Under the Fire Safety Order of 2006 businesses are legally required to accept full responsibility for detecting and lowering the risks of fire hazards. Fire consultants are able to meet the goals of this order efficiently and precisely. Using a fire consultant is an easy and efficient way to adhere to the Fire Safety Order, keep your business safe and leave you to get on with running things.

In October 2006 the Fire Safety Order came into effect, replacing a large number of already existing fire safety laws. The Fire Safety Order requires business owners to assess fire risk and have a fire safety plan in case tragedy strikes. The new order emphasizes prevention and holds business owners responsible for keeping their staff and visitors safe by requiring preventive measures, an evacuation plan and the training of employees to handle such a situation.

Because of the strict guidelines and a variety of complexities, employers may find themselves unqualified to perform these assessments and struggle to form an effective fire management plan. The Fire Safety Order states that a Competent Person can be brought in to conduct an inspection and to develop a suitable plan. Using consultants ensures a well trained and competent individual is responsible to assess the risk of fire and to develop a comprehensive emergency plan, which is the best and safest option for most business owners.

Dependent on the type of business and the type of building the business is operating from, a variety of different rules and regulations exists that business owners are required to follow. By hiring a fire consultant to analyse your business type and building structure, he or she will quickly realise which regulations are needed to be followed and which are not applicable. It is very important to the safety of your customers and your own legality to follow these regulations very carefully.

It is the responsibility of Fire and Rescue Authorities to inspect businesses for Fire Safety Order compliance, in extreme cases noncompliance with the Fire Safety Order regulations could result in a court hearing or heavy fines. Hiring a fire consultant will save you overall time and energy that would otherwise be wasted reading over countless documents, assessments, and worksheets. Furthermore, the use of experienced professionals will guarantee accuracy in meeting regulations, relieving the worry and stress regarding the safety of your customers and possible checks carried out by officials.

Many will try to perform the assessments without the outside help of a fire consultant. These people are finding that they must read through a vast amount of information pertaining to the law and precautionary efforts. To avoid this process, that a busy business owner may find too time consuming, it is preferable to use an outside expert to conduct the assessment. The employment a fire consultant is a safe, practical, and efficient way to adhere to the current Safety Order. Many people will try to perform checks and meet the regulations independently, but using an experienced professional guarantees a comprehensive evaluation of your building, the safety of your clients and overall peace of mind.

Be certain that the consultant that you hire embodies these qualities, or you are liable to through your money away. Worse yet, you are likely come up with a poor solution.

1. The ability to listen to you to identify project goals, and to restate these project goals verbally, and in writing. Without this ability you may be paying a lot of money for someone to develop a solution that you will discard. On one project that I brought into consult on there were 36 people working 40 hours per week towards a goal that management did not want. This was easily illustrated by making a mock up of the software interface for the project that was under development, and showing it to management. The “Graphical User Interface” was hard to use and did not generate at least five of the reports management needed. Changing the goals early on saved over a two-hundred thousand dollars.

2. The ability to obtain assistance from others when doing the project for you. – No one has all of the answers, no matter how informed they appear to be. When you’re interviewing consultants, ask them a question like, “When you get stuck, how do you resolve the issue?” A rule of thumb: If someone spends more than an hour on a technical issue without asking someone for help, they are wasting time.

3. Appropriate technical skills. – Consultants need to proficient in the technology that they will be using, the people skills that they will be employing or both.

4. Willingness to communicate and keep you updated. – Communication is key to keeping a project on time, and under budget. Consultants that wish to remain isolated and then turn in a project at the end for approval are likely to turn in a project that will not meet your needs.

5. Flexibility – willingness to change direction as your priorities. Change is a fact of life. A good consultant can be flexible because they have enough knowledge to plan for making changes as they build solutions. Here’s a simple example: A computer consultant that “hard codes” most settings in a program will have a difficult time making updates. A consultant who designs a “table driven” system has the ability to either change a figure or two in a table or to modify or add a table to a database. The computer consultant who hard codes everything is often resentful when changes must be made.

6. Perspective – One of the big advantages of a consultant is that they know how other people or businesses do what you want to accomplish. They can point out advantages and disadvantages of different approaches.

7. Out-of-the-Box Thinking. – There are times when major efforts and expenses can be avoided by taking a non-traditional approach. Two examples come to mind.

>> I once had to convert 250,000 Word Perfect documents to Microsoft Word documents without losing symbols, within four months. Custom coding an application was not possible in that time frame, so I “cheated.” I wrote a program that automated the conversion engine built into Microsoft Word. Most documents were converted quickly. About 20% had to be examined and fixed. We finished on time and under budget.

>> When you are prototyping an application, it’s sometimes easier and faster to build an MS Access interface to a back end server than it is use a program like Oracle Forms.

Alan H. Jordan is an Management Analyst and Software Engineer who sometimes consults in the areas of programming, documentation, business writing and creative writing.

If you’re looking to be an Arbonne Consultant or if you already are one but are looking to explode the size of your business, then this article is a must read for you. In this article, I am going to break down two key concepts you need to know in order to build a staggering organization.

Arbonne Consultant Key Concept #1 – Forget Everything You’ve Been Taught: Practically everything you have been taught about how to be a successful Arbonne Consultant and grow a big organization — from buying tons of product samples to throwing house parties to having three-way calls to pestering your friends and neighbors — will work to some extent. The problem is how SLOWLY it works. If you can make this work, and go broke in the process, it will take you years to grow a truly large organization.

If you’re looking to be an Arbonne Consultant who builds their business inside of a few months (instead of years), then you need to understand the core principles necessary to have prospects chasing you instead of the opposite taking place. Building your business is not about you having to twist people’s arms, and it is much easier when people are chasing you looking for the benefits your skin care products can provide. The fastest way to make that happen is to use the Internet as your playground to generate more leads each day then you could ever do by just tapping into your warm market.

Arbonne Consultant Key Concept #2 – Adopt This Completely New Mindset: To build a truly staggering organization will start with “deprogramming” yourself from the mindset you’ve been taught as an Arbonne Consultant, and creating a new mindset for yourself. Let me get you started on that by having you think about this. If you got thirty leads a day on the Internet and you were only able to close (put into your downline) just one in ten of them, you would be adding fifteen new associates a week into your Arbonne business! And that’s assuming you’re only working a Monday through Friday week.

Do you see why your mindset as an Arbonne Consultant needs to change? Let me take this one step further with you. Think about those fifteen new people you put into your downline every week. The real key here for massive growth is when some of those people take some initiative, learn what you are doing to build your business, and start building businesses of their own. If even one in ten of those fifteen people did that, you can imagine how big and how fast your organization will grow! That is where the fun really begins.

Being able to be an Arbonne Consultant who grows a staggering organization all starts with a mindset shift. Using those outdated techniques that worked fifteen or twenty years ago is fine, but with the power of the Internet available to you to enable you to build your business in months instead of years, why would you ever want to use them?

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A law firm marketing consultant works alongside your firm as an outsourced business development partner. Their main focus is your firm’s client attraction, retention, and management. They help you get in front of your target demographic, educate them on why your services are needed and of value, and to stay in touch with them after they hire you. Depending on your needs, you may work with your consultant in person or via telephone and online conferences and on a per-project basis or through ongoing collaboration.

What type of services does a marketing or business development consultant provide?

Law firm marketing consultants help you:

A. Differentiate your firm from the competition, B. Position you as an expert in front of your target demographic, C. Enhance your online presence and website traffic, and D. Enable you to show your potential clients the value of your services in a fashion that motivates them to hire you and send you referrals.

They can help you create podcast episodes, tele-seminars, and video series to get more traffic to your website, showcase your expertise on the subject, and give you material to share with your prospect clients, current clients, and professional network. They can also help you create a marketing plan of action that considers your field of law, personality, budget, and available time.

How much can I expect to pay for services of a law firm marketing consultant?

Pricing for services varies with each consulting company. Some business development consultants charge per hour while others charge on a flat fee basis per project. Still others render their services in return for a flat monthly payment. Consider your firm’s cash flow and marketing budget when deciding which method of payment works best for you.

Sonia Gallagher, Esq. is an attorney and business development consultant. She helps small and medium law firms implement strategies to get more clients, more profits, and more free time. She helps position them as experts in their fields, differentiate their Firms from the competition, and connect with their target demographic in a fashion that inspires their potential clients to hire them.