Work at Home Idea:
Consulting Service Business
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Every industry uses consultants. In fact, businesses spend billions of dollars each year to tap into the expertise consultants can offer. Chances are, you've got specialized knowledge that corporations, entrepreneurs and individuals will be willing to pay for--knowledge that you could turn into a successful consulting practice.
But expertise in a specific area isn't the only thing you'll need. You'll also need to know how to market yourself, how to bill for your time, how to plan for taxes and more.
That's where this start-up guide can help--it's jam-packed with the information you need to get your consulting business off the ground. In this step-by-step guide, you'll discover:
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the top 20 consulting businesses thriving today
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how to determine your specialty and assess your skills and talent
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the nuts and bolts of setting up shop
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how to find--and keep--clients
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how to price your services and budget for success
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why superior customer service is crucial to winning new business
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and much more
Our thorough guide is filled with the answers, advice and tips you need to create an exciting and lucrative consulting business. You'll have customers beating down your door!
This guide from Entrepreneur.com is necessary before diving into this home business venture.
Book Excerpt
What is a Consultant?
The dictionary defines a consultant as “an expert in a particular field who works as an advisor either to a company or to another individual.” Sounds pretty vague, doesn’t it? But unless you’ve been in a coma for the past decade, you probably have a good idea what a consultant is.
Businesses certainly understand what consultants are. In 1997 U.S. businesses spent just over $12 billion on consulting. According to Anna Flowers of the Association of Professional Consultants in Irvine, California, the association has recently noticed an increase in calls for information from people who want to get into the business. “The market is opening up for [the consulting-for-businesses] arena,” Flowers says.
Melinda P., an independent consultant in Arlington, Virginia, thinks more people are getting into the consulting field because technology has made it easier to do so. “The same technology that has helped me to be successful as a consultant has made it easier for others to do the same,” she says.
A consultant’s job is to consult. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s that simple. There is no magic formula or secret that makes one consultant more successful than another.
But what separates a good consultant from a bad consultant is a passion and drive for excellence. And—oh yes—good consultants should be knowledgeable about the subjects they are consulting in. That does make a difference.
You see, in this day and age, anyone can be a consultant. All you need to discover is what your particular gift is. For example, are you very comfortable working around computers? Do you keep up with the latest software and hardware information, which seems to be changing almost daily? And are you able to take that knowledge you have gained and turn it into a resource that someone would be willing to pay money for? Then you would have no trouble working as a computer consultant.
Or are you an expert in the fund-raising field? Maybe you have worked for nonprofit agencies in the field of fund-raising, marketing, public relations or sales, and over the years you have discovered how to raise money. As someone who has turned a decade of fund-raising successes into a lucrative consulting business, I can tell you that fund-raising consulting is indeed a growing industry.
Fund-raising is growing in small social services agencies, such as soup kitchens and homeless shelters, and in large universities, colleges and nonprofit hospitals. Once you have successfully learned how to write grant proposals to foundations and corporations and get a few years of experience under your belt, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be joining the ranks of fund-raising consultants who are earning six figures—and more. And in case you are wondering, yes, it is possible to be a consultant in more than one field at the same time. You see, in addition to having built a successful fund-raising consulting business, I was simultaneously using my gift of writing to develop an editorial consulting business. It wasn’t unusual to find myself meeting with the board of directors of a nonprofit agency concerning fund-raising strategies one day, and the next day showing a client how to break into the publishing world by writing book reviews for his or her local newspaper. I must confess, however, that at times I wished I had concentrated on one or the other field and not felt so compelled to work in different areas.
When it comes right down to it, working as a consultant can be a very exciting and lucrative opportunity. Where else can you work as a self-employed, independent agent, set your own hours and even set your own fees? Of course, you must be willing to devote the time and effort it takes to make a living as a consultant; otherwise, your consulting business will be doomed to fail even before it gets off the ground.
The three most important words all consultants must learn and remember are marketing, marketing and marketing. And did I mention marketing? That’s how important marketing is to all kinds of consultants. You see, if you’re not comfortable with marketing and selling your services as a consultant, then you are faced with the choice of either hiring someone to do your marketing for you or learning how to do it yourself.
We will cover marketing in Chapter 4. But for now, remember that nursery rhyme that you learned as a child: To market, to market, to buy a fat pig.... I won’t bore you with the rest of the words, but the point is, if you are not ready to market yourself and your consulting services, you will never be able to buy a skinny pig, let alone a fat one. But don’t worry. Marketing doesn’t have to be scary. Trust me. When I first began working as a consultant, I confess that I wasn’t exactly jumping for joy at the prospect of knocking on doors and, in essence, saying “Hey, wanna pay me big bucks to tell you what to do?”
This guide from Entrepreneur.com is necessary before diving into this home business venture.
Disclaimer: The information presented and opinions expressed herein are those of the authors
and do not necessarily represent the views of Work-at-Home-Business.com and/or its partners.
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