Posts Tagged ‘small business management consulting’
How small business consultants can increase their incomes using the internet
June 14th, 2009 | 
Author: I founded an internet 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 around the planet and whenever I explain to people what I do, I often get asked the same question “Given my skills and experience, how could I use this and make earn a living from small business consulting? I am always delighted to supply my opinion as I am lucky enough to spend at least 75% of my day communicating with small business owners and workers who are always willing to talk about their problems and needs.
Here is what I tell them which I hope you will find useful:
The web is a perfect platform for finding customers and it makes it straightforward 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 valuable insights and help them resolve key challenges.
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 create excellent material are widely available on the network. Creating a series of lessons in easy to consume web ready formats is now easy and affordable. You just have to be prepared to dedicate a bit of time getting to know the tools. The point here is to produce some valuable content that you can either sell or give away to customers to encourage them to do business with you.
You have to decide what you want to achieve. Consultancy and Information marketing go hand in hand and if you do both can be very lucrative as the consultancy will provide you with the questions, the answers to which could be turned into content 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 very short video to introduce yourself and your expertise to your target(s). Unless you know the prospect(s) precise 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 upload 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 prospect(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.. With the right interaction with your list you should easily be able to discover what people want and deliver it. The more people on your list the more consulting and information marketing opportunities you will discover. If you would like to discover more about how to do this then follow any of the links in this article. I would be delighted to help you.
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