How to start as a small business consultant using the Internet
I manage an online company that provides help in the form of small business management and accounting software tools and expertise to thousands of startups and small businesses in all corners of the world and whenever I explain to folks I meet what I do, I constantly get asked the same question “Given my what I know, how could I apply it and make earn cash quickly by becoming a small business consultant”? I am always ready to give guidance as I am fortunate enough to spend the majority of my day talking to small business owners and workforce who are always willing to chat at length about their issues.
This is what I tell them:
The online world is a great place for finding customers and it makes it easy to communicate 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 direction and help them fix issues.
Information marketing - repurpose and sell your expertise to small businesses everywhere via the net
What I am about to tell you doesn’t just apply to small businesses. You can repackage and sell your expertise in a electronic format such as video, audio or documents. The systems to make high quality material are widely available on the Internet. Creating a series of lessons in easy to consume digital formats is now straight forward and doesn’t cost much to do. You just have to be prepared to spend a modest amount of time mastering the packages. The objective here is to generate [content.
Commence by determining your overall goal. Consultancy and Information marketing compliment each other and if you do both can be very lucrative as the consultancy will provide you with the questions, the answers to which you can repackage and sell in digital format and sold over and over again.
If you are starting from scratch with no customers but have expertise you know would be needed by others then plan to create a no longer than 120 secs video to present yourself and your expertise to your market. Unless you know the prospect(s) precise problem then make the video generic and stick tothe following format – S.T.A.R (Situation or Task, Action, Result). Be creative and concise. Now deploy 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. Follow this up with a phone call. If you know the specific nature of the marketproblem 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 approach is ideally suited to situations where you are individually targeting prospect(s). The one objective you should be constantly pursuing is the creation of a list that you can converse with and sell product to.. Consistent interaction with your list will reveal peoples needs that will help you define what to sell. The more people on your list the more consulting and information marketing opportunities you will find. If you would like to know more about how to do this then visit any of the links in this article. I would be very glad to help you.
