Every small business knows the overwhelming struggle to figure out how to begin the long, hard journey towards creating a better brand and overall digital presence. With so many elements to consider and such little time and money to feed into it, it’s totally normal to feel scared and lost (and a little nauseous) 🤢.
Enter the creative consultant — your expert guide through the creative processes of your business.
Consultants and creatives may seem like chalk and cheese; the former seems more strategic and business-focused, whereas the latter is all about storytelling and experiences.
While that is true in many cases, creative consultants find the sweet spot between the two, bringing two different perspectives to offer a unique, full service to help up your game.
Here’s everything you need to know about creative consultants, how they can benefit your small business, and the best times to hire them in your business journey.
What is a creative consultant?
A creative consultant uses a combination of their business knowledge and creative skills to provide expert insights, guidance, and creative solutions for specific areas of your brand, whether that is within your strategies, processes, or new creative projects.
So, how can a creative consultant help small businesses?
Creative consultants will help you identify your current issues, recognise the opportunities available and advise you on ways to improve your business. They’ll conduct multiple brainstorming sessions and creative workshops to identify strengths, potential weaknesses, opportunities, and risks. They’ll then use this information and develop it to define your business plan, understand your audience, and shape your ideas.
A creative consultant can help in almost every aspect of your business, from industry insights, market threats and opportunities, customer trends, unique branding, and unforgettable storytelling.
Benefits of a creative consultant for your brand
So, why hire a creative consultant? Creative consultants combine the best of both worlds: business insight with creative know-how, both guidance and action. They are also referred to as creative business consultants in many job descriptions because of this exact combination of skills.
Here are some of the numerous benefits of hiring a creative consultant for your brand:
Organise your ideas: Having someone organise your various ideas into groups of strategies can help refine your vision for the business and identify the steps you want to take.
Develop strategies: They don't just identify, but deliver. Creative consultants will apply their findings and expertise to develop strategies tailored to your business to encourage growth.
Pull experience from other companies and industries: With their extensive experience across multiple industries and companies, creative consultants can use this to your own personal advantage.
Deliver out-of-the-box thinking: Often something other business consultants or marketing consultants lack, creative consultants have the perfect combination of creativity and experience to deliver unique and innovative concepts for your brand.
Provide an objective viewpoint: Hiring an expert outside your company will offer an objective view that will identify any elements you may have overlooked. They can also act as a mediator between clashing viewpoints and offer new solutions that lead to better decision-making.
As you can see, creative consultants tick many boxes at once. Thanks to their multifaceted nature, this means they are also a much cheaper alternative to hiring both a creative and a business consultant. So, when exactly should you consider hiring a creative consultant in your business journey?
When should you hire a creative consultant?
You can bring in a creative consultant at different stages of your company, whether you’re a newly formed startup, a small business, or a larger one looking to launch a new project. Let’s have a look at these three scenarios in more detail.
For setting up a new business
Hiring a creative consultant is particularly effective at the beginning of your business journey. From the get-go, they can give you a clear breakdown of all the risks, opportunities, and routes you need to know of in order to make the best decisions that will skyrocket your business.
Creative consultants at this stage can really help you create unique foundations for your business that will remain strong for years to come. They can help choose your brand name, slogan and corporate identity and develop a solid business strategy that defines your specific goals, target users and next steps.
For a small business or startup
If you’re a small business or startup, having a creative consultant can be extremely beneficial at any moment. Why? They’re an incredible asset to have if you’re looking to achieve great results while saving precious time and money.
They can provide creative coaching in a range of business areas — but rather than establishing solutions from the start, they can offer innovative improvements that can guarantee sustainable growth for your business.
For a new project or brand refresh
If you’re about to refresh your business or start on a brand-new project, bringing in a creative consultant is a great way to streamline the creative process and keep everyone in your team aligned with the new focus.
In this scenario, they can help share innovative ideas that take your new project or brand refresh to the next level, offering many creative inputs to ensure you outperform your competitors.
What can a creative consultant do for your business?
In short, creative consultants are a very cost-effective way to bring business expertise and creativity to your small business and help it grow. Data-oriented with a visionary approach, creative consultants can apply their knowledge, experience, and out-of-the-box thinking to almost any area, from branding to strategy. This role can even help you hire the right people, find the best providers and redefine your business ideas to make sure they triumph.
As small business owners ourselves, we've gone through the daunting process of setting up a project in the midst of the unknown. There have been so many key stages in many processes where we’ve known that having a creative consultant could hugely streamline the process and optimise the outcome.
That’s exactly why we especially love offering this service, with the mission to help entrepreneurs and startups from beginning to end, both guiding and delivering anything they need so they don't feel alone.
Need help with your business? Looking to hire a creative consultant? Contact us to see what we can do for you!