So you would like to be a small business consultant and work online
I work for a web company that delivers help in the form of small business management and accounting software tools and education and support to thousands of startups and small businesses all over the world and whenever I explain to folks I meet what I do, I consistently get asked the same question “Given my what I know, how could I monetize it and make regular money from small business consulting? I’m always delighted to give my opinion as I am privileged enough to spend best part of my day communicating with small business owners and workforce who are always willing to talk about their problems and needs.
This is the advice that I offer:
The internet is the perfect medium for finding customers and it makes it easy to get into a dialogue with them and sell your expertise. A lot of small businesses turn to the internet to find knowledge or trusted advisors who can provide them with guidance and help them fix problems.
Information marketing – repurpose and sell your expertise to small businesses everywhere via the net
Now I know I have focused on small business consulting but what I share with you here is just as relevant to any size business. You can repackage and sell your expertise in a electronic format such as video, audio or documents. The tools to construct high quality material are widely available on the network. Creating a series of lessons in simple to use web ready formats is now easy and affordable. You just have to be prepared to spend a modest amount of time mastering the systems. material] that you can either sell or give away to get your target customer’s attention.
Commence by determining your overall goal. Consultancy and Information marketing are great bedfellows and if you do both can be very profitable as the consultancy will provide you with the questions, the answers to which repurpose for sale through the internet and sold over and over again.
If you are starting from scratch with no customers but have expertise you know would be in demand by others then make a two minute video to introduce yourself and your expertise to your potential client(s). Unless you know the prospect(s) precise problem then make the video generic and adhere tothe following format – S.T.A.R (Situation or Task, Action, Result). Make your messages as interesting as you can and keep the narratives short. Now deploy the video to your website/blog or even YouTube if you don’t have the former and send the target(s) an invitation by e-mail containing a personal message and a link to the video. Follow this up with a phone call. If you know the specific nature of the marketproblem then don’t make the video public, just put it somewhere secureon the Web or even on a disk and post it, again follow up with a call.
This approach is ideally suited to situations where you are individually targeting potential client(s). You should always focus on growing a list you can interact with and make sales to. Regular interaction with your list will reveal peoples needs that will help you define what to sell. The more people on your list the more consulting and information marketing opportunities you will discover. If you would like to understand more about how to do this then click on any of the links in this article. I would be happy to help you.
