Hiring a consultant is expensive, and not all small business owners have the privilege to hire one due to budgetary constraint. Before you decide on hiring one, you need to ask yourself this question: Do you really need to hire a consultant?

Please be clear early on: I personally think that small business owners need to find as much help as possible in order to improve their businesses. However, help often doesn’t come cheap.

Consulting fees usually come in the hundreds of dollar an hour. A typical 6-week engagement with McKinsey will easily cost over $500K. This is not ideal for many – even most – small businesses.…