Offline Consultant: How to Start A Consulting Business
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How to Start A Consulting Business
Q: I’m currently doing SEO and PPC in my consulting business. I’m thinking of purchasing someone else’s consulting program. However, I wanted to get your input to better understand what I really want. Can you tell me your thoughts on some of the other people offering training for consultants? How can I start my own consulting business?
A: Unfortunately, my comments may not be unbiased as I am also offering offline marketing training. This is something that you’ll have to take a close look at and make a decision for yourself.
The person you asked about, I would recommend you take a look at her experience, here’s someone who just started offline marketing back in Jan of 09. The thing you have to ask yourself is how much actual experience does do they have? How long has she been doing this? Does she really answer all of your questions when it comes to this?
You see, there is no “one size fits all” when it comes to offline marketing.
Under your current consulting program, if all you’re doing is offering seo and ppc to your clients then you’ve limited your income severely. What if your client wants a website or a website makeover? What if they want a press release? What if they want video marketing? What if they want you to advise them on their yellow page ads? What are you going to do? Refer them to someone else?
If you do, then you lose out on money you should have had.
If you don’t, then you have to take the time to locate someone with real experience to create whatever they need. And, sadly people from India, the Philippines and Russia don’t cut it when it comes to providing services for local businesses.
Think about it for a moment, if someone contacted you about creating local PPC ads for those in India, could you do it? How about Australia? You probably couldn’t do it because you don’t know their culture, what their values are, what percentage of their population has access to the Internet, what motivates them or how much they’re willing to spend on a product or service.
Take Australia for example. It’s similar to the U.S. BUT if someone contacted you about creating a website — your first instinct is to create one similar to what we do here in the U.S. However, many Aussie’s don’t like all the “flash and WEB 2.0 stuff”. It looks too American. They like their own style and their fellow Aussies also like that style and respond to it.
What I am saying here is that although some of these people may have very well researched products — they don’t have any real experience. It’s the difference between “book learning” and “hands on learning”. Reading and researching something is completely different than getting out there and doing it for twenty or more years.
I know it sounds great and logical what they offer. But business is not logical. People, both business owners and their customers, buy on emotion. On their wants not their needs or logic.
It’s great to hear about people who walk in the door of some business and walk out with a $50k check. However, what happens five months from now when they can’t produce the results they promised and get sued for “non performance” and “breach of contract”? Will you hear these trainers talking about these law suits?
Did either of these trainers happen to mention that those who are collecting “big” checks already had an established relationship of some kind either directly or through someone they knew?
There’s a lot of things that are left out along the way and that is what will ultimately get you into trouble. The little details.
Ask yourself is their system duplicable? Can you duplicate their success and profitability? Do you have their business resources (access to qualified prospects), do you have their sales ability, do you have their ability to speak before groups, do you have the money to invest that they did, can you afford to lose as much as they did upfront, do you have access to their mentors to ask questions, etc…?
Each gives you some tools and send you out the door. The question to ask yourself is, “Is it enough?”
None of them tell you exactly what businesses are most likely to purchase your services. Why? Because they don’t know.
None of them can tell you exactly what the businesses are WANTING — so they have you sell SEO or PPC or a website. That’s not what a business is looking to buy. If you try to sell these services then you’ve got an uphill battle. It’s always easier to sell someone something they want rather than what you want to sell them.
Seminars based on SEO or PPC or anything else are ok but your conversion rate is going to be much lower because the average business owner is clueless and has no frame of reference.
I have an 83% conversion rate because I hand pick exactly who I want to attend the seminars. I know exactly what businesses are likely to want my service, can afford my services and will hire me because I’m offering them EXACTLY what they want to buy. About the only small business owners who don’t convert are those who simply can’t afford my services due to their financial circumstances.
This is a different model than other trainers who simply tell you to go “out there” and “do it”. Throwing you to the sharks and hoping you swim. On the other hand, I prefer to teach my consultants how to first swim then let them get their confidence before tackling a bigger businesses.
Other trainers speak a lot about residual income they really don’t have a system in place to ensure this. Instead, they and their students rely upon a huge check up front and hope their clients continue to use their services. On the other hand, consultants like myself enter into a business relationship with the sole purpose of it being residual.
My new students start out at $700/mo per client and then by the end of the year each of their clients can be worth as much as $3000 to $4000 per month. This translates into each client being worth as much as $36k to $50k per year. This means that as little as ten clients can be worth $360k a year to you once you’re established.
Finally, take a look at their business model. Are you comfortable with “selling”? I know that one of the trainers you referred to is really strong about “selling” services and creating a “sales team” and giving “sales pitches”. However, selling is much more difficult than consulting. Selling is convincing someone they want something they don’t believe they do. Consulting is helping your client to get what they wanted.
Hopefully, some of this will help you to make the right decision on how to start a consulting business.
Think about it,
Talk to you soon….
–Leonard Manion
“Training New Offline Marketing Consultants to Maximize their Business Profitability”
Copyright 2009 OfflineMarketingTrainer.com All Rights Reserved.
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