Are you a marketing consultant or hope-to-be-soon consultant (of any type)? Are you here looking for ideas? Well, why don’t you just ask?? Ask me. Anything. It’s not free, but it’s cheaper than trolling around for clues to your success.
Truth is, you already know enough about marketing (or your specialty) to make money being a consultant. Doug did, when he contacted me. He had plenty of marketing experience, a professional looking website and, over the past year, a client or two. Enough to tell his friends he was a marketing consultant, but not enough to make a business out of it.
The hard part is making a business out of it. Isn’t it! If you aren’t a consultant yet, making a business out of it IS the hard part.
Things like:
- Attracting prospects (enough prospects, not the occasional referral).
- Understanding how to present a proposal in a way that isn’t 80% guaranteed to fail (this simple piece of advice will double your closing ratio).
- Structuring how clients can hire you in a way that gives them some choice (but not too much) AND takes advantage of your experience.
And did I mention attracting prospects?! I hear “I went through my contacts and networking, now what do I do?” a lot.
Doug wanted to know if I was making any money (I am), if I’d hold back the “really important information” (I don’t) and why I’m helping other consultants compete with me. Regarding this last question, there is a ton of business out there for all of us. A ton. I’m not worried about you taking money out of my pocket. I invite you to use Google’s Keyword Tool and check last month’s search volume on “marketing consultant” or the other related search queries.
First, you should understand I’m a full-time marketing consultant. I do the things every day I’ll teach you to do. I am not one of those guys who makes a living teaching how to be a consultant (who stopped consulting years ago). Second, I do just fine as a marketing consultant; whether you hire me or not won’t affect my lifestyle. (No pressure or hard-sell here.)
And one more thing. I’m not interested in teaching you how to be a marketing consultant like me. You have a set of experiences and a sensibility that you need to bring to your clients. That’s how they’ll be successful and how you will as well. We (yes, we, you’ll do plenty of the work) need to find that for you. That’s the goal.
So. . .How Does This Work?
That email at right, by the way, is from Doug four months after he started with me. At about two-and-a-half months he closed his first client using the prospecting methods I taught him and helped him start using.
He hired me for an hour to make sure I’m not a jerk. Hire me for an hour ($250) and ask me anything; get clear on the jerk thing. If that goes well, and if you’re serious, we can move forward together as fast as your budget allows. At $175 or $150 an hour, depending upon how many hours you buy.
If you’re interested, email me. If not, keep looking, keep moving forward.
Here’s Doug 18 months later:
If what I’m saying doesn’t feel right for you, find that thing or person that does. Being a marketing consultant is a great gig. I feel privileged to have found something 30+ years ago that gives me this level of freedom, money and satisfaction. I wish the same for you.
Hamilton
PS I’m also a great resource for project advice once the prospecting methods we put in place start generating clients.
