You’re starting a consulting business in creative strategy. What are the most important things to consider?

Determine the specific area within creative strategy where you excel and where there's demand in the market. Focusing on a niche, will help you differentiate yourself and target your marketing efforts more effectively.

When starting a consulting business in creative strategy, focus on defining your niche and building a strong network of clients. It's also essential to showcase your expertise, set clear pricing and deliverables, and stay updated on industry trends for long-term success.

Creative Strategy is a wide net. You have to determine who your clients are. There are different industries that require creative strategy, which one(s) suit your firm best? As clients seek you out, they need to understand what you are experts at. So burrow in your niche. Learn everything there is to learn about this circle you have drawn around yourself. Become an expert on your niche and you will be unstoppable.

Determining a niche isn’t about who you help. It’s the transformation that you offer. For example, my target audience is service providers and coaches. But the transformation I offer is: creating can’t-ignore goosebump-worthy content to connect them with more dream clients without lifting a finger.

Consider running a customer discovery survey. This will allow your potential customers to tell you what pain points exist in your market, i.e. what needs exist that are not being filled. Once you're determined those pain points, assess which you are able to address at an expert level. This will allow you to define your ideal customer, i.e. the customer you know you can help right now. Go after those customers first before you branch out. As a new business you want to begin with projects and clients that are squarely within your wheelhouse, that you know you can fulfill at the very highest standards. That way you'll acquire immediate repeat customers and a flow of business, while creating positive word of mouth.

Create an online portfolio that can be easily shared from one click. There are multiple free online tools that will allow you to build basic portfolios. And keep in mind that media can be added to your LinkedIn profile as well! If you're just starting out and don't have a portfolio just yet, consider building a book of specs or samples. This is how art directors and copywriters get into the game. When I first started out I created a selection of spec ads and posted them on my online portfolio - in fact I just took a few of them down, over 10 years later!

Or not. anyone who starts a creative strategy consulting business would not have much experience, or large portfolios. Then a narrative that rejects the portfolio as an assessment tool can be an interesting way to demonstrate quality of thinking and creative ability when you start. Perhaps even after, when you achieve experience. In the end, cultivate an effective strategy must be based on lateral thinking, on critical thinking, things other than the mere demonstration of having worked.

If you don't have a portfolio, create a critique collection. Bring together your favourite (or almost favourite) creative work. Explain what you love, what you like, and what you would've done differently. Your goal is to deconstruct how the creative work came together and demonstrate to prospects you know what you're doing.

In my experience showing your work leads to everything else(defining niche, Attaining clients, etc.). Having your work and services readily available in the form of a portfolio and also easy to share is the way! Mobile compatibility is even better :)

Your portfolio is your showcase of your work and your impact. It should demonstrate your creative process, your results, and your testimonials. You need to have a clear and compelling portfolio that showcases your best projects, your skills, and your style. You can use a website, a blog, a social media platform, or a combination of these to display your portfolio. Make sure it is easy to access, navigate, and share.

Consider carefully how you present your pricing to potential clients when starting a consulting business. Being upfront and strategic about your fees is essential for building trust and streamlining the sales process. Discussing pricing early on helps you identify truly interested leads, allowing you to focus your efforts on prospects most likely to engage with your services. Explaining your value proposition alongside your pricing makes it easier for clients to understand and appreciate the costs involved. Leverage sales enablement tools to facilitate negotiations and provide a seamless client experience.

Use LinkedIn! Reach out to your network, let them know you're open for business, and define your unique value-add. Reach out to businesses and potential clients and ask if you can send them an email or schedule a virtual or IRL meeting. Make your request reasonable - don't ask for an hour, but rather 15 minutes. Surprisingly often you will get a positive response.

Once you've determined who you core audience is/what your niche is, research and figure out the public industry events where you're most likely to run into them (an AI-focused conference? a film festival? a farmer's market or craft show?) and make sure YOU'RE there, too. Since it's an industry-focused space, you know they'll be in the right mindset to network with potential collaborators, so be sure to refine your elevator pitch, have your portfolio ready to share, etc

Don't get caught with the "I'm a creative" excuse for poor organization. Approach your projects with discipline, communicate proactively, and over communicate. There are lots of creative folks around. It's the ones who can deliver effectively and deliver on time who are the ones that win.

You can have the best creative strategy skills in the world, but if you don't have clients, you don't have a business. You need to find and attract your ideal clients, and convince them that you can help them achieve their goals. You can use various methods to find your clients, such as networking, referrals, cold outreach, content marketing, social media, or advertising. You need to have a clear and consistent message, a strong call to action, and a way to follow up and build relationships.

When you are a consultant is very important to be in constant movement. That′s the only way to portray credibility and attract new clients, growing your skills through different kinds of projects and clients, learning new tools, and trying new platforms.

Invest to stay up to date, of course. But what will make you better is first investing in your own culture, being humanly curious, persevering in knowledge, in every direction, especially in classical studies, art, science and philosophy. Readings, music, theater, films and series, gaming, sports: practicing culture allows you to be a better creative strategy consultant. An effective one.

You should have enough experience to credibly present yourself as a competent consultant. This typically involves having executed numerous branding and creative strategies, ideally for well-known, large-scale brands – as experience with such brands tends to be more impressive than with smaller, lesser-known ones. Ideally, you should also possess data that substantiates the financial success of your previous strategies. Additionally, having a strong network is crucial for reaching out to as many people as possible. Ideally, you should secure a founding client before venturing into self-employment; having one makes it easier to acquire further clients.

Remember to spend far more time listening to your clients problems then suggesting potential solutions. Be confident that you're expertise and experience will add value and insight in the right way and at the right time. Your client is likely to find 2/3 considered, transformative action points more helpful then an ongoing list of issues that wont move the needle and distract from the bigger plays.