It's important to consider the differences between a "consultant" and a "contractor". A contractor is an experienced technical worker who can be hired to accomplish specific tasks. When you hire a contract worker, you define a precise set of tasks and deliverables, the contractor accomplishes those requirements, receives their payment, and that's it. End of contract, end of engagement, end of involvement. It doesn't matter if the delivered product doesn't do the required task; that's not the contractor's problem, so long as they met the defined contract requirements.

A consultant, on the other hand, is expected to add more than pure technical skill to the project. A consultant, rather than working based on a set of predefined contract requirements, works from a more general set of expectations from the client to solve a problem or set of problems. Additionally, for a consultant, the project doesn't end when the product is delivered. The project ends when the client is happy with the end result.

The difference is critical. Small business owners can't be expected to know how to manage their own Internet infrastructures; that's not their area of expertise. If they choose to hire a contractor, however, they have to know what to ask for, how it should work, what the final result should be able to do, and be able to specify all of that in precise technical terms. With a consultant, that's not a problem; the client can outline what they want, and the consultant can create the technical requirements, suggest changes, new possibilities the client hasn't considered, and make sure that the end result really does match what the client wants.