Sometimes You Really Do Need Help From Experts

It’s become popular for business owners to look to fellow-travelers — peers who are going through exactly what they’re trying to do — rather than seek advice from those whose education and experience qualify them as experts.

This is probably due in some part to the easy availability of all kinds of opinions via blogs and social media. It can also reflect an emerging view among the general public that democracy requires that everyone’s opinion should be given as much weight and credibility as anyone else’s, regardless of qualifications of the person expressing it.

In The Death Of Expertise, Tom Nichols writes:

“Today, any assertion of expertise produces an explosion of anger from certain quarters of the American public, who immediately complain that such claims are nothing more than fallacious ‘appeals to authority,’ sure signs of dreadful ‘elitism,’ and an obvious effort to use credentials to stifle the dialogue required by a ‘real’ democracy.”

Nichols, Tom. “The Death Of Expertise.” The Federalist, Published January 17, 2014, Accessed January 10, 2017.

There may also be some special biases related to that observation, but specific to the entrepreneurial community:

Reduced confidence in formal education. Articles and blog posts are challenging the value of a college education vs. a skills course tailored to a particular type of work. Alums are suing their alma maters for failing to prepare them for a particular job. And colleges have fanned the flames by letting themselves get dragged into trying to prove the dollar value of their degree programs in the jobs market, rather than sticking to their traditional argument that their role is to teach students to think and solve problems.

Relate-ability of people “just like me” who have succeeded. People in business today tend to get their information and advice from peer groups, blogs and AMAs. Who are they going to gravitate to — a person with significant education and experience who’s “been there” or someone who’s in the trenches right now, doing the same things they want to do, and just a few steps ahead?

Hero worship of those who flout convention. So many companies attracting attention today have been founded by outsiders, it’s become accepted that not following the rules and conventions of the incumbents of a particular industry and disruption of their business model is the preferred — maybe the only — path to success. If their business model is obsolete, the reasoning goes, then the knowledge and information underlying it must also be obsolete.

Attraction of practical, how-to vs. “theoretical” information. It takes confidence and optimism to start a business. With that comes a certain naiveté that can actually be helpful in providing the spark needed to wade into unfamiliar territory that’s fraught with obstacles. There’s a tendency to believe you know most of what you need to know to be successful and that this next hurdle is just like all the others you’ve already faced and overcome.

Consultants have sought to leverage these attitudes by forming networking groups, some charging substantial membership fees, and wrapping their consulting services inside the less threatening, and presumably less elitist-sounding, role of “moderator” of the group.

The fact is, there are times in the life of any business when a focused, one-time intervention and effort is needed to get you where you want to go — as when you’re trying to define your market, refine your product line, fine-tune your customer interactions, get your financial house in order, prepare for a presentation to investors, handle a sensitive negotiation with a government agency, and so on. There’s no shame in bringing in an expert for a specific purpose, and it doesn’t have to mean turning over your business to an interloper. You just have to be very clear up front about the purpose and scope of the engagement:

1. Describe your business goal. Frame your project in terms of the business goal you and your company are trying to achieve. Be very specific about why you think you need an expert’s help.
2. Propose your own definition of a successful consultancy. Don’t leave it to the expert to define what success will look like. What are you looking for the expert to do and what do you expect to do yourself? What is the transfer of information and competency you expect to take place?
3. List milestones that would signal progress toward your goal. Once you’re into it, a project has a tendency to take on a life of its own. Decide on start and target completion dates. Make sure you state up-front the intermediate results you expect to see and hear that will tell you things are moving in the right direction and getting closer to your goal.

Most importantly, recognize that very often the biggest benefit from bringing in an expert is that the entire exercise will inspire and encourage you to develop your own fresh ideas you’ll be able to put to good use long after the engagement is over.