George A. May business consulting?

Last weekend , I had a conversation about my dreams for my 13 year old business: That it will grow up and become independently operable without my constant struggle and supervision. I remembered meeting a consultant who I really liked at a trade show a few weeks back, and resolved to give her a call.

Coincidentally, I got a call on Tuesday morning from a George S. May International sales person who was scheduling meetings in my area to introduce their consulting firm and its services. Since I hadn't gotten around to calling the aforementioned consultant yet, I agreed to talk to their people on Wednesday morning, and I was told was a three day introductory business analysis that only cost $350 where a professional analyst would come in, spend time in my business and go over a plan for an ongoing consulting relationship with their firm. I know from having hired consultants in the past that $350 is a bargain for even a day's work, and since I had resolved to hire a consultant anyway, I signed up, not realizing that the company was flying somebody in the following morning. Overall though, it seemed like pretty low risk.

I really have no desire to wait on fixing my inefficiently-run small business (I love it but it is killing me and I very likely am killing it). I imagined that three days in my business would give somebody with fresh eyes a sense of what is working and what is not.

When I got a call from my analyst the next morning while slagging through traffic, I was pretty excited. I was even more excited when I met her, a stylish, smart and friendly woman with a southern accent from Tennessee.

Our meeting started with a brief sales schpeil, which I was fine with and she asked me to sign an "intelligent agreement" saying that I would hire the company at $255 per hour if I found her analisys helpful. Again, this seemed reasonable to me as I have used consultants in the past and have gotten my moneys worth from just a few hours. She then informed me that there would be no written reports that resulted from her initial analysis, but that she would go over her observations with ma and if I hired the firm's managerial team they would provide a detailed written report. Having worked with public organizations, I know this stuff costs money and I have hired expensive consultants in the past, with mixed success.

She spoke with me about my business, sat through our morning shift meeting, spoke with my bookkeeper, asked me to write out 8 goals I had for my business and actions I had taken toward those goals (of course I provided more than she asked for). She briefly went over the differences between budgeting on dollar amounts vs. percentages with my two senior staff. I asked a departing employee if she would tell-all and she agreed to chat with her as well. My analyst spent time with and spoke to every person on staff yesterday and scheduled a meeting with me for 10 this morning.

This morning, our conversation was brief as I prepared for today's shift meeting. She attended the shift meeting with me and walked me back to my basement office.

My analyst told me that she had stayed til 10PM (closing time for us) the night prior and spoke with a staff member who is leaving after this week. The only insight shared this mornign was that I have "personnel issues" and that all the miscommunications that happen in my business will put me under (I could have told her that, but remained silent). She recommended that I fire my new hire today (which I did later on) and sat down to work on paperwork.

Within a few minutes, she needed to have me speak to the person at her office for authorization that I would go with the May managerial consulting plan, and further informed me that those billable hours would begin tomorrow. I thought the initial plan was for a three day analysis- she had met only half of my sales staff I started to have misgivings a bit, but I thought that if this likable, experienced woman wanted to get started sooner rather than later, why not? Like I said, I have gotten my money's worth from most consultants I have hired if even for a few hours. What I didn't learn until she got on the phone to record my voice was that the estimated hours needed for this project were 150 hours (I added it on my calculator while she reported to her team on the phone in some sort of code involving case numbers and staff numbers) which would total some $40,000.00 in estimated hours for them to take over and create a working operations and management plan.

I do understand that 40,000 dollars is not a lot of money if through implementation of their plan I could save that much and make more profit. But I wish she had warned me about the estimated cost, which for some reason she didn't. I assented to the start date of tomorrow over the phone even though I told the man (on tape somewhere) that I wasn't aware prior of the estimated hours. During this conversation (maybe because I had raging PMS) it was all I could do not to burst into tears, but I stopped myself and carried on as she assured me that I needed to "trust her."

I collected myself and assumed up until this point that she would continue to observe and work with today's sales staff, and that she would be here when I meet the new consulting person tomorrow, but by 1PM she informed me that she had to go to the airport and catch a flight to Atlanta.

I feel absolutely abandoned and while I do believe this woman's time was worthwhile, I have a sinking feeling in my gut about just signing away up to 40,000 in services on the advice of somebody who didn't only gave me one solid piece of business advice: Think of budget as percentages of sales not finite numbers, and grow a pair and be stricter in enforcing policy or find someone who can.

Since she left this afternoon, I have been working as usual, but find myself with some extra time because I have a meeting for the Diabolique Ball this evening, and my co-producers are late, as is often the case. So I just checked online with the Better Business Bureau about the George S. May International consulting company, who has received a grade of C- for high pressure sales and mediocre business advice. But I signed on for tomorrow at least, so I am trapped and I don't even have the reassuring twang of my analyst's voice to comfort me. And apparently my analyst found a $4,000 credit card I didn't know I had, so I can pay tomorrow's coupla grand over time.

Now I really want to burst into tears. But what good would that do?

More soon.