How small business consultants can increase their incomes using the internet
I work for a Saas company that supplies help in the form of small business management and accounting software tools and know-how to thousands of startups and small businesses in all corners of the world and whenever I explain to people what I do, I repetitively get asked the same question “Given my skills and experience, how could I put it to use and make earn a living by becoming a small business consultant”? I’m always happy to give advice as I am lucky enough to spend at least 75% of my day communicating with small business owners and employees eager to communicate their problems and needs.
This is what I tell them:
The digital world is the best way 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 education and help them fix problems.
Information marketing – repurpose and sell your expertise to small businesses everywhere via the net
What I discuss here is equally appropriate to businesses of any size. You can repackage and sell your expertise in a digital format such as video, audio or documents. The tools to construct superb material are widely available on the Internet. Making a educational piece in simple to use digital formats is now straight forward and doesn’t cost much to do. You just have to be prepared to spend a modest amount of time learning and practicing with the systems. material] that you can either sell or give away to get your target customer’s attention.
You have to begin with the end in mind. Consultancy and Information marketing compliment each other and if you do both can be very lucrative as the consultancy will provide you with the questions, the answers to which you can repackage and sell in digital format and sold over and over again.
If you are starting from scratch with no customers but have expertise you know would be valuable to others then make a no longer than 120 secs video to promote yourself and your expertise to your potential client(s). Unless you know the target(s) exact problem then make the video generic and adhere tothe following format – S.T.A.R (Situation or Task, Action, Result). Keep it short, interesting and sweet. 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. Always follow this up with a phone call. If you know the specific nature of the potential client(s)problem then don’t make the video public, just put it somewhere away from prying eyeson the Web or even on a disk and post it, again follow up with a call.
This method is ideally suited to situations where you are individually targeting target(s). The one objective you should be constantly pursuing is the creation of a list that you can converse with and sell product to.. Treat the people on your list well and they will tell you their needs to which you can match and your content products. The bigger your list the more opportunities for consulating and selling information products you will discover. If you would like to find out more about how to do this then follow any of the links in this article. I would be more than willing to help you.