Iman Ahmad Works Cited: Fulbright, Jenny. “How to Start a Successful Consulting Business.” http://www.powerhomebiz.com/vol83/consulting.htm
Arenstein
English 1000C-133- 70891
Essay Outline
I. Inquiry question: Due to lacked resources how does a small consulting business continue on?
II. The development of thesis.
A. Hypothesis: The lacked resources are too much for a consulting business to continue on.
B. Thesis: Despite not having accountants, financial advisors, an adequate business place, superb advertisements, and a steady customer pace a consultant business can still be successful.
III. Introduction
IV. Supporting evidence a consulting business.
A. What is a consulting business, and what does it take to be a consultant.
V. Competing evidence lacked resource
A. No accountants
B. No financial advisors
VI. Competing evidence lacked resource
A. No adequate working enivorment
VII. Competing evidence advertisement
A. Poor advertising use
Competing evidence customer pace. XI. Conclusion.
Iman Ahmad September 26, 2008
Prof. Arenstein
English 1000C-133- 70891
Revised Essay 1
Inquiry question: Due to lacked resources how does a small consulting business continue on?
A great option for aspiring small business owners is starting a home consulting business. Selling business expertise is a hot trend and has the potential of a healthy income. Today’s business landscape continues to change and consultants are in demand. However there are a bunch of negative factors that can hurt the consulting business. One major negative factor that does keep a consulting business from soaring is the lack of resources. Despite not having accountants, financial advisors, an adequate business place, superb advertisements, and a steady customer pace a consultant business can still be successful.
Like all businesses a consulting business needs to take the necessary steps to become a benefactor. A consultant is simply someone who gives expert advice or service. Anyone can become a consultant as long you have the experience, skill, and professional knowledge about the particular field of advisement. A consultant business can’t run without a legal structure, a business plan, and an office. Usually the legal structure of a consulting business is sole proprietorship and the office is a place where the majority of the meetings between clients take place. After the set up of the consulting business is ready, the next motive is pushing it into action. Finally the main focus can officially be on the guap. But be aware of the negativity that might destroy the business altogether and put an end to your business venture.
One weakness of running a small consulting business is the fact that an accountant is not used. An accountant is someone who audits and inspects the financial records of individuals or business concerns and prepares financial and tax reports. In a consulting business you are all alone with basically everything. A consultant can even give advice to an accountant if the business area is accounting consultant. Basically an accountant would be absolutely useless because there would be nothing for the accountant to do. But in big businesses an accountant is vital and helps secure the successful flow of the venture. A consulting business also lacks the assistance of a financial advisor. A financial advisor first takes note of the client’s current finances and the future financial goals. Using the noted down information the financial advisor devises a thorough plan that offers solutions to problems as well as identifying them. A financial advisor is extremely helpful to a business, but a consulting business again can’t use the assistance. These two lacked resources could have been extremely useful in ensuring consulting success. A consulting business can work just as well without them and they are not needed. It is only less work hiring an accountant and a financial advisor, and more money for the business.
Another resource that a consulting business lacks could be an adequate and beneficial working environment. Usually a consultant does all the transactions, meetings, paperwork, and directing in a home office. A home office for consulting work is so unprofessional because the location doesn’t seem like a real business. A home office can make the customers feel like they are not getting the best advice since the atmosphere might look amateurish. The advantage of having a legitimate office type building is that people could see the consulting building near other builds and could just easily walk in. The home office is actually inside the place where you live and random people can’t just walk in. Because of the home office customers are going to have to set up appointments which make the consulting business actually move slower. As with a office building the advising could take place that minute. The consulting business could be stronger, more progressive, and more successful with an office building.
In any business, advertisements are key for getting the project running. Potential customers get interest through advertisements. Advertisements find the customers. In a consulting business it is difficult to advertise since all you do is give expert advice to someone in need. The commercials on television succeed in drawing customers to the presented business. Also radio commercials work just as well in pulling in potential shoppers. A consultant on the other hand has to use other tactics in obtaining clients. The top source that consultants use in obtaining clients is advertising in newspapers. But still the consulting business can draw in customers with low key advertisements like newspaper articles, word of mouth, and recommendations from past clients.
A consulting business also has a sporadic customer pace. A consultant might be giving advice to two customers in a span of a week and then the next customer might not show up for the next three months. A consulting business is nowhere like a regular store business. A store business and a consulting business have absolutely nothing in common. For example Shoprite sometimes overflows with shoppers, and a consultant might not see a customer for months. A steady customer pace is tough to obtain because people just don’t need advice sometimes. That is why a consulting business is only beneficial to you as a part time job. You can still work a regular job and come back to your consulting business. Having customer after customer can be stressful since you are by yourself and it does take time in offering the absolute best advice. The time gap between future customers is beneficial because until your next customers shows up you can prepare advice and ensure your best advisement.
Overall, a consulting business can only pump up income as a part time business. A consulting business won’t see a new customer every day so keeping a job related to a consultant would be for the best since you can keep up to date with information and when a client shows up, professional advice can be given. However the consulting business should be prevalent in your mind because good money can be made. In order for the consulting business to become successful with some lacked resources, a consultant must keep up with the new information; keep trying to advertise the business. A consulting business is recommended as a part time business to someone that has business knowledge and is looking for some more money.
Iman Ahmad September 28, 2008
Prof. Arenstein
English 1000C-133- 70891
Essay 1 revised cover note
The revised essay one was tough. It took me some good time just developing my inquiry question. I used the advice from the writing center and my partners and incorporated it into the essay. I did strong research on this essay and I believe it turned out better than essay 1. The revised essay is much stronger and definitely interprets the object text the full extent. Overall I think the essay shows hard work, effort, and answers the question
Mariya Yakubova
Essay 1: Peer Review
Of Iman Ahmad’s Essay
Step 3- Marginalia
Iman, your essay was very informative, and I enjoyed reading it. Your thought process was evident from the evidence you chose to analyze. However, not all the evidence you presented served to prove or connect to your thesis. You can easily connect them back to your thesis by merely changing your word choice.
Step 4- Peer Review Questions
1. Do you have a clear sense of the conversation into which the essay is entering, and how its thesis is significant in that conversation?
Yes.
2. Does this essay do 10-on-1 or 1-on-10 (it should be doing the former)?
This essay does a 10-on-1. It is evident that you are analyzing various evidence relating to your essay 1 inquiry question, and using it to prove your thesis statement.
3. Does this essay avoid lapsing back into summary and/or description and thus achieve the objectives of a thesis-driven essay? Does the essay make a clear, strong, focused, debatable, complex claim?
This essay does stray a bit from the thesis statement. For example, in the third paragraph, you stated that using a home office for a consulting business would not be the smartest choice, but how does that relate to the thesis, which strives to analyze how a business could run successfully despite negative factors?
4. Can you suggest a piece of complicating evidence that this essay’s thesis has not taken into consideration? How might the thesis evolve as a result of encountering this evidence?
Another piece of complicating evidence can be the state that the economy is in right now. Would aspiring entrepreneurs spend the money to meet with a consultant considering that it is in his best interest to save money rather than spend it?
5. Does the essay effectively analyze the evidence? That is, does it do 10-on-1 to tease out the implications? Does it proceed in a deliberate and detailed fashion, or does it feel rushed and superficial? Where could its analysis be stronger or more in-depth? Where is its analysis particularly strong? Why/how?
This essay does analyze evidence, but can be made stronger in certain areas. The conclusion, for instance does not serve its purpose in this essay. It brings in a new idea rather than tying all the previous claims together in order to answer the So What question. It should also include a statement of significance.
6. What is this essay’s biggest weakness? Be specific—cite a specific page(s) and passage(s).
I would say the weakest paragraph would be the first paragraph on the third page. It talks about advertising, and the fact that consultants advertise through newspaper ads and word of mouth as compared to larger companies who advertise on radio and television. This does not relate to the thesis in any way. How does is this an example of a negative factor of the consulting business, and how does it prove your thesis, which states that the consulting business can still be successful despite negative circumstances?
7. What is this essay’s biggest strength? Be specific—cite a specific page(s) and passage(s).
The second paragraph on the third page is your strongest. It presents the sporadic, unpredictable pace of the consulting business as the negative factor of the business, and goes on to argue that you can use this “idle” time between customers wisely to reflect, analyze, and strategically plan your business, contributing to greater success. This is exactly the kind of evidence you needed to prove or argue your thesis. If you plan to revise your essay, use this paragraph as a guide as to how you should approach the essay.
8. What questions/suggestions are you left with after reading this essay? (These could be about the topic, or about the essay’s handling of the topic.) How would you like the writer to address these?
I would like to know how the present economy can affect a consulting business, and in what innovative ways can the consultant keep his business afloat.
9. How well does this essay accomplish the specific aims and objectives listed on this assignment sheet?
This essay does a 10-on-1 and analyzes information.
Step 5: Checklist topics:
Thesis
• Productive inquiry question leading to a strong thesis
Outline
• Well organized, coherent
• Outlines all major evidence, and lists complicating evidence
Introduction
• Good opening sentence
• Funnel format raises issues that lead into the thesis
• Thesis statement is broken up into several sentences, making it weaker.
Body
• Use of writing process to inquire
• Not a sufficient amount of supporting/complicating evidence
• Inconsistent 10-on-1 throughout entire essay. Some paragraphs merely summarize or state information without any explanation as to how they tie into the thesis.
• Can benefit from more re-articulation of the thesis.
Conclusion
• The conclusion presents new evidence, something it should not be doing.
• Conclusion should provide a statement of significance which states the relevance of all the statements made throughout the body of the essay to the thesis and its relevance, or significance to the world at large.
Step 6: Endnote
Iman, I believe you did a pretty decent job with this essay. Any suggestions I made can be easily implemented (if you chose to do so) by merely tweaking it in a few places. For example, stating your thesis in a single sentence, and merely adding the line “doing so-and-so can ensure success despite such-and-such consequences or negative factors” can really improve your essay, as it will constantly serve to re-articulate your thesis.