Four years of college at many private colleges currently costs between $180,000 and $200,000. Next to a house, college is the most expensive purchase most people will make during their lifetime. Despite those costs, many students choose a college without adequate investigation into what would be the best college for that student. As a result one out of three college students leave the college where they started and five out of ten require five or more years to earn their degree. With thousands of choices, it can be difficult to find the right college for any student. Hiring a private college consultant can help students avoid these costly mistakes by finding the right college the first time.

For many students the work to find the right college often creates stress for both the student and their parents. The student is trying to balance the college search with homework, extracurricular activities, friendships and just being a teenager. Finding the right balance can be difficult. At the same time, parents worry about ensuring the best future for their child and put additional pressure on the student when they least need it.

Working with a consultant can take some of that pressure away. A good consultant can take a step back and help the student address those issues related to the college search process without being a nagging parent. Parents are left to provide the nurturing they can do best.

A private college consultant can also help to understand what is needed to gain admission to colleges as they have become more selective. Even those schools once considered safety schools by many students have gotten more selective in their admissions and can no longer be considered safety schools.

The days are gone when high grades and test scores alone could guarantee admission to many colleges. Colleges now look at the student’s extra curricular activities, their interests and their volunteer efforts. They evaluate how well the student communicates through their essays and often how the student presents themselves in the interview process. The college consultant knows how to help the student effectively communicate who they are to the college admissions office.

However, it is not just top students that need help finding the right college. Finding the right college for the less competitive student is just as important. Many less competitive colleges have higher drop out rates and lower graduation rates than some of the well known colleges. It is common to find colleges with four year graduation rates less than 50%. These students often need help to find a college that can help the student learn and yet graduate in a reasonable period of time.

Another group of students that often benefit from the help of a private college consultant are those with unusual circumstances. Students with special needs and learning disabilities need to find colleges that have certain resources not available at all colleges. Home schooled students can also benefit from an experienced private consultant. Many colleges are unsure how to evaluate a student without traditional grades and this can put home schooled students at a disadvantage. A college consultant can work with the student to communicate their strongest qualities in a way that the colleges will understand.

Many students rely on high school guidance counselors to help them in the search for the right college. Some students are fortunate to have an experienced college guidance counselor with whom to work. Even these hard working professionals, however, do not have the time to work one on one with those students who want such support.

More commonly, many guidance counselors just don’t have the time to spend helping each student with the college search process. With an average ratio of almost 500 students for each counselor, many high school counselors can’t take the time to help students with individualized college counseling. Because of time constraints it is not uncommon that many of these busy counselors only know about in state schools that they deal with on a regular basis. They often don’t have the time to familiarize themselves with highly selective colleges or colleges for the student with particular needs.

Given the many issues that must be examined in finding the right college, and the costs involved, it is not surprising that it is common for students at top colleges to use a private consultant to help them find the right college.

In the world of fundraising and the world of consultants it is inevitability that the two would come together and form the niche market of fundraising consultant. Fundraising consultants offer guidance and direction to companies, non-profits and civic organizations that want help with there fundraising.

If you want to hire a fundraising consultant there are definite things to look at and consider before you hire. The first is experience.

How much experience does your fundraising consultant have? Are they fresh out of school and still trying to gain experience or have they been doing this for years. They may have direct hands on experience from running many fundraising campaigns or they may have gained experience with volunteer work. Either way make sure that your fundraising consultant knows what he or she is doing.

Next ask if your fundraising consultant is certified. Certification is not required in all states but is offered nationally as well as some locally. The National Security of Fund Raising Executives offers certification for those consultants who are interested. Be sure to know the rules for your state so that you are assured your fundraising consultant is well trained and ready to work.

Ask questions. Your fundraising consultant should be able to ask the following questions. What will you do if the money comes in too slow? How do we get people to donate and why is it so hard to get them to donate? And finally, why do we the civic group have to do all the solicitation calls? The answers to these questions will help you to determine if your fundraising consultant is on the ball or just starting out.

Then finally make sure your fundraising consultant is well organized and well connected. You do not want to hire a fundraising consultant that is unknown and unable to stay organized. They are invaluable when good and a burden when bad.

You’ve established your company. You’ve hung out your shingle, printed up those marketing brochures, and launched your website. You may even have found your first few clients. Now what?

You can certainly continue to build your business through referrals from those first few satisfied customers. But that takes time because consulting and training industries are essentially relationship-driven. To leverage your contacts and build your business more quickly, consider the advantages of partnering with established companies that have already developed a solid client base, a recognized brand, and a solid product or service. Build partnerships with these organizations to give and get leads, referrals, and introductions.

At NetSpeed Leadership, we offer a consultant partner program to allow independent consultants to affiliate with us. Essentially training consultants become our partners in reaching out to our prospects and clients. We provide regular sales leads, a high-quality website, web conference demonstrations, paid search advertising, marketing and sales support tools. We coach our consultant partners through the sales process, help them prepare proposals and support them through the training implementation. Consultants who affiliate with us consider us to be their strategic partner, helping them provide a level of product and service that they might not be able to offer on their own. In return they make training delivery fees and commission on sales.

One of our colleagues is a frequently published author and a recognized expert in his field. He was approached this year by a start-up training company that wants to develop an online training program using his content. He provides the instant name recognition, golden reputation in his industry, and the content. They provide the instructional design, marketing, operation, and sales resources. He’s thrilled because he has no interest in developing an online training program but he wouldn’t mind the additional revenue stream. They’re thrilled because their time to market is significantly reduced and they get a fast start with an established client base when the program is ready.

NetSpeed Leadership occasionally affiliates with organizations that complement our product and service offerings. For example, we recently launched a customer service training program and we’re now working with a strategic partner to offer a customer service dashboard that will allow customers to identify and track their service metrics. This is an enhancement to our product that we value but don’t have the resources to develop internally. Our strategic partner hopes to gain access to our new clients, while we benefit from offering a sophisticated tracking system as a product enhancement.

In thinking about potential strategic partners, ask these kinds of questions:

What types of partners could enhance my product or service offering?
For example, a human resources consulting firm might consider partnering with a compensation expert, or an independent trainer might partner with a larger training vendor.

What does my company have to offer a strategic partner?
As a consultant you might offer to donate labor upfront to produce a product or service that would enhance your strategic partner’s business offerings (assuming, of course, that you would receive a portion of revenue down the road).

What strategic partners could extend my reach nationally?
Perhaps you’ve developed a good client base in your region but believe that you might be able to develop your business in other parts of the country. In this case, look for partners of similar size that are operating successfully in their regions and see if you can build on each others’ regional business with complementary service offerings.

What strategic partners could extend my reach internationally?
The world is growing increasingly inter-connected. There may be consultants or trainers in other countries that would be delighted to partner with you to open up their markets. You provide the intellectual capital, tested models, and operations support while developing business in a country or two that you might want to visit.

In any of these potential partnerships, you will want to ensure that your conversations are well-documented, that you sign non-disclosure agreements to protect your intellectual property, and that you conclude any agreements with solid legal contracts which spell out clearly your business arrangements. At the same time, trust your instincts. If you believe that your potential strategic partner is untrustworthy, for heaven’s sake, don’t move forward.

You have been denied a loan for consolidation of loans and nagging creditors have made life impossible for you. The way out in such a situation is approaching to debt management consultants. They have appropriate solutions for your aggravated debt problems.

The biggest advantage of debt management consultants is that you are not required to go for a loan, as happens in opting for debt consolidation loan. Under debt management you do consolidate debts and interest rate may be reduced or frozen without requiring a loan. The main job of debt management consultants is to negotiate with your creditors in order to make the debt burden lesser for you. In other words, you escape taking an additional debt in the form of a debt consolidation loan.

Debt management consultants are useful in many ways. They can negotiate with your creditors for reducing interest rate or for freezing it. Debt management consultants are able to get you minimized monthly payments so that you have more money for other expenses and paying for installments does not become a burden anymore. More over as your debts are now consolidated under debt management consultant without taking a loan, you now pay only one monthly payment. Another advantage of debt management consultation is that you avoid any legal action from creditors.

Debt management consultants function in a very simple manner. They ask you to fill a detailed application form giving all details of your debts. Within a day debt management consultant approaches you and discusses the ways for managing debts and advises on it. Then the consultant gives you some documents to sign and with that the process begins. The debt management consultant will then notify your creditors that you have joined the management program.

You are required to make your scheduled payment each month to debt management consultants who in turn disburse it to your creditors. And of course you would be paying a fee to the debt management consultants. Your credit score also will get improved as you pay off debts.