Starting A Consultancy Business
By T. Ciarfalio
Entreprenuer.com has published their top three strategies for starting a consulting business in their online posting dated September 2, 2011.
It’s a lucrative proposition. According to a 2007 Harvard Business school analysis, the U.S. consulting industry generates nearly $100 billion dollars in revenues each year. Depending on your industry and location, you can earn as much as $400 per hour.
Your earnings will come as a direct result of your mastery of two of the most fundamental values in business: your reputation and relationships. Not surprisingly, these characteristics are at the heart of the following business building strategies.
1. Establish your reputation before establishing your business.
Whether you’re planning a consulting start-up in your current industry or a new one, it’s critical to make yourself known as an expert. If you’ll be staying in the same field, plan how to turn contacts into customers by delivering value-added service in every transaction. If you’ll be changing fields, consider volunteering your time in a non-profit or as a teacher or seminar leader to establish credibility. In addition, use the Internet to publish a blog and engage in social media on your topic. Give and give generously of your knowledge. It will repay you a thousand times over.
2. Build your business through partnerships
Be aware that name recognition can be even more important than expertise depending on your field. Is that’s the case for you, consider building your business through a strategic partnership with a firm that does similar but non-competing work. This kind of approach will connect you with clients you might not have had access to on your own. In addition, you’ll be able too refine your services with the benefit of collaboration.
3. Differentiate your services
Your unique personality – your energy, enthusiasm, and expertise – will get you 50% of the way toward differentiation. The other 50% has to come from a commitment to providing something unique. It may be the niche you occupy, a unique method of communication, your own training methodology, or a combination of all three. What’s important, is to avoid the “me too” approach to consulting.
A final world of advice: Start calling yourself a consultant now. Not a contractor, not a free-lancer – not if you want to establish a successful business. You’re a consultant with a unique value-added proposition, an excellent network of relationships, and a superior reputation. Think it, and it will become so.
13 Comments
Amazing knowledge! I have been previously looking for something such as this for some time now. Appreciate it!
Merely wanna remark on few general things, The website style is perfect, the written content is real fantastic. “The reason there are two senators for each state is so that one can be the designated driver.” by Jay Leno.
Thanks for the sensible critique. Me & my neighbor were just preparing to do a little research about this. We got a grab a book from our area library but I think I learned more clear from this post. I’m very glad to see such fantastic info being shared freely out there.
I wish to express my thanks to this writer for bailing me out of this scenario. As a result of looking out throughout the the net and obtaining opinions which are not powerful, I was thinking my entire life was done. Living without the presence of strategies to the difficulties you’ve solved by way of this article is a critical case, and the ones which may have negatively damaged my entire career if I had not discovered your blog post. That competence and kindness in taking care of a lot of stuff was very helpful. I’m not sure what I would have done if I had not encountered such a solution like this. I can also at this time relish my future. Thanks for your time so much for your reliable and results-oriented guide. I won’t be reluctant to refer the website to anybody who ought to have recommendations on this area.
But wanna tell that this is extremely helpful, Thanks for taking your time to write this.
Very interesting topic , thanks for putting up. “Education a debt due from present to future generations.” by George Peabody.
Its a WP theme called Desk Mess
I was looking at some of your content on this website and I conceive this site is real instructive! Keep putting up.
Hi there would you mind sharing which blog platform you’re working with? I’m looking to start my own blog in the near future but I’m having a tough time making a decision between BlogEngine/Wordpress/B2evolution and Drupal. The reason I ask is because your design seems different then most blogs and I’m looking for something unique. P.S My apologies for getting off-topic but I had to ask!
I like this website so much, bookmarked. “To hold a pen is to be at war.” by Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire.
you are truly a good webmaster. The website loading speed is amazing. It kind of feels that you’re doing any distinctive trick. Furthermore, The contents are masterpiece. you’ve done a great task in this topic!
It is really a great and useful piece of info. I’m glad that you shared this useful info with us. Please keep us informed like this. Thank you for sharing.
You should take part in a contest for one of the best blogs on the web. I will recommend this site!