan Beer and Gaomei Advertising Company began to cooperate from a very young age, until Liquan became the first brand of beer in Guangxi, and Gaomei Advertising Company also grew rapidly with the rapid development of customers, achieving a real win-win situation.