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You decided to launch your own consulting services to put your expertise to good use — congratulations! Now, it’s time to start marketing your services to your future clients. After all, if you have no clients, you have no business at all.
With Pentabell you can start a profitable consulting business, no matter whether your consulting business will focus on Gaz & Oil, Energy, Telecom, Transport, or anything else you can dream up.
But keep in mind that selling consulting services has nothing to do with selling goods like houses or cares…this mission is way harder because you need to market your personal brand and services to people who may not even know that they need you.
While there are increasing opportunities for consultants, you’ll need a steady stream of clients to sustain a consulting business. So here are some good technics, that consultants favor getting their business name spread among their potential clients:
1.Advertising:
Even though it is crucial to help you, market your services; traditional advertising can be very expensive, so it is very important to spend your money in a wise way.
According to the type of services you are offering, you may need to advertise your business in specialized trade magazines and journals. You can also place ads in a full print run of publication and even consider advertising in special sections like “consultant directory” or “directory of consulting services”.
This will maximize your reach and get you more clients.
Professional consultants use also yellow pages. When using this advertising tool, you will receive a line ad where you define your company name and phone number. You might consider taking a larger ad in the book because people always assume that if you’ve spent money on a display ad, you can be more reliable and professional than consultants who do not advertise.
The digital era has changed the way people advertise so may consider creating a google my business ad, having your own website, and optimizing your social media accounts to get you more referrals and boost your brand awareness.
2.Getting referrals:
People always tend to overlook this method of finding clients, but it is quite easy and profitable marketing activity.
You just need to wait until you finish your consulting assignment, get your clients’ feedback and confirm that they are completely satisfied, then ask for referrals.
But rather than putting the client on the spot, be proactive take the initiative by sending a short letter or a note where you thank your clients for their trust, collaboration. Then ask them for their connection’s names (friends, colleagues, business partners…) or any people who might be good prospects for your services.
Just remember the quality of your work and the extent to which you succeed to satisfy your clients will determine the number of your referral, the more you show your expertise and quality services, the more your clients will recommend you to their network.
3.Cold calls:
One of the oldest technics to reach out to your potential clients is through cold calls.
Cold calling is the process of contacting prospects who are not expecting sales calls from you and trying to present and sell you services.
Be aware that most people hate cold calling but when you are starting your new business, it is always a good idea to combine different technics to land your business, in another word you should give it a try.
However, you need to respect some rules to succeed in your cold calling strategy.
- Number one: be ready to get rejected
- Number two: in order to get one prospect, you may have to reach 20 or 30 contacts with people who are able to hire you
- Number three: try phoning between 6 to 8.30 AM it can be a good time to catch people who are receptive to your sales pitch
- Number four: practice and perfect your sales pitch both with a friend and out loud
- Number five: ask for feedback on the efficiency and sincerity of your promises and make adjustments if needed
4.Newsletters
Newsletters are an effective way to attract clients to your business. Thanks to newsletters you can present valuable news and information to your potential clients.
This is a clever way to market your services and remind your clients that you are still there and you are available if they need any further help.
Hence a typical consultant newsletter will include:
- Editorials and opinions: this section is your chance to voice your thoughts on a particular subject related to your consulting service.
- Success tips: where you inform your readers how they can outperform in their jobs.
- News of importance to the industry: here you can present all the important information you collected from websites, professional journals, magazines. But make sure to enlist the source of each piece of news you have used.
5.Direct mails:
In opposition to cold calls, direct mails are a powerful weapon to value your new business because it is very targeted to the exact audience you want to reach.
To proceed with direct mails, you must:
- Create or rent a qualified or targeted prospects list
- Send a brochure, sales letter, flyer with a gift enclosed
- Describe the business and consulting services you are offering
Here are some hacks to create some catchy direct mails:
- Use a compelling message on the outside of the envelope or the subject or your email: words like “act now”, “limited time offer” are all-powerful attention getters that push the recipient to open your message
- Customize your sales pitch: use a mail merge program to personalize each email to the recipient’s name. In the same sense, your sales letter should be oriented to that one recipient by name
- Stress the benefits of your offer and give all the pertinent details in your email: make it easy for your prospects to request information or respond to your message. Enlist your phone number, website URL, email address, and include a clear call to action button to make sure that your clients can easily get back to you if they are interested.
