How To Start A Consulting Business

Start Your Own Profitable Consulting Business In The Next 42 Days

In this guide, I’m going to show you how to start a consulting business and land your first high-
ticket client in the next 42 days.

Why?

Because the job market is changing.

More than 53 million Americans — over 34% of the US workforce — are currently doing
independent, freelance-style work. Forbes estimates this number will increase to over 50% by
2020.

For many of these individuals, it’s by necessity. Full-time jobs are disintegrating. High-paying
jobs are harder and harder to find.

But there’s a silver lining.

The gig economy is bigger than it’s ever been, and as businesses employ fewer and fewer full-
time employees, they are depending more and more on independent contractors and consultants
to fill in the gaps.

On top of this, consulting is more lucrative than it’s ever been. According to Forbes, the
consulting industry is worth a whopping $100 billion per year and is predicted to grow around
80% per year over the next few years.

Simply put, there’s never been a worse time to be an employee, and there’s never been a
better time to start your own consulting business.

In this guide, I’ll be providing you with everything you need to start your own profitable
consulting business:

 Even if nobody knows who you are

 Even if you have no special skills or experience
 Without being pushy, slimy, or salesy

The framework we will cover today is the exact framework I used to grow my own consulting
business to $20 million in revenue in just four years, and become a Forbes 30 Under 30
Entrepreneur.

More importantly, the methods we will discuss today allowed me to completely change my life.
I got out of debt. I stopped having to struggle to pay bills. I no longer had my destiny controlled
by someone else. I was finally able to grab the steering wheel in my life and career, and that’s
the main thing I hope to leave you with today.

Let’s get started.

(This guide is over 5,000 words long! If lengthy reads aren’t your thing, click below to watch our
video training instead)

What Is Consulting And Why Is it So Lucrative?

I believe that a consulting business is unquestionably the best type of business you can launch.

But why? What is a consulting business? And what makes consulting so lucrative?

There are a lot of misconceptions about consulting. People often think that to be a consultant,
you need special credentials, a fancy office, a posh suit, and a professional consulting business
plan. They think you need to have staff and the ability to make in-person appointments with big
businesses.

Sometimes they think that consulting is only for enterprise businesses: stuff like supply chain
management, management, IT, HR and other really formal, stale business things.

But none of this is true.

In reality, the definition of consulting is really simple. The Oxford dictionary defines it as
“engaged in the business of giving expert advice to people working in a specific field.”

That’s pretty simple. Expert advice + a specific field.

In other words, to build a consulting business, all you really need to do is focus on helping a
specific group of people solve the problems they are facing.

That’s it.

Everyone has a problem they want solved. The more important the problem being solved, the
more people are willing to pay to have it solved. And the more money your target field has to
spend, the more they will gladly pay to solve the problems they are facing.

The problem might be something you’d expect, like how to scale an accounting business:

Best of all, the consulting business model itself is a breeze.

With consulting, you can start immediately with just a cellphone and a laptop.
A lot of other businesses, like eCommerce, require a lot more from you. You’ve got to have all
this software and physical products to sell or dropship. It’s pretty complicated and it requires a
fair amount of capital up front.

With consulting, you can call someone, sell your service, and immediately collect payment. No
product needed. No overhead to pay. No capital required.

And unlike many other business models, the margins are quite high, with plenty of cash flow
from day one.

Sell a product for $100 and you might make $20. Sell a consulting package for $1,000 and you’ll
probably keep $800. Few businesses can claim such high margins.

And while I typically like to stick to the data, the reality is that consulting is incredibly rewarding
on an emotional level. Getting paid to give advice is quite affirming, and watching your clients
succeed thanks to your advice is unbelievably satisfying.

Just check out our Consulting.com reviews database and watch some of these videos. When you
are good at what you do, you get to watch your clients succeed time and time again... and it’s
incredibly fulfilling.

But enough about “why”. Let’s talk about “how”.

The Only 4 Things Needed To Start A Consulting Business

Once you begin to understand something, you often discover that it’s much simpler than you
expected. This is especially true in the consulting industry.

As I mentioned earlier, you don’t actually need special credentials, a fancy office, a posh suit, or
a professional consulting business plan.

So what do you need?

The truth is that you only need four things to start your consulting business and quickly grow it
to six figures and beyond.

1. A compelling offer that provides value

2. A well-populated niche of potential clients
3. A repeatable system for attracting clients
4. A rewired mentality

Want to know how to start a consulting business?

That’s it. That’s all you need.

And by the end of this guide, you’ll have a detailed framework for each one.
1. Successful Consultants Have A Compelling Value Proposition

One of the most important lessons anyone can learn in business is how to create value. Until you
understand how to create value, you’ll never have anything worthwhile to sell.

So how do we create value as consultants?

Right now, everyone on Earth has a current situation or state. They exist today within a certain
environment and with a certain set of circumstances, attributes, limitations, and opportunities.

And no matter what that state of being looks like, part of being human is not being fully satisfied
with the present situation. Every human being on Earth desires to improve in some way... often
in many different ways, shapes and forms.

What this ultimately means is that every human on Earth has a current state of existence AND a
desired state of existence, with a gap in between the two states.

This gap is the motivation behind all human behavior. People invest hours upon hours of their
lives laboring to earn money so they can then purchase things they believe will get them closer to
their desired state.

This is how the global economy ticks. It’s the reason people do what they do.

As a consultant, your job is simply to help people bridge the gap. The value you bring to the
table is the ability to help someone move from their current state to their desired state.

And people will happily pay you for this for one of three reasons:
 1. They have been unsuccessful in getting there on their own.
2. They want to get there faster.
3. They want guidance from someone who has been there, done that.

Let’s say you’ve been running a small business for three years, and you’ve been unable to cross
six figures in net profit. You’ve tried a number of different growth strategies, and they’ve all
failed. Or perhaps you’ve been getting $5,000 close each year, but you want to go faster.

At this point, you can either keep investing your free time and capital in guessing,
experimenting, and hoping something works... OR you can bring in someone with a proven
system for scaling small businesses... someone who has already helped 20 businesses just like
yours double their net profit within a six-month timeline.

That’s the value of consulting, and it’s a no-brainer.

Everybody wants to reach their desired state. If you can help them bridge the gap, whether it
looks like scaling a business, losing weight, or overcoming porn addiction, you can build a
highly profitable consulting business.

You don’t need to come up with your own consulting business ideas.

Your goal is find a specific, significant challenge that people are ALREADY facing and then
become an expert at helping them overcome that challenge. And as long as there are people
wanting to solve that problem, there will be a lucrative demand for your services.

Often, the value you provide will come from personal experience. If you’ve “been there, done
that”, it’s very easy to help people follow in your footsteps.

But it’s not mandatory that you have personally encountered the challenge. In some cases,
outside views are the most accurate. As long as you can help real people overcome a challenge,
you can get paid as a consultant regardless of how you develop your method.

2. Successful Consulting Businesses Target A Specific Niche

Let me ask you a question.

If your #1 goal for the next year was to lose 50 pounds, who would you rather have helping you?

1. A personal trainer who specializes in helping people lose weight quickly

2. A life coach who helps people reach their goals

It’s a no-brainer. We want the specialist.

Why?
Because they have devoted their entire career to specializing in the ONE thing we most want
help with.

The life coach may be fantastic. They might be really good at what they do. But there is zero
chance they are better at helping people lose weight than someone whose career is focused on
that specific area of expertise.

That’s the power of niche expertise, and it’s something that virtually most successful consulting
businesses (and 100% of successful Consulting.com students) have in common. You will never
become really good at helping everyone, but you can become amazing at helping one specific
type of person.

Successful consulting businesses target a specific niche.

And the big money in consulting, the REALLY big money, comes when you become known as
THE king or queen of your specific mountain.

When you are at the top of your niche, generalist consultants are no longer your competition.
They don’t stand a chance. Prospects will literally beg you to work with them at any price, and
you get to pick and choose who you work with.

Instead of needing to deliver a time-consuming service, you will be paid simply to offer your
advice, and you will get paid significantly more than competing service providers, because YOU
are the go-to expert in your specific area.

So with that said, let’s define your niche. What mountain are you going to climb?

To answer that, you need to answer three questions:

1. What industries do you already know?

2. What are the market’s needs and desires?
3. What skills do you already have?

Overlapping your answers to these three questions is how we discover your niche.

A. What industries do you already know?

The first thing to think about is the industries you know about or are interested in. What are you
most familiar with thanks to your career and past experiences in general? Are there any niches or
areas that you have always been really fascinated with and explored on an amateur basis?

Grab a pen and paper, and write down five industries, niches, or groups you know right now.
Examples: plumbers, newlywed couples, young women experiencing binge eating issues,
accountants, etc.
B. What are the market’s needs and desires?

Next, you’ve got to think about the market’s needs and desires. What do real people in these
niches want and need? What are the main challenges they are struggling with? What are the
questions they are always asking?

You will likely need to get outside of your own head in order to figure this out. You will know
you’ve done this exercise properly when you can accurately write a day in your prospect’s diary
and have them mistake it for their own writing.

Don’t waste time trying to come up with your own consulting business ideas. IT NEVER
WORKS!

Got the market and ask them.

1. Start by reading the top ten blogs in your niche. Tools like BuzzSumo can help you locate these
blogs.
2. Look for the most popular posts on those blogs. What topics do they cover? What questions are
they answering?
3. Now go to the comments section. What are people saying? What are they arguing about?
4. Now go to Amazon.com and find out what the top ten books are in your niche. Buy them. Read
them. What are they talking about? Why are they popular?
5. Now find out who the top ten influencers are in your niche. What are they saying? What are
they doing that drives the most engagement?

C. What skills do you already have?

The third thing to think about is your own set of skills and talents. What skills do you have?
What are you talented at and could master fairly quickly? What are some things you have wanted
to try and feel like you could pick up easily?

You want to take inventory of your current skill set first to see if you can use it to solve people’s
problems. But don’t stress if you don’t currently have the skill set.

Let’s say I choose plumbers as the industry I’m going to help, and then I look at the needs and
desires of plumbers, and I research their niche, and I find out they need help getting clients —
specifically, hot water cylinder repair clients. Now I can see the niche. Now I can see their
problem, and there’s a true market need there. But I need the skills to actually help the plumbers
get clients.

That’s how it could line up. A lot of people think if they don’t have the skills necessary to help
that particular niche solve the problem they have, it’s game over. They think, “I can’t do this,”
and they don’t even try.
But honestly, figuring out the “how” of solving the problem is quite easy once you know what
the problem is. There are so many available options, and starting a consulting business with no
experience is not out of the question.

You can teach yourself how to solve the problem by learning online lead generation. Or you
could find someone else who is an expert at online lead generation and learn from them. You
could even outsource the solution to an online marketing agency and charge a markup.

It’s not about knowing everything. It’s about finding a niche, finding the problems that niche is
facing, and then getting those problems solved.

That’s it!

The overlap of these three things is your niche. This is where you are most potent and most
powerful.

A lot a people believe the most important things in business are the skills you have. We live in a
generation where people are going to university for like 20 years and getting all of these different
letters to put behind their name.

They get a PhD and XYZ, and then they get out of school with insane amounts of debt and can’t
even find a job. They have no real-world skills, and no way to take their own destiny by the
horns.

The market doesn’t care about your skills. The market doesn’t care about you at all.
The market only cares about its own needs and desires.

If you want to succeed in business, find out what the market wants and give it to them.

And as a final note, how you communicate the value you bring is very important. I ask
consultants what they do all the time, and they often give very vague answers like, “Well, I uh...
help people with their businesses.”

That’s not good enough.

Here’s a template for your niche value proposition:

For example, you could say, “I help women who suffer from binge eating to become free of
binge eating by the end of my six-week coaching program.”

Or you could say, “I help plumbers get hot water cylinder repair clients using Google AdWords.”

Or, “I help local businesses double their monthly clients within six months using local SEO.”

The whole point of choosing a niche and solving those problems is that you have a specific value
proposition to offer, so be sure to communicate your new value proposition in specific

3. Successful Consulting Businesses Have A Repeatable System For Attracting

Clients

So, we’ve covered how to create value and how to pick your niche, but we’re not quite done.
Now we need to go out, present our offer to potential clients, and close deals.

A lot of new business owners have no game plan for making this happen. They practice what I
call “hope marketing”:

 They show up to the office every morning simply hoping the phone will ring.
 They attempt “random acts of marketing” based on the latest fads they hear about.
 They have no clue where their next client will come from.
 They feel like they are on a rollercoaster, never knowing when to expect feast or famine.
 Even in the good season, there is a constant worry about sustaining the business.

Quite frankly, this is a really horrible, emotionally draining place to be. I’ve been there myself,
and it absolutely sucks.

When you run your business this way, you are essentially gambling your financial future on
worse odds than you’d get at a Vegas casino.

If you want to run a successful consulting business, you must use a proven, rinse and repeat
process for attracting and converting clients.

Great... so how do we do that?

Here at Consulting.com, we teach a proven system designed specifically for acquiring high-ticket
consulting clients. This is a process that I spent years refining and mastering in my own
consulting business, and we have further improved it over the course of training 10,000+
students in this system and analyzing their results.

Here’s the framework we use:

Now, keep in mind that we spend three weeks and around 50 hours’ worth of video teaching this
process in our online consulting training. Every piece of this process involves a different skill set
that has to be mastered or outsourced to someone who knows what they are doing.

So while we can’t make you an expert in the next ten minutes, we can and will break down this
process for you, so you know EXACTLY what you need to do to land clients moving forward.

Let’s get started.

We call the type of system pictured above a “funnel”, and it allows us to transform client
acquisition from a guessing game to a simple math calculation.

Here’s what I mean.

Let’s say I spend $500 on Facebook ads, which results in 500 people visiting my landing page.
Out of that 500 people, 165 people sign up for my training, and after watching my value video,
16 schedule a call with me and fill out my survey.

I speak with 16 people on the phone and 3 end up purchasing my services at $800 each.

What does this mean?

It means that at ANY time, I can spend $500 on Facebook ads and make $2,400 in revenue. In
other words, I can make $1,900 in profit on repeat, as often as I please.
And that’s not all.

What if I want to make even more? I have numerous ways to increase my profit:

 I can optimize my Facebook ads to get more than one visitor per $1 spent.
 I can optimize my landing page to convert more than 33% of those visitors.
 I can optimize my value video to convert more than 10% of viewers.
 I can improve my phone sales process to close more than 20% of callers.
 I can raise my pricing for services higher than $800.

No guessing required. I know exactly how my business is functioning and I can get clients on
demand.

If I want to make $20,000 this month, all I need to do is close 25 clients, and I know that it will
cost me around $4,200 in Facebook ads to make that happen.

See how powerful that is? Wouldn’t you love to know exactly what you needed to do to make
$20,000 in the next 30 days? How about double that? Spend $8,400, close 50 clients, and you
can make $40,000 this next month.

It’s literally just numbers at this point, and the sky’s the limit. We had one student at
Consulting.com who went from $17,000 per month to $217,000 per month within a single month
of using this system.

So now that we understand the purpose of using a funnel, let’s break down the individual funnel
pieces.

1. Facebook Ads

Right now, Facebook is the number one place to get clients for your consulting business. With
Facebook, you can target the “perfect client” online even with a small budget.

Step one in this process of doing Facebook ads is setting up the targeting.

Facebook allows you to select the location, ages, and genders you want to target. You can even
select their job title and general interests.

For example, you can just type in “plumbing” and “business owner,” and then Facebook runs a
search for these people and comes back with something like, “There are 57,000 people that
match this target.”

And just like that, you can run an ad targeting every plumber in America.
Once you’ve selected your target audience, it’s time to create the ad that Facebook will show
them.

Obviously, you can spend hours upon hours testing different words and pictures on your ad, but
it doesn’t have to be that complicated. You can start with something as simple as, “Are you a
plumbing business owner looking to attract new customers?”

Now we run our ad campaigns with a goal of paying around $1 per ad click.

2. The Landing Page

So where do people go, or “land”, after clicking our ad?

They arrive at our landing page. A landing page is a website page designed to convince incoming
visitors to give you their contact information.

This page should serve as an extension of your Facebook ad. If we invited plumbers looking to
get more clients in the ad, we should make our promise on the landing page relevant to plumbers
looking for more clients.

It doesn’t have to be long. It doesn’t have to be complicated. You are simply going to offer the
visitor something free in exchange for their contact info. Since we want as many people as
possible to give us their info, I like to keep it really easy, and just ask for their email address.

While we certainly aren’t limited to this number, a good average conversion rate is 33%. This
means that for every 100 people who click on our ad and view our landing page, around 33
should give us their emails.

If we are paying $1 per click, and 33% of our visitors are giving us their info, we are only paying
about $3 per lead!

3. The Value Video

Once our visitors give us their email addresses, we need to deliver the free training we promised
them.

While there are a number of ways we can do this, my personal favorite is to use a 5-15 minute
video that I call a “value video”.
The value video is all about... you guessed it... providing value. We say something like, “You’re
a plumber who is struggling to find clients,” and then we give them some really useful tips for
landing more clients.

Sometimes people think they need to hold their advice close to the chest, but in consulting, we
want to give people a ton of value for free. The free value we provide proves that we know what
we are talking about, and after all, if the entirety of our expertise can be delivered in a 5-minute
video, that’s not much expertise.

The video doesn’t need to be fancy. You don’t even need to include your face if you don’t want
to. You can simply record a PowerPoint presentation with a voice overlay. Don’t make this step
more complicated than it needs to be!

At the end of the video, invite your viewers to learn even more from your expertise by
scheduling a free consultation with you.

You can expect a good 10% of your viewers to schedule that call, and if we continue our math
based on averages, you are now looking at very warm leads at only $30 a pop.

And while we don’t have time to go over it in this post, we haven’t completely lost out on the
other 90% of our viewers. We already know they are interested in what we’re doing, and with
strategies like email marketing, ad retargeting, and all sorts of other fun remarketing strategies,
we will have countless opportunities to turn these people into customers down the road.

4. The Calendar

The next step is to send all those warm leads to our calendar.

We want to use some form of scheduling software here that allows our leads to see our
availability and directly select a time to speak with us.

We use custom built software for this at Consulting.com, but there are quite a few free and
premium tools that can be used for this. Calendly is a tool that can be used for free and is
preferred by many of our students.

Imagine trying to schedule all of these appointments with a notebook or even something like
Google Calendar. It would be a nightmare. But with good scheduling software, it’s a piece of
cake.

5. The Survey

After people select a time to meet with us, we want to have them complete one more step.
I like to have my prospects complete a survey so I can determine if they’re a good fit for working
with me. I don’t want to work with just anyone. I don’t want to waste my time with tire kickers
or people who aren’t in a position to legitimately benefit from my consulting services.

If you want to protect your time, you need a survey in place in order to pre-screen your prospects
before investing 30+ minutes in talking with them.

At this point, as we mentioned before, we are getting people scheduled into our calendar with a
completed survey for $30 each. How would you like to pay $30 for a qualified, scheduled
appointment with someone in your niche who has the problem you solve?

You might be thinking, “This sounds good in theory, but how do I know this thing actually
works?”

Well, this is an example of what my calendar looks like just two days after turning on an ad
campaign.

If I want more clients... at ANY time... I can just turn on this system. I turn on my ads and poof,
my calendar stacks up like this immediately. I now have back-to-back appointments with
qualified people who have a problem I’m equipped to solve.

6. The Call

Now let’s talk about the final step: the call.

There are a lot of things in business and marketing that I’m not an expert on, but when it comes
to consulting sales calls, I can say without hesitation that I have this down to an absolute science.

This is where the magic happens. This is where you turn a $30 lead into a $2,000 client.

Let’s think back to our early discussion about the definition of consulting. People have a current
situation and then they have a desired situation. There is a gap between these two things.

Your #1 goal on a sales call is to get a crystal clear picture of your prospect’s current situation,
their desired situation, and the nature of that gap — the challenges preventing them from
reaching that desired situation.

Then we want to position ourselves and our consulting offer as the vehicle to help the prospect
bridge this gap.
A lot of people make the mistake of trying to sell their services. They think it’s all about
persuasion. They think they need to talk and convince their prospects to trust them and to give
them money.

Fail.

The reality is that prospects often come to you frantic and with a scattered mind. They know they
are struggling but they don’t know WHY they are struggling, and they don’t really understand
where they are or where they are trying to go.

A truly masterful salesperson is almost like a therapist. By asking the right questions and
listening to the prospect, you allow them to process through that confusion and arrive at a place
of clarity.

A master salesperson helps bring clarity to the problematic situation the prospect is experiencing,
and then they position themselves and their offer as the key to the prospect’s desired situation.
You don’t sell a service. You sell a successful future.

I’ve personally done over 1,500 sales calls, recorded every single one, and studied them in the
process of putting together the sales script my students now use. I call it the Alchemic
Conversion Script, because you can quite literally use it to create gold.

This strategy works. It worked for me, and it works for brand new students with absolutely zero
sales experience.

And while the script is retained as an exclusive part of our premium Consulting Accelerator
training, I can tell you now that even just changing your mindset going into calls based on the
recommendations made here today will give you a massive leg up in closing sales.

And speaking of mindsets...

4. Successful Consultants Rewire Their Mentality

We will only touch briefly on this today, but it’s an important caveat, because everything we just
covered is worthless without the right mentality.

Successfully building a consulting company is hard, and knowing all the correct pieces won’t
matter if you don’t have a mentality that breeds success.

We’ve worked with more than 10,000 students over the last few years, and we’ve noticed
something really intriguing. The students who rewire their mentality see drastically improved
results over those who simply extract knowledge and methods from our course.
Remember what we discussed earlier? You have your current state and your desired state.

The reason you haven’t achieved your goals is because you don’t have the mentality required to
achieve your goals.

It’s that simple.

The only guaranteed way to succeed is to hack your brain and develop a mentality that naturally
breeds success. When you are able to see yourself, your business and the market through the
right mental lens, something crazy happens.

You stop fighting against yourself.

You stop fighting against your business.

You stop fighting against the market.

And suddenly, everything becomes much more efficient and even feels easier than it did before.

This is why we spend an entire week with our students focusing strictly on mentality BEFORE
diving into the practical mechanics of business building. Entrepreneurship is not for the faint of
heart. Consulting is not for the mentally fragile.

Consulting is problem solving, both for yourself and your clients, and the more resilient and
persistent your mentality, the more successful you will be.

Your Turn: Start Your Own Consulting Business

Hopefully this guide has taught you how to start a consulting business and given you a clear
game plan for building your own successful business. As we discussed earlier, there has never
been a better time to get started.

You have two options moving forward:

 Build your business on your own: Learn Facebook advertising, landing page design &
copywriting, video creation, and sales through your own self-education, and then create and
experiment with your own amateur funnel.
 Follow a proven system: Follow the same proven system from Consulting.com that has created
25 millionaires, nearly 500 six-figure earners, and allowed over 3,000 students to quit their jobs
and work for themselves full-time.

Whether you decide to go it alone or join our community of ambitious consultants, be sure to
sign up for our free webinar. We’ll take an even deeper dive into the framework discussed today
and show you numerous examples of people just like you making a killing as independent
consultants in every imaginable industry and niche.
A consultant's job is to consult. Nothing more, nothing less. It's that simple. There's no magic
formula or secret that makes one consultant more successful than another one.

But what separates a good consultant from a bad consultant is a passion and drive for excellence.
And--oh yes--a good consultant should be knowledgeable about the subject he or she is
consulting in. That does make a difference.

You see, in this day and age, anyone can be a consultant. All you need to discover is what your
particular gift is. For example, are you very comfortable working around computers? Do you
keep up with the latest software and hardware information, which seems to be changing almost
daily? And are you able to take that knowledge you have gained and turn it into a resource that
someone would be willing to pay money for? Then you would have no trouble working as a
computer consultant.

Or are you an expert in the fund-raising field? Maybe you have worked for nonprofit agencies in
the field of fund-raising, marketing, public relations or sales, and over the years you have
discovered how to raise money. As someone who has turned a decade of fund-raising successes
into a lucrative consulting business, I can tell you that fund-raising consulting is indeed a
growing industry.

Things to Consider Before You Become a Consultant

 What certifications and special licensing will I need? Depending upon your profession, you may
need special certification or a special license before you can begin operating as a consultant. For
example, fund-raising consultants don't need special certification, although you can become
certified through the National Society of Fund Raising Executives. And in some states, you may
need to register as a professional fund-raising consultant before starting your business.
 Am I qualified to become a consultant? Before you hang out your shingle and hope that clients
begin beating your door down to hire you, make sure you have the qualifications necessary to
get the job done. If you want to be a computer consultant, for example, make sure you are up to
date in the knowledge department with all the trends and changes in the computer industry.
 Am I organized enough to become a consultant? Do I like to plan my day? Am I an expert when
it comes to time management? You should have answered "yes" to all three of those questions!
 Do I like to network? Networking is critical to the success of any type of consultant today. Begin
building your network of contacts immediately.
 Have I set long-term and short-term goals? And do they allow for me to become a consultant?
If your goals do not match up with the time and energy it takes to open and successfully build a
consulting business, then reconsider before making any move in this direction!

Top 20 Consulting Businesses Thriving Today

Although you can be a consultant in just about any field these days, the current top 20 consulting
businesses include:

1. Accounting: Accounting is something that every business needs, no matter how large or
small. Accounting consultants can help a business with all of its financial needs.
2. Advertising: This type of consultant is normally hired by a business to develop a good
strategic advertising campaign.

3. Auditing: From consultants who audit utility bills for small businesses to consultants who
handle major work for telecommunications firms, auditing consultants are enjoying the fruits of
their labor.

4. Business: Know how to help a business turn a profit? If you have a good business sense, then
you'll do well as a business consultant. After computer consulting, people in this field are the
next most sought after.

5. Business writing: Everyone knows that most businesspeople have trouble when it comes to
writing a report--or even a simple memo. Enter the business writing consultant, and everyone is
happy!

6. Career counseling: With more and more people finding themselves victims of a corporate
downsizing, career counselors will always be in demand. Career counselors guide their clients
into a profession or job that will help them be both happy and productive as an employee.

7. Communications: Communications consultants specialize in helping employees in both large

and small businesses better communicate with each other, which ultimately makes the business
more efficient and operate smoothly.

8. Computer programmer: From software to hardware, and everything in between, if you know
computers, your biggest problem will be not having enough hours in the day to meet your clients'
demands!

9. Editorial services: From producing newsletters to corporate annual reports, consultants who
are experts in the editorial field will always be appreciated.

10. Executive search/headhunter firms: While this is not for everyone, there are people who
enjoy finding talent for employers.

11. Gardening: In the past decade the demand for gardening consultants has blossomed (pun
intended) into a $1 million-a-year business. Not only are businesses hiring gardening
consultants; so are people who are too busy to take care of their gardens at home.

12. Grantsmanship: Once you learn how to write a grant proposal, you can name your price.

13. Human resources: As long as businesses have people problems (and they always will),
consultants in this field will enjoy a never-ending supply of corporate clients, both large and
small. (People-problem prevention programs could include teaching employees to get along with
others, respect and even violence prevention in the workplace.)

14. Insurance: Everyone needs insurance, and everyone needs an insurance consultant to help
them find the best plan and pricing for them.
15. Marketing: Can you help a business write a marketing plan? Or do you have ideas that you
feel will help promote a business? If so, why not try your hand as a marketing consultant?

16. Payroll management: Everyone needs to get paid. By using your knowledge and expertise
in payroll management, you can provide this service to many businesses, both large and small.

17. Public relations: Getting good press coverage for any organization is a real art. When an
organization finds a good PR consultant, they hang on to them for life!

18. Publishing: If you're interested in the publishing field, then learn everything you can and
you, too, can be a publishing consultant. A publishing consultant usually helps new ventures
when they are ready to launch a new newspaper, magazine, newsletter--and even websites and
electronic newsletters.

19. Taxes: With the right marketing and business plan (and a sincere interest in taxes), your
career as a tax consultant can be very lucrative. A tax consultant advises businesses on the legal
methods to pay the least amount of tax possible.

20. Writing services: Anything related to the written word will always be in demand. Find your
specialty in the writing field, and the sky will be the limit!

Target Market

Your idea may be the best one you have ever thought of, but there needs to be a market for your
ideas. Someone must be willing and able to pay you for your expert advice.

In other words, who are your potential clients? Will you be marketing your consulting services to
large corporations? Or will you offer a specialty that would only be of interest to smaller
businesses? Perhaps your services will be sought after by nonprofit organizations. Whatever the
case, before you go forward, make sure you spend time preparing both a business plan and a
marketing plan. You won't be disappointed with the results--especially when clients begin paying
you!

Why an Organization Wants to Hire You

According to a recent survey, here are the top 10 reasons organizations hire consultants:

1. A consultant may be hired because of his or her expertise. This is where it pays to not only
be really good in the field you have chosen to consult in, but to have some type of track record
that speaks for itself. For example, when I mentioned earlier that I had become an expert as a
fund-raising consultant, I knew that every client who hired me was doing so partly on the basis
of my track record alone. After all, if you are a nonprofit organization that needs to raise $1
million, it makes sense to hire someone who has already raised millions for other organizations.
2. A consultant may be hired to identify problems. Sometimes employees are too close to a
problem inside an organization to identify it. That's when a consultant rides in on his or her white
horse to save the day.

3. A consultant may be hired to supplement the staff. Sometimes a business discovers that it
can save thousands of dollars a week by hiring consultants when they are needed, rather than
hiring full-time employees. Businesses realize they save additional money by not having to pay
benefits for consultants they hire. Even though a consultant's fees are generally higher than an
employee's salary, over the long haul, it simply makes good economic sense to hire a consultant.

4. A consultant may be hired to act as a catalyst. Let's face it. No one likes change, especially
corporate America. But sometimes change is needed, and a consultant may be brought in to "get
the ball rolling." In other words, the consultant can do things without worrying about the
corporate culture, employee morale or other issues that get in the way when an organization is
trying to institute change.

5. A consultant may be hired to provide much-needed objectivity. Who else is more qualified
to identify a problem than a consultant? A good consultant provides an objective, fresh
viewpoint--without worrying about what people in the organization might think about the results
and how they were achieved.

6. A consultant may be hired to teach. These days if you are a computer consultant who can
show employees how to master a new program, then your telephone probably hasn't stopped
ringing for a while. A consultant may be asked to teach employees any number of different
skills. However, a consultant must be willing to keep up with new discoveries in their field of
expertise--and be ready to teach new clients what they need to stay competitive.

7. A consultant may be hired to do the "dirty work." Let's face it: No one wants to be the
person who has to make cuts in the staff or to eliminate an entire division.

8. A consultant may be hired to bring new life to an organization. If you are good at coming
up with new ideas that work, then you won't have any trouble finding clients. At one time or
another, most businesses need someone to administer "first aid" to get things rolling again.

9. A consultant may be hired to create a new business. There are consultants who have
become experts in this field. Not everyone, though, has the ability to conceive an idea and
develop a game plan.

10. A consultant may be hired to influence other people. Do you like to hang out with the rich
and famous in your town? If so, you may be hired to do a consulting job simply based on who
you know. Although most consultants in this field are working as lobbyists, there has been an
increase in the number of people entering the entertainment consulting business.
Location and Employees

Your consulting business will probably not require a large capital investment at first. In fact, if
you are able to, you should consider operating out of your home. (Certain deed restrictions and
local laws may prohibit you from doing this; check with an attorney before you proceed.)

There are many advantages to having a home office. Among them are:

 Low overhead expenses. You don't have to worry about paying rent or utilities for an office; you
will appreciate this feature until you establish a regular client base.
 Flexibility. There is little doubt that operating as a consultant at home gives you a great deal of
flexibility. You can set your own hours and take time off as you need it.
 No rush-hour nightmares. For anyone who has had to commute to and from a job during rush
hour, this will be a welcome change of pace.
 Your home office space will most likely be tax-deductible. The IRS has relaxed the rules for
people who work at home, but check with your account or income tax preparer to see if you
qualify for this deduction.

Employees

When you first open the doors to your consulting practice, you may be able to handle all the
operations by yourself. But as your consulting business begins to grow, you may need help
handling administrative details or help completing the actual consulting assignments.

You need to make some important decisions. For example, do you have the time it will take to
make labels and insert your brochure into 1,000 envelopes? Can you afford to spend time doing
administrative tasks when you could be using that time effectively marketing your services--and
signing up new clients?

There are many options when it comes time to decide if you need help with your paperwork. For
example, a quick look through the Yellow Pages will reveal a number of small secretarial
support firms. The rates will depend on a variety of factors, including how large or small an
organization it is and what types of services it provides.

While it will pay you to shop around for these types of services, don't select a secretarial service
just because it happens to have the lowest prices in town. Instead, ask for references, preferably
from other consultants who have used their services, or from small-business owners. A good,
reliable support service is worth the price in the long run.

There will come a time, however, when you may find it more cost-effective to hire someone to
work in the office with you. Hiring a good administrative support person can sometimes mean
the difference between success and failure--between obtaining more clients or constantly losing
clients. There are some benefits to having someone in the office with you. Among them are:

 You save time and money. By having someone concentrate on the more routine tasks (opening
the mail, filing, answering phones, etc.) you can focus all your efforts on recruiting new clients.
 Think about this: Would you want to lose a $500-a-day client because you were too cheap to
hire someone to stuff your brochures into envelopes?
 You don't worry about being out of the office. If you are a one-person operation, it's hard to be
out on the road marketing your services if you're worried about clients calling--and only getting
your answering machine.
 You have someone to offer another perspective. Sometimes it can be pretty lonely trying to do
everything yourself. Having someone around the office during the day who can offer another
perspective can be worthwhile.

Income and Billing

Now that you have made the decision to open your consulting business, you need to get serious
about how much money you will charge your clients. If you charge too little, you won't succeed
in business. If you charge too much, you won't get any clients. So how do you find that middle
ground that seems fair to everyone involved? One way to help you decide how much to charge is
to find out what the competition's rates are. A simple telephone call, asking for their brochure
and rates, should do the trick. Then set your rates so that you are competitive with everyone else
in the community.

Before setting your fees, make sure you have listed all of your expenses. There is nothing worse
than setting your rates, having your client pay you on time and then finding out you failed to
include several expenses that materialized. This brings up an important point to remember in
every job you take from a client: Include a "miscellaneous" line item in your fee proposal. But
don't pad the miscellaneous figure to make additional income.

Most clients will understand that in every project, there will no doubt be additional expenses.
Just be sure everyone knows upfront an approximate figure for those expenses.

Before you set your rates, find out what other consultants in your community are charging for
their services. Sometimes a simple telephone call to another consultant's office asking what their
fees are will give you the answers you need. Or you may have to have a friend call and ask for
their brochure, or any additional information they can collect regarding fees and pricing. If you
live in a small town and there are no other consultants in your field, then rejoice and be glad, but
set your fees at a reasonable level!

When setting your rates, you have several options, including hourly rates, project fees and
working on a retainer basis. Let's examine each one closely.

Hourly Fees

You need to tread carefully when setting hourly fees, because two things could happen: A) Your
hourly rate is so high that no one could ever afford you (therefore no client will ever knock on
your door). B) Your hourly rate is so low that no one will take you seriously.

Keep one important rule in mind when establishing your fee, no matter which structure you
decide on: The more money people pay for a product or service, the more they expect to get for
their money. In other words, if a client agrees to your hourly rate of $400, then you had better
give $400 worth of service to that client every hour you work for them.

Some clients prefer to be billed on an hourly basis, while others hate the idea of paying someone
what they perceive to be too much per hour. Those clients usually prefer to pay per project.

Project Rates

When working on a project rate basis, a consultant normally gets a fixed amount of money for a
predetermined period of time. A few of my fund-raising clients actually preferred to be charged
this way, so it wasn't unusual for me to charge $36,000 for a one-year project in which I
consulted them on how they could raise money. Because of the amount of money involved, most
agencies preferred to be billed on a monthly basis. This worked out fine until I realized that
many agencies were late paying their monthly bills.

Because of this, I decided that all future clients who wished to be billed on a monthly basis
would pay the first-month fee and the last-month fee at the signing of the contract, which meant
that if the agreed-upon amount of the project was $36,000, to be paid on a monthly basis, I
received a check in the amount of $6,000 before I began any work ($3,000 for the first month's
fee and $3,000 for the last month's fee).

Retainer Basis

Working on a retainer basis gives you a set monthly fee in which you agree to be available for
work for an agreed-upon number of hours for your client. While in the ideal world you would
have a dozen or so clients who hire you and pay you a hefty sum each month (and never actually
call you except for a few hours here and there), don't get your hopes up. Most companies that
hire a consultant on a retainer basis have a clause in their contract that prohibits you from
working for their competitors.

Working and getting paid in this method certainly has its advantages. You are guaranteed income
each month, and when you are starting out in your consulting business, cash flow can be a
problem. Some consultants actually offer a percentage reduction in their fees if a client will agree
to pay a monthly retainer fee. The average income when a consultant is paid on a retainer basis is
$3,500 per month.

Marketing

If your consulting business has no clients, then you have no consulting business. But you must
remember that selling your consulting services is not the same as selling a car or a house. In the
case of the car or the house, the customer is probably already in the market for one or both of
those products. Your job, then, becomes harder, because you are marketing your services to
people who may not even be aware that they need those services.
There are a variety of methods you need to become both familiar and comfortable with in order
to begin attracting and keeping clients. Let's look at some of the more conventional ones that are
being used by many consultants today.

Brochure Basics

There are five issues your brochure should address. They are:

1. It should clearly convey what your services are.

2. It should tell customers why you are the best.
3. It should give a few reasons why you should be hired.
4. It should include some brief biographical information.
5. It should include some information about who your other clients are.

That's it. Keep it simple, but do it right. Remember, your brochure represents you in the
marketplace, so make sure you polish it before you send it into action. Your entire consulting
career depends on it!

Cold Calling

You must do whatever it takes to make cold-calling work and make it easier for yourself. There
are a few tricks you can use to make cold-calling a little easier for you:

 Prepare a script ahead of time. Spell out word for word what you expect to say when you get
someone on the telephone. Remember, though, that your goal is to get a face-to-face interview
and, eventually, a new client. So before you end up stumbling over your sales presentation
(either in person or over the telephone), write your script and practice it again and again.
 Be creative in your efforts to reach the decision maker. Most times you will encounter a
secretary or administrative assistant who has years of experience turning away cold callers like
yourself. But don't give up! Don't let any obstacle stand in your way! To avoid being screened by
the secretary, try calling before she is on the job. Yes, you may have to call before 8 a.m. or after
5 p.m., but at these times, chances are the decision maker you are trying to reach will answer
their own telephone.
 Limit your cold calls to just several days each month. And look forward to those days, making
sure you put your best effort into the process. That way, not only will it become easier to make
those cold calls, but you will find yourself actually looking forward to making them!

Advertising

The limits you place on advertising your consulting services will be directly tied to your
advertising budget. If you are lucky enough to have a very healthy advertising budget, remember
that you don't have to spend the money on ads just because you have it to spend. Advertising can
be very expensive. Jeffery B., a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, consultant, advertises in his
association's publication. "They publish what is called the Green Book, which is a directory of
research and marketing consulting businesses around the country. It has helped me generate new
business," he says.
Other consultants, such as Merrily S. in Newark, Delaware, depend on word-of-mouth. "The best
form of advertising [for my business] has been word-of-mouth and recommendations from other
people," she says.

Depending upon the type of services you offer, it may be necessary to advertise in specialized
trade journals or magazines. For example, as a fund-raising consultant, I have placed ads in such
publications as The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Non-Profit Times and Fund Raising Weekly.

Before you spend any money, start looking through professional journals and newspapers
relative to the fields you specialize in. Take some time and examine ads that have been placed by
other consultants, and then carefully determine how effective you think their ads may be. Then
design one that suits you best.

Newsletters

Whatever your consulting field is you should have more than enough information to produce a
newsletter as a means of attracting potential clients. If you don't have the time, or don't feel
comfortable self-publishing your own newsletter, hire a local freelance writer and graphic
designer to do the job for you. Again, you don't have to make it an expensive, four-color, glossy
publication. The simpler you keep it, the better. A good newsletter will sell itself based on the
content rather than the splashy design.

Start collecting newsletters that are being published in your consulting field. If you think there
are none being published, or if you think there are only a few in your field, guess again. A quick
visit to the library will reveal several newsletter directories--Oxbridge Directory of Newsletters
(Oxbridge Communications) and Hudson's Newsletter Directory (The Newsletter
ClearingHouse)--which list, by subject, newsletters that are published not only in the United
States, but in other countries. Take some time and write for sample copies before you design and
write the first issue of your own newsletter. You'll be surprised at the quality of the newsletters
that are being produced today.

Newsletters are an effective means of communication and, in my opinion, represent the best
advertising media for a consultant to sell his or her services. Think about it the next time you
receive a newsletter in the mail. Did you put it aside to read it later? And why did you do that?
Probably because you wanted to make sure you weren't missing any important news or
information.

But what about that brochure you received in the mail the same day? Did you put it aside to read
later? Or did it go directly into the trashcan? Think about this before you spend big bucks on a
glitzy brochure that may not even be read.

Public Speaking

Public speaking is another excellent way to recruit new clients and to earn a reputation for
excellence in your community. Unless you live in a town so small it doesn't have a chamber of
commerce or a Lion's Club, Rotary Club or other similar service organization, you can begin
offering your services as a speaker for luncheons, dinners or any other special occasion.

In addition to using the telephone directory, see if anyone has published a directory of service
organizations in your community. You can visit the library and ask at the reference desk. Go
through and make a list of organizations that hold monthly meetings and therefore may use guest
speakers. Contact each group and offer your public speaking services.

Ask for Referrals

This often-overlooked method of finding new clients is such an easy marketing tool (which is
why it's usually not thought of), you'll kick yourself for not thinking of it yourself. When you
have finished your consulting assignment and your client is in seventh heaven (and is no doubt
singing your praises), that is an excellent time to ask for a referral! Simply send a note or a short
letter asking for the names of any colleagues, friends or business associates they feel might be
good prospects for your consulting services. Ask their permission to mention their name when
you write to the people whose names they pass on to you. Sometimes all it takes is having a
mutual friend or respected business associate to get the potential client's attention.

Resources

Associations

 Airport Consultants Council

 Association of Professional Consultants
 Association of Professional Communications Consultants
 Consultants Mall
 Institute of Management Consultants USA
 National Association of Business Consultants
 National Association of Computer Consultant Businesses
 Professional & Technical Consultants Association
 Public Relations Society of America

Books

 101 Ways to Succeed as an Independent Consultant by Timothy R.V. Foster

 138 Quick Ideas to Get More Clients by Howard L. Shenson
 The Business Plan Guide for Independent Consultants by Herman Holtz
 The Complete Guide to Consulting Contracts by Herman Holtz
 The Consultant's Guide to Getting Business on the Internet by Herman Holtz

Publications

 Consultants News
 Business Consultants Directory, American Business Directories Inc., 5711 S. 86th Cir., Omaha, NE
68127
 The Professional Consultant Newsletter, 123 NW Second, #405, Portland, OR 97209, (803) 224-
2656