Making Your “Dream Job” a Reality: Three Keys for Consulting Success

For tens of thousands of people, consulting is the “dream job.” According to a recent survey of over 33,000 consultants, the top three reasons given for becoming a consultant were:

• “Realizing my full potential”
• “Being my own boss”
• “Having a flexible schedule”

Together, these three reasons account for nearly 75% of the reasons consultants say they started their own businesses (Zipursky, 2019).

In addition to these benefits, consulting also offers almost unlimited earning potential (if you take the kinds of steps I share later in this article) and the freedom to work with the kinds of businesses you want in the industry of your choice.

That being said, consulting isn’t all rainbows and puppy dogs. In a consulting business, you have to deal with all the headaches inherent in any business venture:

• Product ideation and creation
• Content Marketing (inbound)
• Prospecting (outbound marketing)
• Invoicing, collecting payments, taxes

Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And maybe the biggest challenge of all: while you’re now your own boss, you are also the one and only employee—meaning that you have to constantly motivate you to get all of this done!

I work primarily with independent educational consultants, and while I work with consultants with all levels of experience, I spend the majority of my time working with early career consultants—those with five years or less in the business who are trying to build their businesses to the point where they have a smooth work flow and where they have a steady stream of clients.

And that’s easier said than done.

While there’s no single approach to achieving this goal, I’ve found that there are definitely a number of key processes that all consultants, no matter what their field, need to establish and maintain. 

Following are what I consider to be the three most important early career steps consultants should take to establish their business success.

Three Keys to Early Career Consulting Success

Before I even get into my list, I will admit right at the top that this isn’t rocket science. It’s pretty obvious that the most important steps to building a successful consulting business (any business, really) are knowing what you’re offering that’s unique in the marketplace, knowing who you’re offering your products or services to, and having a solid process in place to get a steady stream of new customers over time.

But just because these three main steps are obvious doesn’t mean they’re easy.  As they say, “The devil’s in the details.” And, if you aren’t smart about how you proceed toward achieving these three steps, you’ll struggle, you’ll get frustrated, and you’re likely to quit. 

I don’t want that to happen to you. 

So, in the following sections, I will provide some solid “to-do” steps you need to take (and some warnings about what not to do). I hope you find the information helpful.

Step 1: Establish Your Niche

The first step in building a successful consulting business is to establish your own unique territory (niche) within your broader field. 

To do this, you’ll want to come up with your “unique selling proposition” or USP. In a nutshell, this tested-and-proven business concept simply means identifying how you and your company are different than anyone else in your field. To compare this to the medical field, think in terms of being a specialist instead of a general practitioner. If you were to specialize within your field, what would be your specialty? Be as specific and narrow as possible.

When newbie consultants hear this advice, they always say the same thing: “But if I get really specific, won’t I limit the amount of work I’ll be able to get?”

The truth is the exact opposite. If you try to appeal to too broad an audience, you’re likely to attract no one because you won’t be speaking to the specific needs of any one group.

Now, you may not have enough information to simply write out your USP off the top of your head. If not, you need to do some competitive research. Using a set of keywords that you’d like your business to rank for, search Google to see who shows up as highly-ranking consultants in your niche. Look at what those consultants are offering. Look for gaps in their offerings that you could fill with your own products or services. 

If you still want to offer some of the same products or services that your competitors are offering, you’ll at least have to find some way to put a “twist” on those products or services. Could you make your material more in-depth than theirs? Could you offer your consulting in a different format (if no one in your niche is doing virtual consulting, for example, could you step in and fill that gap)? Could you offer a better guarantee than anyone else, or better payment terms?

There’s a lot more that goes into identifying a niche (and then dominating that niche) than I can get into in a short article, but if you’re interested in digging into the topic more deeply, you can check out a couple of blog posts I wrote recently: “Niche It, Then Twist It: How to Find a Niche Market for Your Educational Consulting Business" and "7 Steps for Dominating Your Niche."

Step 2: Create Your Customer Avatar

Another crucial step for setting your consulting business up for success is to get crystal clear about who you’re aiming to serve. 

And, to be honest, maybe I should have listed this as step one instead of identifying your niche. The truth is, you really need to do steps one and two (1A and 1B?) simultaneously, because, like the old “chicken and egg” quandary, it’s hard to identify your niche if you aren’t clear about who you’re serving, and it’s hard to define how you plan to serve your people unless you nail down your niche.

Whenever you do it, there’s really no step more important for building your consulting business than creating what many people call your “ideal client” or “customer avatar.” 

To do this, start by brainstorming about the kinds of people you want to serve. What job positions do they hold? What demographics describe the majority of these people (male or female, age range, income, etc.)? Then start creating your customer avatar by giving him or her a name and writing a descriptive paragraph that includes everything you’ve brainstormed to this point.

For example, my customer avatar for my marketing and copywriting business is Sara Johnson, a former teacher who is 39 years old, taught for twelve years before starting her own consulting business two years ago, etc.

Next, put yourself in the position of this person. What problems does she have? What solutions is he looking for? When looking for solutions on the Internet, what search terms do you imagine she will type into the search box? What keeps him up at night? Add this information into your customer avatar description. Whenever you have some downtime, pull out your customer avatar description and do some more brainstorming, adding new details as they come to you.

Now, as with the process of identifying your niche, creating a customer avatar (or at least to do it well) is a bit more involved than what I’ve described here. If you really want to do it right, take a look at these blog posts for more detail: “Who Do You Serve? Creating Your Customer Avatar" and "Fleshing Out Your Customer Avatar: Bringing Your Ideal Clients to Life."

Ideally, as you go through these first two steps, you’ll create a perfect match between the audience you’re trying to serve, the niche you carve out for your business in the marketplace,  and the products and services you offer.

Getting clear on your niche and audience gives a great deal of coherence to your business efforts, and you will be able to make business decisions quickly and confidently moving forward.

Step 3: Establish a Process for Turning Prospects into Clients

The third step for building your successful consulting business is to establish a replicable process for getting new clients.

Many consultants have a few clients “in their pockets” when they launch their consulting businesses. Usually these initial clients come from contacts the consultant had made in her previous position. And it’s great to be able to hit the ground running.

The problem is, this initial group of clients eventually runs out, and if the consultant hasn’t established a process for getting new clients into the funnel, he may find himself with little or no business after a year or two.

I don’t want that to happen to you. So, let me share a process that I’ve synthesized from the processes used by a number of highly successful consultants I know.

Before I give you the process, though, let me give you two important facts about identifying prospects and turning those prospects into clients. Here they are:

Fact #1: Even in this world of social media platforms and online marketing, winning consulting business is still primarily done in high-touch, person-to-person interactions—face-to-face, on the phone, or via e-mail. Relationships are still the key. Don’t believe me? Here are a few statistics to consider: 44.4% of consultants state that the majority of their business comes from referrals, and 20.7% say that the majority of their business comes from networking and live events. That amounts to 65.1% of all consulting business (Zipursky, 2019).

Fact #2: Second, research shows that it takes, on average, seven contacts with a prospect before that prospect converts into a client or customer. Seven! This same research also shows that most businesspeople give up on a prospect long before seven interactions have taken place. 43% of salespeople (including consultants) give up after the first contact. 68% give up after the second contact. And fully 80% give up after the third contact (Lead Simple). This is both good news and bad news. It’s bad news if you thought you could send a single e-mail or make a single phone call and turn a prospect into a client. But it’s really good news if you are an up-and-coming consultant who may be short on market share but are long on perseverance. Just think, if you just commit to making more than three contacts with each prospect before giving up, you will have outlasted 80% of your competition!

With these two key facts in mind, following is a proven, step-by-step process for identifying prospects and converting them into clients. Notice that this process is built on forging relationships with prospects and is designed to create multiple points of contact over time:

• Identify prospects (I use LinkedIn) and add them to a prospect database. If you use LinkedIn, you can search for specific job titles and then look at the contact information of the prospects who look interesting.
• Next, send what many businesspeople call a “warm e-mail,” either using your e-mail service or using the message function on LinkedIn. Before you send this e-mail, check out the prospect’s online presence (website, social media, etc.) and look for some common ground between you and the prospect (background, hobbies, etc.). Reference this connection in your e-mail when you introduce yourself. Bring up any specific reason you think you might be able to help the prospect with his business efforts, then ask if it would make sense to connect on a phone call. Keep it low pressure and friendly. You’ll probably get about a 10% response or less to these contacts, but that’s more than enough people feeding into your funnel if you follow up with them over time. Remember, it's a numbers game.
• For those who respond that they’d be happy to talk with you, set up a time for the conversation. Then, between setting up the call and the call itself, send the prospect something (a PDF of something you’ve written, a link to one of your blog posts, a link to an article that you think the prospect would be interested in, etc.). This step, often called “salting the oats,” keeps you top of mind between the initial e-mail conversation and the phone call and simultaneously provides the prospect with value at no cost.
• When you have the phone conversation with the prospect, spend most of the call asking the prospect about her business, her goals, and her challenges. Listen. Take notes. Once you think you have a good handle on her needs, offer to send her some more information that she might find helpful. You’re still not trying to land a sale; you’re still focusing on providing value and building the relationship.
• Send the prospect the promised information. Do some research into the prospect’s specific problem, if necessary. Write up your thoughts about how she might proceed to solve her problem. You’re still talking about the problem generically here, still not trying to “sell” the prospect on your services. What you are doing at this point, however, is proving your expertise. Set up a time for a follow-up call to discuss the material you sent.
• Talk with the prospect again and discuss the material you sent in the previous step. At this point, if you’ve proven that you know what you’re talking about, and if the prospect is sold on taking the generic steps you are recommending, he will almost surely ask if you would help him implement the strategies. You explain that you would be happy to write up a detailed proposal to help him solve his problem.
• Write your consulting proposal, describing the process you would follow to help the prospect, the deliverables, the timeline, and the cost. Send the proposal to the prospect for review. Set up a time for another call to discuss the proposal.
• When you talk again, go over the proposal, answer any questions the prospect has, and express your excitement about starting on the prospect’s project. Ask the prospect to sign the proposal and return it to you (at which point the prospect has officially become a client), and get started. It's "go time!"

Now, when most consultants read this step-by-step process, several thoughts run through their minds. The first general thought is, “Boy, that’s a lot of steps. That will take a while.” And they’re right. But remember, on average, it takes seven contacts with a prospect before he or she becomes a client. Depending on how you count the steps in the process above, it has seven or more steps built in.

Another thought that consultants often have is, “I see that there are several phone conversations built into this process. I really don’t like talking to prospects on the phone.” I know. Talking about business on the phone is not something that most people enjoy. But remember fact #1 above—most business comes from personal interactions. And talking to someone over the phone where you can hear their voice is highly personal. Make a good impression with your phone calls and you will quickly build the relationship. And who knows? Follow this process for long enough, and you may just reach the point where you like to talk on the phone!

A third objection I hear is, “If I’m going to go through a process like this with multiple prospects at a time, that’s going to be a lot to keep track of.” And that’s true, which is why you need to develop a system, preferably using software designed specifically for the task, to keep track of all the interactions you have with all your prospects. It takes some organization, but it's do-able.

So yes, creating a step-by-step process for sourcing prospects and turning them into clients and following it consistently is a lot of work. But you know what? That’s business, so you’re just going to have to suck it up. But I promise you, if you implement a process like the one I outline above, you will be successful at landing clients, and a consistent stream of paying clients is the lifeblood of your consulting business.

Conclusion: The Other Two Keys--Perseverance and Maintenance

I would be remiss to end this article without pointing out that there are two more steps that you must take over time to make your business successful. Those two steps are perseverance and maintenance.

Perseverance is important, especially in your client-acquisition efforts, because no matter how good your process is, it will only work if you work it. You can’t work at it for a few weeks and then take the next few weeks off. If you don’t follow up with your prospects once a week or so, they start to wither on the vine.

Maintenance is important for all three steps of the process. You can’t just establish your niche once and forget it. Your competitors add new products and services or change how they’re interacting with their clients, and this means that the opportunities in your niche may change over time. And if you change your positioning in your niche, you may decide that you need to tweak your customer avatar, as well. Making a change in your ideal client profile will then have ripple effects that affect your product and service offerings. And, of course, you also have to evaluate your client-acquisition process from time to time, as well. Do you need to build in a new step? Take out a step? Make a tweak in how you communicate? Make regular maintenance part of your way of doing business and practice constant, incremental improvement, and you'll reap the rewards.

 So, there you have it. A basic blueprint for consulting success. You can reach out to me at [email protected] or visit my website—www.edconsultantmarketing.com—for more information.

Sources

Lead Simple. "4. Dominant follow-up strategies." The Property Manager's Sales Course. Retrieved from: https://www.leadsimple.com/sales-course/follow-up-tactics

Zipursky, M. (2019). "Marketing for consultants study." Retrieved from: https://www.consultingsuccess.com/marketing-for-consultants-study#:~:text=In%202019%2C%2024%25%20of%20consultants,their%20marketing%20in%20both%20years.