Consulting confusion continues

Yesterday was the day day I was to meet with my consultant, all by myself and without my analyst at 9am.

At 9:15 I was about to let out a big sigh of relief because I thought maybe my $255 an hour consultant had canceled. I had emailed my analyst right after I posted my first blog and I was still in a panic about having potentially been hoodwinked into a 40,000 project with only $800 in my bank account. I asked for her reassurance that this wasn't some sort of scam, but I haven't heard back to my knowledge (I never did check the store's email today, and part of me hopes that I do hear back from her because I actually liked her).

But alas, it was just a few minutes later that two men walked into my store and introduced themselves as my consultation team. My panic doubled at that moment as now the bill will be $510 per hour. I thought from my conversations with the May representatives on the phone that I could fire, or at least lay-off my consultant after a 2,000 day and once I had ascertained that I had actually gotten 2 grand in value from the experience I could have them come back periodically until the entire astronomical project was completed, if that is what it would actually take to save my business. I had read on the George May website case studies that another retailer they worked with saw them quarterly. But now it will be twice that.

My first hour of consulting consisted of me voicing my concerns to these two businessmen and them reassuring me that their services would not put me out of business. One of them had worked on a multi-store retail company turnaround project that proved successful (thank heavens) and they told me that much of what is written online can be lies (which is true, but in the case of the Better Business Bureau there is investigation involved). I also took time to help them find parking that would not result in a traffic ticket for them.

Funny thing is, sometimes when I am totally stressed I feel that money is being drained from my veins almost when I am paying for anything by the hour even with my $8 hourly employees. But this time it was multiplied by a thousand in my mind and I felt like I was going to just pass out.

To add another element, a rodent had crawled into a deep dark recess of my basement warehouse/office and died. I smelled it on Thursday and didn't take time to hunt it down because I was signing paperwork with my analyst and also trying to get a days work done since as of Monday I had no idea that I would actually have analysts and consultants in my building this week. By Saturday, it stank to high heavens and I did search the area around my desk where I thought the stench was coming from during the many moments that my consulting team needed "private time" to consult with each other.

To the credit of my consulting team, they worked in my stanky basement for more than the 10 hours I was obligated to pay them for. And neither one of them complained about the smell which my staff in the store above could detect and were scrambling up and down the steps to mask with incense and scented sprays.

I filled out paper worksheets for them (as I had done for my analyst, who didn't leave a copy of the ones I had done with her), discussed what I wanted to do , explained how ordering was done, basic operational information but lots of focus on merchandise. I printed company financial statements, inventory department lists (and I discovered, abysmally that our inventory is once again way off from actual counts, a problem that has consistently haunted us since we began using Intuit's Quickbooks Point of Sale but which I thought I had corrected three weeks ago after several frustrating tech support calls).

I printed sales reports by department for every month for the past twelve, profit and loss reports by year, quarter and month and eventually began exporting these reports into spreadsheets that I saved onto a thumb drive so I could more efficiently allow my consultants to crunch numbers.

I wanted to leave for a few hours as I stayed at the store late on Friday night, and was hosting a store-sponsored party that night, but I couldn't find my keys. Had I known I would be struggling to get my money's worth from such an expensive endeavor when I scheduled this particular party I would not have scheduled anything else. I haven't really recovered from my three consecutive trade shows from the past month and I have been fighting a cold. So I stayed in the store while my consultants asked for more private consultation time. My friend who has been helping in my store bought me some tea to get me through the night.

They asked for an online bank statement, but my password had recently been auto-disabled because I typed the wrong one in too many times, but eventually I got it and when they saw the negative available balance in my account they asked me to print the screen so they could fax it to May headquarters.

I told my consultants that I would check in with them at 6:30 as they told me that May required a 10 hour workday and they arrived shortly after 9, but because I was in the building anyway (and I needed to get prepped for my party), I went down to try and wrap up with them at 6ish.

They gave me an organizational chart that mapped my cash streams with my inventory and operations and explained three areas I need to work on immediately.

I informed them that I was terminating their services, but not because they had done anything wrong. They understood, and further assured me that they would wrap up the numbers crunching and provide me with a chart and invoice on Monday.

That was it. Until I get the invoice tomorrow anyway. I didn't feel the affinity for these two consultants that I felt for my assigned intake analyst, but I do trust that at the minumum they will provide me with a written version of some solid business advice.

I will see if it is worth the price.

The thing that really bothers me is not any individual experience I had with any staff person working on my project. The bait and switch is what bothers me.

Last week, I was planning on hiring a consultant anyway because I really am at my wits end. But I was planning on hiring Mercedes Gonzalez a retail-specific consultant from New York (not the far reaches of the US) and had resigned myself to the fact that it was going to be at least 5,000 based on an actual price list that was provided to me at theWWD Magic show in Las Vegas when I attended an extraordinarily helpful seminar she conducted. 40,000 was far more than I ever anticipated, but the lure of a "no obligation" $350 3-day analysis sucked me into a much larger debt than I ever imagined.

My three day analysis was only 1.5 days and although I learned when I met my analyst I wasn't getting any written reports (which I didn't recall any mention of when I signed on) I expected a wrap up meeting where my strengths weaknesses and opportunities for improvements would be addressed in some sort of organized fashion. Mind you, my analyst did discuss some of this with me, but in total we probably talked less than 3 hours total, most of which occurred during the first half of her full day of observation. On the final day, only cursory mention was made of issues involving "personnel " "miscommunication."

When I signed up for the initial analysis on Wednesday, I was handed a sheet that listed many facets of business operations and profitability that instructed me to circle items of concern to me. I did circle several items and handed this to my analyst during the first hour I met with her on Thursday. I thought that we would at least summarize/ discuss these items in detail before moving on to the next step of assigning a consultant to me. But as it turned out, we never had that conversation because we had the 40,000 dollar phone call where I discovered that the time estimated for my project was 150 hours and I did the math and practically freaked out with the "verification staff" on the phone. "Trust me on this," was virtually the last thing my analyst said to me before she was suddenly called away to another city and departed without warning. I had invited her to our store party on Saturday when we talked on Thursday, and she said that she would go if she were still in town, but that she didn't know when her flight was booked. Did she know and lie to me? She didn't seem like a liar. Did she panic because I panicked and run away from the issue?

By the time she asked me how far my store is from the airport on Friday, it was too late to even ask for a verbal summary- she had to run and catch a plane. It was also too late to renege on this consultant thing that I learned was to start tomorrow but because I had already agreed on the phone (not knowing that it was starting immediately or that my analyst was departing) I felt trapped and I still do to some degree- I somehow didn't notice that I am responsible not only for $255 per person for hour for 10 hours but also for travel and lodging. It has just been one unpleasant panic-inducing discovery after another. When I asked my analyst (after the phone call) why I don't even get a three day grace period like people who sign a mortgage, she said that I was overreacting and that there wasn't any need because May International "won't let you die on the operating table."

I am not so sure of the outcome of this. The surgery is done, but I am not sure the condition is resolved or to what degree it may resolve itself in the recovery room, and the bill might just kill me.

Maybe the two individuals who worked with me yesterday will make good on this experience and provide me with something valuable that will make the investment worth it.They certainly seemed to know what they were doing w hopefully in the end I will know and appreciate what they were doing for me.

I am hopeful that I will have a treatment plan that will work come morning. But I am still scared to death of tomorrow's invoicing.