It was April 1st, 1986. After a brief stint at Bank of Boston (now part of Bank of America), I decided to leave to start a new company — Lewtan Technologies. I had no money, very little experience, and only a general idea about what I wanted to do (something to do with “bridging the gap between technology and complex finance”). In those days, 23 year-old startup founders did not get showered with love nor startup money the way they sometimes are today. It was not going to be easy.
To bootstrap the company, I dropped $4,000 on a Compaq “luggable” computer (30 pounds with a 20Mb hard drive), setup a desk at my kitchen table, and hung out my shingle as an independent consultant. I was young and optimistic.
Several weeks thereafter, I had a lucky break. My former boss from the Bank hired me as a consultant for a three week project that would eventually last a year and a half and put Lewtan Technologies on the map. I was working hard and making money. Things were looking up.
But throughout the entire Bank of Boston project I felt uneasy and exposed. I was working 80 hours a week on the project, so I did not have enough time to build a pipeline of new clients. The unsettled feeling was so pronounced, I even gave it a name “The Consultant’s Dilemma”.
“When I was consulting, I was not marketing. When I was marketing, I was not consulting.”
When the project came to an end I had to scramble to find new clients. Fortunately, I was successful in landing a few, but these projects were smaller, required more client management and had different types of deliverables than the bank project. To address this growth (a good problem), I had to add staff. Now I had to manage staff, work on projects, AND try to invest time and money in marketing. This was not an easy period. Adding employees was downright scary because the consultant’s dilemma continued to create headwinds until we grew to about 20 employees. At one point, I had to dig into the money my wife (who worked with and believed in what we were doing) and I received at our wedding in order to cover a cash shortfall and meet our swelling payroll.
Fortunately, the gamble paid off and the company was able to escape from the dilemma’s gravitational pull. With the help of an experienced management team, top notch sales force, and substantial marketing budget, Lewtan Technologies grew into a 100+ person company with offices in Waltham and London. At the end of 2004, Lewtan Technologies was sold to DMG Information (a subsidiary of the London-based Daily Mail Group).
Even though the story had a happy ending, those painful memories stay with me. The reason I wanted to share them is because I know that a lot of the experts on the Zintro platform are independent consultants or work for small consultancies. They are faced with the consultant’s dilemma every day. Although these consultants may be very knowledgeable about their specific areas of expertise, many do not have a lot of experience with (or simply do not enjoy) marketing.
The good news is that the Internet has made services like Zintro possible – which can make marketing for independent consultants or small consultancies much more affordable and less time consuming. Over the coming weeks and months, I will share a series of posts with tips about ways to break through the consultant’s dilemma. These tips are based on both my own experiences as well as best practices shared by other Zintro Experts.
Zintro Experts, do you have your own experiences to share? If so, please share your best stories and practices (click here) or post a comment below. If they are included in a blog post, you will be prominently cited with a link to your profile (this is good marketing!). Also, I am eventually planning on weaving these posts together into an eBook and perhaps even a print book. If included, you would also be cited in those publications.
My next post (click here) discusses the differences between marketing within your personal (business colleagues, friends of friends, etc.) network and outside (advertising, online marketing, services like Zintro, etc.) of it. The differences are constantly changing, very real and require very different strategies and tactics.
Founder & CEO, Zintro Inc.
To ensure you receive the next post in the series, make sure you “Like us” on Facebook, “Follow us” on Twitter, Join our LinkedIn group, and/or subscribe to the blog. All of these can be done in the upper right hand column.
Marketing is itself a very broad term and the best consultant finds the way to provide the best part of the marketing for the kind of business he needs to work on.
Internet marketing have shown us the ways with which we can do network marketing, affiliate marketing, promotions, advertising, social media etc. Stuart has mention the detail of his experience and they way he work with it.
Zintro is another plus to provide people the best solution to their online and offline marketing needs. The structure of fee at Zintro needs a change to have it a better competitor in the market as consultation is way different than marketing as rightly mentioned by Stuart.
I want to thank here to Stuart for sharing us his experience in details and making Zintro a possible platform for helping and consultation.
hahaha .. “luggable” Compaq.. that’s a BIG machine
“The Consultant’s Dilemma” is a real thing.. I’ve been there.. but similar to yourself, a little luck/gamble (and hard work) paid off and now http://www.webmechanix.com is growing steadily.
Cheers Stuart! – Keep up the good work!
Oh, I totally hear you on the consultant’s dilemma. One partial solution I found when I was growing Web Mystery Shoppers was to (a) hire people on a contract basis rather than as employees for as long as was possible, and (b) get fantastic people willing to work this way by offering them flexibility.
I developed my systems so that they were all web based. (This is easier now!) This meant that my contract workers could all work from home. I was then able to tap into a great, often under-used, pool of talent: women who have young kids.
Many of them are fantastically talented and experienced, but they don’t want to work full-time, and getting reliable child care can be an issue. So I was able to let them work during hours that worked for them. If they needed to take a kid to the doctor, no problem. Wanted to leave early to watch a dance recital? Sure.
As long as they were getting the work done, I really didn’t care about when or how they did it. One of the women who worked for me continued throughout her pregnancy by working when she couldn’t sleep in the middle of the night, and then sleeping in till noon the next day.
I’m growing a new business now (e-marketing consulting, and a soon-to-launch podcast on how businesses can promote themselves more effectively using the Web — find out more at http://temafrank.com), and I’ll be using the same approach.
It is crazy that we waste people with so much talent simply by being inflexible. Open up, and you may find your next recruit at the playground!
Stuart,
Thanks for the post and I can totally relate and I think 99% of consultants and small business owners get caught in the trap of working in the business and not on it. For me, I thought that I knew how to build and market my business. I mean I had graduated from business school with an MBA and emphasized in marketing. It wasn’t until I met with a business coach that I finally realized that I did not have the systems in place to grow my business to the point where I was no longer working “in my business” but “working on” my business. Now I have several different lead generation strategies to get clients instead of focusing just I me going out doing the selling and Zintro happens to be one of them. I hear all the time from consultants about how they land a client and then they send so much time working with them that they have no new leads coming in. That used to be me until I identified several other strategies to generate more leads. My suggestion to any out there struggling to really build their business is to meet with a coach that can help you identify other ways to grow your business.
Higher Proof Will Help You Sell More Products, Services and Ideas…
Go ahead, take a few minutes today and look at every marketing message you are putting out…
And, Dare Something Great
Ask yourself:
Am I providing my reader, viewer and listener the proof and credibility that what I’m saying is indeed true?
How many times have you seen an ad on TV and said to yourself “Yea. Right. Sure it is?”
Let’s face it… we are all slammed with so many marketing messages a day, that we stop believing most of them.
So how do make your marketing messages more believable?
Start by take a closer look at the benefits of what you are selling.
Think about all the ways you can prove your benefits actually exist.
Ask yourself:
What are the strongest “Reasons Why” anyone should believe they’ll get what I promise?
How much more specific can I be?
What solid proof have I offered showing what I claim it true?
Have I begun to think about how I can strengthen my guarantees?
Is there a way to demonstrate your product/service in action?
Can you get a celebrity endorsement?
Answer these questions and apply these ideas to what you are selling and you are well on your way to providing the proof people need to believe your benefits will deliver.
“No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof.”
-Henry David Thoreau
Quick Bonus Marketing Tip:
Thousands of marketing experts say that it costs 5 to 6 times more to win a new client than it does to retain an existing one. What about your company? Is it true for you too?
Yet, most companies spend a small portion of their sales and marketing budget on client relationship management.
Take a moment and think about how much more profit you could generate by deepening your existing client relationships?
Rather than finding ways to get your sales people to “make 20 unqualified appointments this week,” instead, think about the easiest way to building stronger relationships.
Think about all the way you can say “Thank You.” All the ways you can show that you appreciate their business and enjoy the relationship you have.
Here are a few simple ways to get you started.
1. Send a hand written thank you card or note.
2. Drop off a small gift.
3. Bring a flower to the gatekeeper you’re trying to get past.
4. Take your client to breakfast or lunch to talk about ways to improve profits in the coming year.
5. Hold a customer appreciation party.
6. Have your CEO write a personal letter of thanks.
Now go out and give thanks. Show your appreciation.
It feels great and is sure reduces your client attrition rate.
I love this post….My issue is reaching the demographic of people I need to in marketing with very little money. People keep wanting to utilize my services, but for free. That’s unreasonable. I have documented experience, education, and knowledge in my area of expertise (entrepreneurship, small business, business management, etc). It’s so frustrating.
Given that most freelance consultants can’t market and work at the same time, I think we as a group need to realize that our work is our marketing. The most profitable introductions are always referrals or word of mouth marketing. The other aspect is to always look for ways of extending your current contract. Many consultants finish a job and walk away. However, planning for the next job should begin almost as soon as the first job starts. Version 2 is your margin in some ways and helps level out spikes in your income.
I’ve been doing independent direct marketing consulting for 12 years now and still haven’t found the secret to getting consistent referrals or volume to keep things steady. It’s either too much, or famine. And in this economic environment, famine continues to lurk at the doorstep.
But I have found that Internet driven leads rarely yield quality business.
Why? Because most companies don’t have enough money to warrant a marketing consultant. They are needy, but don’t know what they don’t know. In other words, they are not qualified prospects with large enough budgets to allow a skillful marketing consultant make significant contributions. Nor do they typically know how to select capable consultants in the marketing category.
So keeping the pipeline full with qualified prospects continues to challenge the independent consultant.
The key is to develop a web service that filters out unqualified prospects and is willing to do it on a commission basis.
I’m not convinced that generic consulting service lead generators can really deliver the narrow market I am interested in attracting. And I don’t want to spend a lot of money (or time for that matter) experimenting.
The concept of using Maven, Zintro or other such web lead generators makes sense. But I’ve tried several before without much success to this point.
Just as Zintro would want to filter out poor consultants. Consultants need an efficient way to filter out tire kicker prospects who can’t even specify their projects.
How would you address these concerns?
Ted – key is to be very clear of the profile (buyer persona) of the individual and their company which represents your ideal client. then build your marketing on content which targets that persona. as you are found based on that content, many of the results will therefore be self-selecting. and then nurture those prospects with additional content which offers you the chance to not only build the relationship but to further establish the generic value proposition you represent and to create context for your engagement discussions.
I amazes me how many times people site that the referrals dont come or are patchy yet when you dig beneath this to how many times they refer potential clients to others there falls a similar pattern.
To get the referral model to work you need to become more natural at it yourself, continually doing it not just when you have no work and want it from others. Consistent introductions to mutually beneficial party.
With regard to internet driven leads yield I can relate to that as often people will capture information, contact details or whatever and think it is a lead – it simply isn’t.
You might argue that I am biased as I do “social media” but I am not and I don’t! I DON’T DO SOCIAL MEDIA I regular shout this at conferences when I do keynotes – but I do do LinkedIn.
Picking up on Ed’s comment above I am incredibly focussed on who my client is, the traits that make them them and what my business is and it is the focus on the intersection of good tools, good processes, good behaviours and a good outlook which makes these things work – not just one of them.
In terms of filtering out those that want to consume your effort, energy and time but aren’t clients I often find the old fashioned approach of talking to someone for 20 minutes saves me hours later on. A great way to validate a relationship, a client, a connection or a contract. There are plenty of bad clients out there as well as bad suppliers.
Best wishes,
James
The Linked In Man
Thanks Stuart. The Consultant’s Dilemma is a nice phrase for it. I can recall in my early days consulting I secured a pretty big client with very out-sized needs – the result at the conclusion of it all my pipeline was a mess – it took me a few painful months to recover but the lesson learned.
This is the exact dilemma I’m in. Often, I have been (and still am) too busy completing and managing projects that marketing efforts fall by the wayside like lemmings. They say that the best time to market yourself is when you have a full pipeline, and I didn’t follow that advice even though I knew it was spot on.
Now, I’m slowly building up our inbound marketing efforts and working on the business rather than in it. Hopefully we’ll achieve the same escape velocity that you’ve enjoyed (with the same results).
Glenn, founder of memokitchen.com
I am an independent banking & payments system consultant, having launched my consultancy back in 1996, after being a co-founder of the world’s first Internet bank, following 20+ years with large regional banks.
I made several key personal decisions from the on-set on how I would deal with The Consultant’s Dilemma:
1. I would be a sole practitioner, with no employees ever, but I would create a network of other like-minded independent consultants, who would come together on an as-needed, revenue sharing basis when specific skill sets were needed to serve a client.
2. I would only take on one engagement at a time, and I would immerse myself so wholly with that client that no one could really tell whether I was 1099 or W-2.
3. I would live below my means so that I could survive the down times. Fortunately, this was always a part of my approach to life and I already had built a nice cushion to tide me over during non-billable periods.
4. In fact, these non-billable periods have become great opportunities to recharge my batteries and to pursue other interests, including pro bono consulting work for non-profits and mentoring the younger generation.
The net of these experiences is that The Consultant’s Dilemma is real, but if you recognize it early in your independent consulting career, you can actually develop strategies to make it work for your own personal advantage.
Great post. Yes many consultants are living that nightmare/dream. Here is what I suggest to any entrepreneur/consultant who is starting out in business when it comes to marketing.
The tools of the marketing trade have changed drastically and are changing constantly at a lightning pace. While the tools of the trade (marketing) are changing, the fundamentals of marketing have not and never will. Many consultants have missed that point. We put our attention to the online marketing flavour of the month be it Pay-per-Click, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter etc etc. Many of us get caught up in the number of likes, visits, click through rates, traffic to our websites or blogs and it results in a very confused and dejected consultant.
Marketing online is a very difficult job. It changes very quickly. Many try to do it themselves however crash and burn-out due to the complexity of it all.
I ask consultants and entrepreneurs three questions:
1. What makes your product or service unique above all of your competitors?
2. What problem you customer may have that you can solve better than anyone else?
3. What does your ideal customer look like. (in great detail)
If they do not have the answer to these questions at the tip of their tongue, then we have some basic marketing to do before we even think about anything online.
Many consultants do not know what differentiates them from the crowd. They have trouble describing to me what problem their customer may have that they can solve better than anyone else. Finally, their definition of an ideal customer is too general and vague.
These three questions need to be addressed and clarified first. Once that is done, then online marketing becomes a little more clearer.
These three questions are a book in itself. Great base for further discussion. Looking forward to more of your posts.
Best Regards,
M.J. Plebon
My issues were exactly the same. I just started a company and working on my first contract with the local Chamber of Commerce as we speak. It is taking up almost ALL of my time and just recently I had to make a hard core choice and it paid off bigtime! I had sucked really bad at marketing and figured with my background and credentials the phone would be ringing off the hook. Well it wasn’t! I was under the assumption that I had a great website, I had a nice home office in which I spent loads of money on and I had the credentials that people would be asking for,…. BUT,…. I had no marketing.
Now I did start to learn how to market and do sales and that’s how I made out on the Chamber Contract, however what I did next surprised myself and the Chamber. I asked them to put me on the board as their executive director. Next week they had a meeting, all voted yes and I was in. It was unanimous! Since than I have been given loads of new leads in which I am following up on now and I am always invited to events that pan out with usually 20 to 30 business contacts. I live by a motto and it has served me well. “The Difficult we can do Immediately,… the impossible just takes a little longer.” Those were from my military days. The never give up attitude and the keep driving on even in the face of adversity, has helped me over come obstacles that any ordinary person would have stopped and given up on.
I find that, no matter how many magnificent clients I have at any given time (and they are ALL magnificent, make no mistake), I’m constantly in biz dev mode.
That said, it’s not a bad thing. In fact, I am pretty amazed at how much I have grown as a person and as a professional through being forced to wear hats that I have never worn before.
I now see clearly how fear, frustration, panic, etc. do not serve me (nor my company nor my clients), so I’ve chosen to (try to) see the magic of the challenge in finding the balance (and all that implies.)
After 4 years of building my consulting business, I am absolutely convinced that a job, no matter how wonderful, rewarding, and well-compensated it might be, cannot offer the levels of freedom, expansion, and joy that building our own businesses can.
Thank you for your post!
Perhaps the reason I haven’t quite experienced the “Consultant’s Dilemma” is because I coach in the area of marketing: How to grow your business into a sustainable brand.
It does not make sense not to practice what I preach. So I do.
I budget to earn the amount I need each month by just billing 40 to 50 hours a month. This leaves me a lot of time to do the relationship building any business needs. Identifying prospects, making them friends and champions of the brand leading to business for the brand.
It also helps at the outset to think through these six questions for a brand building route map:
1. What is the obvious emotional truth on which your brand is based?
2. Therefore, what business are you really in?
3. Therefore, at whom is your brand aimed?
4. If so, what is your brand persona that will attract this target mindset?
5. What is the organizing idea, that captures the essence of your brand, that users will want to champion?
6. Do you have a SMART objective for your brand? (S ustainable M easurable A llowable Cost (to solve the problem) R eviewable (proof that the idea is working) T imebound)
Many people leave these questions to chance and have been intuitively successful. Well thought through, your own customers and business associates do the marketing for you, using the most powerful medium there is : word-of-mouse.
Because you can dramatically increase your chances of success by thinking through these questions first, mine is a “learn-by-earning” coaching model.
50% of the fees are paid only after I have helped the business opting to be coached reach a mutually agreed financial target that is at least 5 times higher than the coaching fees involved.
This way even small businesses can be helped, not just ones that are already large.
I think the key is in ear-marking a fixed amount of time each week to marketing and PR. It is important not to charge out 45 hours a week in consulting time or project execution. If you are @ $100 per hour or more, then this model can work out, and in the longer run, you will earn more and the consultancy will be sustainable.
I typically commit to about 60% of my time, and then add to available time by working Saturdays to do house-keeping, sending messages, posting, spreading knowledge and insights, etc.
I hate to use an overused term, but I feel building a platform is vital for anyone looking to establish a personal brand. Consultants certainly fit that bracket.
Your platform is the over arching everything. whether it is just you or a a bigger business, it all comes into play. Marketing is part of the task. For example, let’s consider a writer for a second.
Writing is part of their platform, just like editing is, and cover design, and social media, and book signings…
If they start seeing writing and everything else as separate, there will always be the issue of one or another. If everything works towards the same goal, though, things run much smoother.
As a consultant we have to see everything we do as acting toward the same goal. We should always be working, always selling, always marketing. The trick is finding a balance that allows you to do everything at a pace that suits you. This balance is different for everyone.
I believe it is there, though. It just takes a little time to discover. Is it a dilemma? Yes!
But it’s all part of the same goal. We always need to be marketing and we always need to be working on projects. The fine line of awesome. Now I simply have to find it
Matthew Turner
It is a common dilemma with any small company or start-up. All too often, sales/marketing/CRM is the area which fails. It is not surprising since the founders are good at what they do and not typically good at selling it. Here are a few tips I have given start-ups.
1. Find a partner with sales skills.
2. Make a plan to survive without sales for at least the first 6 months.
3. Sales does not have to be picking up the phone. After every successful engagement, ask your contact to introduce you to someone else.
4. Schedule 10% of your time strictly for sales/CRM. Treat this time like you would a client appointment.
5. Restrict hiring employees until absolutely necessary. Rely on contract workers whenever possible. Do not hire anyone that is not directly generating revenue in some way.
6. As far as marketing, have a decent website and blog or interview as much as possible. Stay away from unneeded expenses such as business cards, expensive web work or unproven advertising.
Every small business has different needs of course. The above tips are mostly for B2B companies. There are different rules for B2C.
Last tip: Believe in luck.
Cheers,
Mason
Great story, you are a great storyteller and this is a reason why your business has grown rapidly. Storytelling is a non aggressive way to sell yourself and your passion, very different from trying to sell a service or a product. Storytelling is a great communication for that is perfectly adapted to the web and to blogging. Anyway, great story, very inspiring I would say! I grow a Multilingual content marketing agency in Europe and I am a full time consultant for them now after doing multiple missions in the same group of companies. Yes there is clearly a dilemma being a consultant, you also find that dilemma within small organisation. I fully agree Calvin post, great list of very smart decision to run a consulting business without messing up any client of driving yourself crazy with too heavy work load in some period and empty ones right after. This is a great story for any entrepreneur I believe and not only for consultants. A great way to deal with this dilemma is a to be an efficient social networker and I insist in efficient. Meaning not spending just hours on twitter, no focusing on the right tools like Zintro, Linedin and other very specific communities. Second thing that worked well for me is to also partner with similar consultant who could eventually take additional work for me when needed.
Congrats on Zintro guys this is a cool concept
Stuart, the consultant’s dilemma is real for anyone selling ‘hours’, rather than products.
Long projects can lead to the feast and famine situation, of long hours for great fees, and gaps in between projects.
Multiple small projects is not necessarily the answer either, as sales effort and account management can rack up non-chargeable hours.
Perhaps to be sustainable there’s a limit of say 80% of time on fees, and 20% for admin, marketing, networking, sales, interviews, creating product and personal training.
Alternatively, outsource the ‘sales’ side to an agency and move more into contractor mode.
Or work for an established firm where they find the work and take the over-ride, as well as risk if you’re not on fees for a while.
My own business, Wurlwind, helps people primarily in the knowledge sector to develop their sales funnels. The strategy part of the Sales Funnel Roadmap looks at goals, target market and value proposition. The execution looks at relationship nurture, engagement (with prospect) and promotion or attraction.
Techniques that work for dedicated sales people and business owners can also be adapted to apply to consultants. For example, for consultants especially, re-marketing for follow-on work, referrals and testimonials is a big part of the sales funnel activity.
All the best for Zintro and your efforts to help consultants and experts.
Mark
As a SMB Consultant for more than 20 years, I found it difficult to level out the revenue stream for the very same reasons you state. It was feast or famine, repeat without rinse. I was a true generalist consultant with specific expertise in marketing and the sales process. After beating my head against the wall for many years, I determined my EXACT specialty and decided to stop using a shotgun and switched to a laser pistol instead. What I mean is rather than casting a wide net, I improved my bait and fishing tactics, equipment and focus to very precise targeted businesses (sorry for the Field and Stream metaphors). I also moved toward inbound marketing in a complete fashion. I developed persona style content that persuaded specific niche audiences and slowly grew a following of interested companies that began relationships leading to contract. It takes time, effort and a lot of content, but fortunately for me, I possessed the passion for writing, and the time in which to produce quality, engaging copy
As it turned out, I now have built a client list that is in constant need for articles, blog entries, eBooks and White Papers. I use my writing skills to not only feed my clients, but have eliminated the Consultant’s Dilemma all together. When I am not writing for a client, I write for myself, which in turn, converts to additional clients interested in learning more about my offerings. I use a multitude of web sites, so I am not dependent upon one source.
David J Dunworth
100% agree! As English-Russian translator with expertise in many fields I always experienced a huge pressure of competition… How to stand out? Eventually I’ve found my niche market – English-speaking realtors and property owners willing to sell real estate to Russians – and never looked back at other fields of translations! For a consultant to find the right niche market that is in demand is the key.
Adding to the comment about consultants networking and selling and marketing all the time–if you need some inspiration and tips, read some of the “guerrilla marketing” books–they are very well written and full of useful communication ideas. The consultant’s schedule is Indeed Feast or Famine–and you do have to plan for the down times by piling up all the things you neglect while burning the midnight oil on rush client projects! Jecavanagh@msn.com–joan in Yardley PA
You’ve come a long way, baby! hope you are well.
It’s easy to talk about discipline and rules “set aside 1 hour every day for prospecting” etc – but much harder when deadlines loom on actual projects. and the time spent doing that is 1:1 – in other words you are only touching single prospective clients. some of it is inescapable, and it can be fun and energizing to discuss creative approaches to potential engagements. and you have to sell engagements 1:1. but….
the key is to build a marketing infrastructure that constantly harvests prospects, encourages them to self-qualify (at least generally), and then nurtures them through the early stages of relationship building. this can be done using inbound marketing – and importantly most of the inbound marketing activities result in 1:many interactions. spend several hours preparing and producing a webinar – and that time, as well as time spent publicizing it and offering access to a recorded presentation into the future – will provide ongoing marketing exposure into the future. and as a bonus it will (assuming it is well done and meaty) enhance your credibility when a prospect discovers you AND simultaneously enhance your credibility with google so that you are more likely to be discovered in your niche areas of expertise.
note – this is different than presenting to a local professional group. sure that offers 1:many touches, but offers no legacy value. the cumulative impact of multiple legacies (various content that enhances your google credibility) can’t be overstated.
so then as you work on your engagements and deadlines your marketing efforts continue unabated. it is no longer an either / or proposition. instead now you work during slow times to build substantial content which you publish gradually – and you are always marketing…even while you are working.
A dilemma so true for the consultant, Stuart provides an excellent article topic to point out for us in this field. However, I have found to over come this dilemma by leveraging my time and hiring independent contractors who do similar certain tasks and we switch roles. What happens is I am still doing both marketing and consulting, but when I am doing one say consulting appointments, I have others picking up the marketing that day, then I switch by training them some consulting tasks while I’m doing a day of marketing so I’m not loosing momentum and still providing the best possible service to my clients. It’s working real well for me, has saved me a ton of overhead costs. I have motivated and productive people working from their home and together, we are making better income as a result. I created legal contracts that are fair and now my team of contractors has grown to 20 people and we are still expanding! To effectively do the marketing or consulting you have to give each the attention it deserves.
My advice is diversify, expand your team using this approach and you might see some more positive results for your business.
An excellent post, Stuart, and one that practically every new Consultant faces.
A little suggestion, however, from an old Consultant?
What I share with other, younger Consultants who work with me, is to refocus your needs not on whether you need to work to eat or to market to work, but to simply view both as THE major component of the Consultant’s job. It’s not a dilemma unless you make it so by separating the two into two distinct components. You should be working as much as you want, and you should be marketing—all the time. In every job that I undertake as a Consultant, I always seek out, analyze, and develop the most benefit that I can offer a client, and present a proposal to offer the additional benefits. A client may actually engage you to handle one specific item; you may recognize six that need to be addressed, based on your one resolution. Leverage the work based on the client’s needs and the anticipated return on investment.
Every proposal should include a prospective return on investment. If you are not able to develop a realistic ROI for the client based on a lack of information, do some research and find out what others in the field generate in revenue and compare your proposed results to them.
When I incorporated The Guinn Consultancy Group, Inc. in 2003, I admittedly already had a head start, having been a CEO of two organizations prior to the startup. I knew people, and—for all practical purposes—I had some clients already identified. That doesn’t mean that they are automatically going to send you money on a regular basis.
One of my guiding principles for the last 10 years has been one that every person I’ve shared it with reports they have learned from, and—in fact– most now practice: Have up to 10 sources of income identified at any given time. That doesn’t mean you’re going to be on retainer, or working actively with all of the 10, but in your own mind, recognize about 10 sources of ready income. By the way, sources of income can include active clients, possible clients, writing that may turn into a book or e-book, contacts made but not yet explored, etc. If you find yourself with down time, you’re not working as effectively as you could. Take days off when you want, but when you want to work and don’t have a client, write. Write a blog, write an article, write a book. If you’re a Consultant, you have useful expertise that can be monetized in a big way. Write about what you know, and think through how to create interest and awareness in what you do.
Model your performance for any 1099 Contract Consultants or Employees that you hire. Help them to learn productivity through facing multiple tasks not as individual challenges (i.e., “Marketing or Consulting”) but as the integrated part of the job that it is. Small Consultancies or Independent Consultants that don’t enjoy Marketing? What do they think Marketing is?
Marketing, in its truest form, is simply letting others know what you do and how you do it. It’s helping others to paint their awareness and knowledge of your abilities in as positive a way as possible.
Consultants work in many fields and in many areas of expertise. They must begin to think consistently of the image they convey to others and the opportunities they may pass up by not consistently marketing their abilities.
Alan Guinn, The Guinn Consultancy Group, Inc.
This is a common failing of many who focus on today or focus on something to make money, as opposed to taking the time to focus on … what they focus on! Not just smaller organisations either it impacts all.
1. Be realistic with your expertise, your skills and your value to certain types, markets, niches or areas.
2. Be comfortable explaining what you do in the terms of your client, these might be technical, managerial, executive, fiscal or many others, but you need to know them all.
3. Focus and don’t deviate. stick to what you’re good at and just that.
4. Don’t be to available, I need someone in the next week and you say you’re free everyday, if you are you’re possibly no good as you have no work!
5. Don’t shout and shout and shout about what you do on your website, on social media or in groups of any kind (see this http://www.thelinkedinman.com/986/do-discussion-shout-linkedin/ for LinkedIn context)
6. Value your time, work out your daily rate and then divide by 86,400 to give you a cost per second. Now work out if five minutes is worth it on anything – makes you focus.
7. Ensure that what you do, what you believe and what you think will be attractive to clients is – not by asking friends and family but by asking clients and listening.
LinkedIn is a wonderful free resource (www.linkedIn.com) which can be transformational to theway you network both in terms of efficiency and effectiveness tied in to the points above. In my own personal case, and one of the reasons I now do what I do, it made me more than 10million in additional new client income just using it and drinking coffee but then I have got it to a fine and easy to manage professional approach, strategy and plan after trying out lots of different approaches. Check out the blog http://www.thelinkedinman.com/blog and if you want sign up for the mailing list to keep posted.
Good luck and keep busy all.
Best wishes,
James
The Linked In Man
Great post Stuart.
Many of the suggestions already explained I would agree with. However I have taken a different approach. I have bult my company on a federated model, I can’t give too much away on the actual model as I’m currently writing a book on the application of what we have built.
However I take 20% of my time, 1 day per week as non billable and this time is spent on various projects, presenting at events, running various events using web based facilities to engage and connect with other businesses who don’t do what we do. This has led to the formation of new companies, great partnerships and a federation of over 1,000 people who now help our company grow.
None of this has been achieved quickly, it has taken 2 years of dedicated effort but we are being engaged by some of the biggest companies in the world as their innovation partners, all in the worst recession in living history. Can’t wait to see how this goes when we return to boom times.
We haven’t been engaged yet as part of the Zintro platform but I believe that time will come, and wanted to say well done for what you and the Zintro team have built to enable us all as businesses to grow.
Jacqui