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STARTUP JOURNAL.COM, OCTOBER, 2002
Marketing 101 for Fledgling Independent Consultants
By AMY YARD
Starting out as an independent consultant can be tough. Yet if you’re like me, you’re probably excited about stepping out on your own. Testing your entrepreneurial mettle. B your own boss. Making your own dreams come true. However, along with the excitement and anticipation of starting your own venture comes anxiety. How will you market yourself? How will you attract and retain clients? Can you actually do this? These questions crossed my mind several years ago, and there are days even now when I ask them once again. Having a marketing strategy to help generate clients quickly should be a top priority, but how do you market your past experience to help you with your future venture?
According to a recent article on StartupJournal.com, if you have excellent credentials and a track record for generating results, then you need to use these experiences to add clout to your new venture. These accomplishments will help you market your start-up and establish credibility with new clients.
“For fledgling independent consultants, initiating a marketing strategy to help generate clients quickly should be a top priority,” reports StartupJournal.com columnist Edward Segal. “Otherwise,” Jill Konrath, president of Leapfrog Strategies, a marketing firm in White Bear Lake, Minn. tells Segal, “you’ll end up a starving consultant or return to the corporate world discouraged and disheartened that you couldn’t make it on your own.”
Segal adds that if you don’t market yourself effectively, you’ll be outgunned by bigger and older competitors. In order to do avoid that scenario, his article suggests that you take advantage of your strengths and use the following six suggestions to make a name for yourself and successfully build and keep clients:
1. Make the most of your experience. Debra Condren, a San Francisco-based business psychologist and president of SuperiorCareer.com, a site that helps new consultants with marketing, tells Segal that new consultants should develop a resume that highlights their consulting expertise.
“Update it to include your major area of expertise and accomplishments,” she says. “Getting this down on paper will remind you of how much expertise you do, in fact, already have, [and] an updated resume also will assist you in creating your short, pithy, ‘professional bio,’ which you’ll use on your marketing and PR materials.”
She adds that new consultants often struggle to see the relationship between their previous experience, background, and results and their consulting skills. To make matters worse, they also do not recognize themselves as experts, primarily because they don’t acknowledge their transferable skills, which makes it difficult to sell their services to clients.
"They often think that, because they're in a new domain, their track record of stellar accomplishments is somehow diminished in terms of salability and what they have to offer,” Condren tells Segal. “The result is that they're often reluctant to take the leap into a full-scale PR and marketing campaign [to promote themselves]."
2. Carve out a niche. According to Segal, once you've identified your strengths and decided which services to offer, target the industries, professions or companies that need your expertise.
"Build on your transferable skills and your professional experience to focus on a niche specialty area," Condren advises Segal. Yet be sure to resist the impulse to market your services as a solution to everyone's problems. By articulating what you’re good at and the value you have to offer, you will help to clearly define your scope of services.
3. Demonstrate a need for your services. Establishing the need for your expertise can be as tough as proving you're qualified for an assignment, according to Segal. He cites The Andover Group, a marketing communications firm in Andover, Mass., which uses a unique strategy as part of its marketing.
“The firm's principals, Wendy Pelosi and Amy Knowles, convince companies their services are needed by showing the paybacks from marketing more to existing customers rather than seeking new ones,” writes Segal. “Founded in June, The Andover Group plans and implements seminars, road shows and other events to help companies build customer loyalty and satisfaction. To demonstrate their value to prospects, Ms. Pelosi and Ms. Knowles devised a "ROI Calculator," which shows how greater returns can be achieved by spending more marketing dollars on customer retention than marketing to new ones.”
4. Cultivate a professional image. Segal also reports that you shouldn’t scrimp when creating materials or holding events that will establish and maintain your professional image.
“Ask a graphic designer to create a logo/image for your business that emphasizes your professionalism and staying power,” he reports. Experts also agree that putting your marketing dollars into a Web presence and online newsletter makes more sense than an elaborate brochure since they're often easier and faster to produce, cost less and can be revised easily.
5. Create instant momentum. “Make it a top priority to land your first client as soon as possible,” writes Segal. “Then prepare press releases about winning your first assignments to demonstrate demand for your services and attract similar clients.” This will create buzz about your company and provide instant credibility with other prospects, especially if that first client is fairly well known.
6. Be flexible. According to Segal, your initial business or marketing strategies aren't written in stone. “A willingness to shift gears until a winning formula is discovered distinguishes successful consultants from those who fail,” he states.
Condren also adds, "A recent study on successful start-ups vs. unsuccessful ones [showed] that the first group changed their business plans at least six or seven times before finally identifying the winning course.”
Although it may take long hours, hard work, and the vision and flexibility to roll with the punches, you can become a successful independent consultant. Good luck!
SOURCES:
http:rtupJournal.com/columnists/marketing/20021002-segal.html
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com
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