10 Tips for Building a Thriving Knowledge-Based Business

The marketing challenges and opportunities facing knowledge-based businesses are very different from those businesses that sell products. Here are 10 ways to spread the word about your knowledge-based consultancy.

Since the pandemic, there are more and more individuals trying to convert their knowledge-based skill and experience into a viable business than ever before. You can be a real-estate investment advisor, a mortgage specialist, a tax accountant, or run a branding & design firm like me. Yet many of these knowledge-based businesses are struggling to get their consultancies off the ground. Far too often, they rely on word-of-mouth referrals, and are hoping that new business opportunities will magically show up in front of their door.

This is common frustration that we've seen quite a lot, simply because we've helped a lot of knowledge-based businesses with their branding and design. In fact, we've niched down on just that.

Here are our top ten tips that are designed to help anyone thinking of setting up a knowledge-based business or those who would like to be producing more results in their current business for less effort. I've used my own business Rayvn Design as an example to further illustrate my point.

1. Make a plan

You might be working on your own but that's no reason why you shouldn’t have a business plan setting out:

• precisely what you want to earn in the coming year; (eg. for 2023, I'd like to make $300K a year)
• how many projects at an average project value you need to gain; (eg. if the minimum cost of my branding & design service is $7,500, then I would need to sell to 40 clients a year to my make goal of $300K. However, my most popular branding & design package is priced at $30K, in which case I would only need 10 clients to sell my services to in order to make my goal of $300K)
• how many opportunities and proposals you need to make to get these; (eg. if I have a 2% conversion rate, then I have to get in front of 2000 of my prospective clients to be aware of my services, in order to achieve my goals at my lowest price-point).
• what marketing you will use to create these opportunities; (eg. I will be using LinkedIn outreach using Sales Navigator for my outbound marketing, and then content marketing on LinkedIn & Instagram for my inbound).
• the running costs of the business; (eg. my hard cost is my time, as well as what I pay my team of designers, website developers, and social media content creators)
• how you will deliver the business you win; (eg. for brand identity projects, it's delivering the logo designs, font family, colour palette, and other visual marketing assets as part of the brand guidelines in Ai format. For websites, it's a fully functional website designed & developed in either Wordpress or Squarespace. For social media content templates, we deliver the final files as open-file Canva templates).
• what profit you expect to make. (eg. we always aim for a 20% to 30% profit margin).

2. Specialize

When you look at many knowledge-based businesses and their websites, the list of services the individuals claim to deliver can be long. Many think the more you offer, the more opportunities you get - but the reverse is true. Clients want specialists not generalists and you will be doing them and yourself a big favor by focusing on a narrow offering that makes a specific gain or solves a problem.

For example, our business is solely focused on branding & design for knowledge-based businesses. We rarely do packaging or retail design. Our strengths are coming up with the brand identity design, website design, and social media content for knowledge-based businesses (the likes of architecture firms, real-estate investment firms, law firms etc.) We also don't claim to be PPC digital marketing experts or SEO experts.

See below chart to illustrate exactly what we do:

By choosing one particular business area or skill to promote and deliver you can quickly build a reputation and a successful business. It also means your website is more focused and you can more easily use SEO, blogs, articles, and social media to dominate that space. Being a specialist also helps in networking - people immediately understand both what you do and whether your services could be useful to them or someone they know.

3. Keep it simple

Distil the essence of your proposition to the absolute essentials of what you deliver and the results you achieve. Create an elevator pitch - a brief but compelling description of what you do and what you can deliver that takes no more than a few seconds to say.

I attend a lot of networking events and often hear mumbled and fumbled attempts at an elevator pitch after the initial handshake. OK so what's mine? Well I often say: I create premium brands for knowledge-based businesses so that they can attract high-paying clients.? That always gets a smile and they usually say -gosh I could do with someone like you?or?how do you do that? I follow it with the fact that I run a knowledge-based business, that attract such clients. One has only to go to our website, to see the prices we charge for our design services (no $100 logo design here). I also have a marketing team in place who job is to find the right know of prospects who could benefit from our services.

4. Focus on results

Your prospects and clients are far more interested in the results you achieve than the techniques and methods you use to deliver them. Remember the buyer's first reaction on hearing any proposition - "what's in it for me?". And yet so many websites are cluttered with "our methodology", "our unique process", "our mission, vision, philosophy" .. yada yada yada. It all gets in the way of the bottom line benefits. Your website copy, emails and conversations with customers will be far more effective if you talk benefits - the real difference your knowledge makes to those you work with. Remember, people don't buy a hammer. What they want is a hole in the wall to fix a nail, so they can hang a painting (that is the end benefit).

5. Make offers

When people read your website content do they see a list of services and a contact page? Lots of knowledge-based sites are like this with the business owner providing no specifics and no fees. The way to get around this is to continually make offers. A process, an audit, a workshop - in fact anything you can deliver for a set fee or even for free. Webinars and podcasts for instance, are a great way of engaging with your audience to establish reputation, share knowledge, and build trust. They also help brush up your presentation skills.

6. Find partners

It is hard setting out on your own in any commercial enterprise and especially one that relies on you to be getting and delivering business all at the same time. It is also hard to create the kind of exposure and contacts you need, especially in the early days. Assuming you have adopted a niche approach, you can easily find others in your area?who deliver complementary but non-competing services. Eg. we are a branding & design agency, but we do not do inhouse website development, or SEO, or PPC Digital Marketing. For that, we have partners who we refer to, and they refer us in return. Same goes with photographers - we often recommend our clients to get their head-shots, and team group shots taken by professional photographers, and they return the favour by recommending us for our branding & design services.

The idea is to work with them to market your services together. Grow your databases together and pass leads around too. You will also have someone who is in a similar position to yourself and could be a great business buddy.

7. Be yourself

Some people think that as soon as they set out to attract business clients, they have to adopt the kind of persona that they would never use if you met them socially. They try to look corporate and scatter their websites with stock pictures of office buildings and people staring at computer screens. If you want to make lasting connections with potential clients, the golden rule is?be yourself. Authenticity works so don't try to be someone you are not.

8. Be social

If you want to meet people who match your target audience it’s vital to prioritise social media. If you run a business-to-business consultancy, then you should certainly be active on LinkedIn. By engaging with users, joining relevant groups and offering your own expertise you will quickly build up followers who could become your online champions and supporters as well as potential clients. Instagram and YouTube are other business channels we use to keep up with industry developments and to keep in touch with key players and prospects.

9. Give it away for free

There's a famous saying:

If you love something, let it go. If it returns, it’s yours; if it doesn’t, it wasn’t meant to be.

I believe in this 100% and I give away my thoughts, ideas and advice all the time. And you know what? It comes back in recommendations, opportunities, direct business and the satisfaction of knowing I have made a real difference to somebody. Take a look at the top business advisor sites and you will see they give away lots of useful advice and resources. By demonstrating and sharing their knowledge they build trust in their followers and position themselves as an expert in their field.

10. Never stop learning

Of course, you have some experience and knowledge that you want to promote and deliver but it shouldn't end there. Although you might well follow the tried and tested methods you have acquired over the years, there is also a need to learn new aspects of your field and maybe even have your views and assertions challenged too. Find out what others are saying and doing in your chosen area - it is always good to keep up with the competition. I love to listen to audio books and attend virtual workshops on branding & brand strategy. Do this in your industry, and it will either confirm what you do or add more - hopefully both.

Hi, I'm Denny Kurien. Creative Director & Co-Founder at ?Rayvn Design . We are a small branding & design studio in Toronto that help brand small businesses with big ideas.

If you are looking to brand your knowledge-based business, then hit me up with a message, and let's talk.