How to Choose the Right Mighty Networks Consultant
If you’re looking for help with your Mighty Network, chances are you’ve already put real thought and effort into building your online community. You’ve explored features and read support articles. And yet, it’s still hard to tell where to focus to get your desired results.
In my discovery calls, people sometimes start by asking about features or new tools, especially when they already have an established network. Those questions usually lead us to a deeper concern about whether they’re putting time and energy in the right places or investing effort in things that won’t have much impact.
This post is written especially for people working inside small businesses and organizations who are asking these kind of questions. They are teams that already understand their audience, have real-world experience, and want their online community to support their clients, members, or mission. The community matters, but it’s usually not the only thing they do.
These ideas are based on patterns I’ve seen across many conversations with experienced community builders, nonprofits, and small teams who are trying to make thoughtful support decisions. They’re looking for help that provides clarity, confidence, and a way to reduce risk as they move forward.
Different Situations Call for Different Types of Support
When people reach out for help with an existing Mighty Network, they usually know that something needs attention. What’s sometimes less clear is what type of support would actually move things forward.
Clarifying the kind of help you’re looking for makes it much easier to evaluate whether someone is a good fit, and it helps prevent hiring solid support for the wrong problem.
Before evaluating who to work with, it’s useful to step back and consider the different kinds of support that are available.
The Main Types of Help You’ll Encounter
Here’s a simple way to think about common support options:
Platform training
Useful when you need to understand how a feature works or how to use the platform correctly.Strategic guidance
Useful when the real question is what matters now, what can wait, and why.Hands-on implementation
Useful when time or internal capacity is a key constraint.Ongoing community management
Useful when you need consistent attention on moderation, member experience, programming, or day-to-day operations.Ongoing advisory support
Useful when you want experienced judgment to support decisions and adjustments over time.
None of these are inherently better than the others. In practice, many teams need a combination of these types of support, either at the same time or at different stages. The right mix depends on your stage, your team, and how you actually work.
Once you’ve decided what type of help you need, the question becomes whether someone is a good fit to work within your specific context.
This matters even more if your network is supporting a broader business or organizational mission, and you don’t want community building decisions pulling attention away from the rest of your work.
What Actually Matters When Choosing Who to Hire
Based on real discovery conversations, people rarely decide to hire help just because someone knows more features than they do. They decide when they believe working together will reduce risk, lower overwhelm, and lead to better decisions.
These are the things people tend to pay attention to.
1. Does the consultant understand your situation?
It usually becomes clear fairly quickly whether the person offering help understands the situation or is about to offer generic advice.
Strong support recognizes:
Your stage (early build, transition, cleanup, or scale)
Your organization type (solo, small team, nonprofit, membership organization)
The difference between:
a platform issue
a strategy decision
a capacity or decision-making constraint
If the consultant quickly jumps in with recommendations without asking questions, that’s usually a red flag.
2. Will this reduce overwhelm or add to it?
Many people who reach out for help already have:
Too many options
Half-built structures
Advice from videos, support docs, and peers
They don’t need more ideas.
They choose to work with someone when they believe it will:
Narrow decisions and reduce cognitive load
Quiet constant second-guessing
Move the work forward more quickly
What people are often trying to assess is:
“Will this type of support make things feel lighter and clearer?”
3. Are you getting judgment and experience—not just knowledge?
Feature explanations are easy to find.
What’s harder, and far more valuable, is judgment:
Pattern recognition
Tradeoff guidance
Knowing what not to do yet
In practice, experience tends to show up as restraint rather than complexity.
People listen for reflections like:
“I’ve seen this before.”
“Here’s where this usually goes wrong.”
“This can wait, and here’s why.”
Those type of conversations build confidence that the consultant will offer far more than step-by-step instructions.
4. Has the consultant worked at your level?
People pay close attention to consultant responses to questions such as:
How long have you been doing this?
Who do you usually work with?
Have you worked with organizations like ours?
This isn’t about prestige. It’s about risk management.
People want to know that someone has:
Supported multiple networks
Worked with teams, not just individuals
Has seen the kinds of challenges you may face and understands how to work through them.
The unspoken concern is simple:
“Does the consultant have experience that applies to our needs.”
5. Does the support model fit how you work?
Fit matters just as much as expertise. People are quietly assessing how well the provided type of support fits their team’s capacity, time frame, and working style.
Trust in that assessment increases when the consultant is clear about:
What they do and how it is provided
What they don’t do
When they’re not the right fit
The support that best fits you aligns with your pace, your constraints, and how decisions get made inside your organization.
Factors to Help Confirm Your Decision
These usually don’t drive the decision on their own, but they help confirm that you’re on the right track:
Reviews or testimonials
Certifications
Referrals from people you trust
Public content—videos, blogs, podcasts—that show how someone thinks
If you’re exploring options, the Mighty Networks Certified Experts Directory can be a useful starting point. From there, it’s still important to assess fit, judgment, and support style.
The Underlying Decision Question
Underneath everything, most people are really asking potential consultants:
“Will working with you reduce risk, increase clarity, and help us make better decisions—without adding pressure?”
When the answer feels like yes, people move forward.
If you’re evaluating help for your Mighty Network or online community, use these factors as a filter. They can help you choose support that actually fits.