When you run a business that offers a service rather than a specific product it’s important to understand the key motivators behind people using/needing your services – here’s three reasons why you should be using micro consulting.
Work cannot proceed without solving a problem.
I’m sure this happens is most small businesses at some time or another – you are stuck on a problem and without a solution the project can’t continue. 
It could be anything from not knowing how to export that crucial file into the correct format for the annual report to wanting to know the best method to make your song sound louder on an iPod. In web development this can happen on a daily basis and the most common solution is to hit the web for answers. A 5 minute micro consult with an industry expert could give you exactly the answer you need without waiting/wasting hours of your precious time.
You need something done quickly
Time is money in small business so whenver you can save time you indirectly (or directly) save your business cash. Today there’s very few things that you can’t do by simply getting the necessary information from the web and doing it yourself. Sometimes this makes perfect sense and can be done with a minimum of fuss, for example if I need to know how to customise my iPhone wallpaper I can have that information in less than a minute.
Other problems aren’t that simple, for example if I have an idea to create my own wallpaper generator app – where do you start? I could fumble my way through the Apple developer center and Google and find some tutorials on how to build a basic app (no shortage of them…). Then I could do some more web researching on getting an app to do the particular things I need. Then I could start building it, stumbling my way through the entire process.
Alternatively, I could contact my Apple iPhone consultant and get them to build me a quick template to get me started, getting some expert-recommended resources on the web in the process – one hour later and I’m on my way!
Learning can sometimes be a waste of time.
There’s some things in life that just aren’t worth knowing.
It’s not that the knowledge itself is useless, it’s just not worth you investing the time to figure something out.
I recently bought a car, which in itself was a time consuming but necessary process of elimination to figure out makes/models looked the coolest were most suitable. When I had finally narrowed it down to a specific make and model (ferrari or porsche…..someday right?) I wanted to know what to look out for mechanically before forking over my cash. I don’t know much about cars, nor do any of my friends and I didn’t intend on learning the minutiae of engine performance . I wanted a very specific piece of information that I knew would only take an expert 5 mins to answer – a perfect opportunity for micro consulting to provide a service.
Whether you can’t solve a problem because you just don’t know how or you can solve a problem but just don’t have time, smaller, more compact service models are always very desirable. Small businesses always want more time (I know I do anyway) and I believe micro is the best way to get it.
Do you think micro consulting could work for you?
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