Becoming a successful business consultant involves first executing strategies to acquire initial clients, then using those clients to get referrals and even more clients. The first few months are the most difficult, but once you have your first few satisfied customers, your success will escalate from there.
Identify Your Market
The more specifically you can identify your market, the better. For example, if you narrowed your target market down to home-based mothers, you will have a much better shot than if you were targeting everyone. Whatever your passion or specialty is, identify that market and target that market specifically.
Though it may seem counter-intuitive at first that narrowing your market will bring you more business, consultants all over the world have found that working with a smaller, more specific market produces far superior results to trying to serve everyone.
Start with Courtesy Sessions
Unless you already have years of industry experience, you will probably want to start off giving away free consultation sessions. This could just be a free initial session where they can then sign up as a paid client afterwards, or they could be an entirely free client you take on just to get more experience.
If you deliver results for these clients, chances are you will either get them to sign on as paid clients, or you will get referrals to people who may become paid clients.
How to Ask for Referrals
One of the most powerful ways of asking for referrals is to be specific.
For example, instead of “Who do you know who might benefit from my services?” a much better question would be “Do you know any stay-at-home mothers who might benefit from creating a second income source from home?” Be specific. Highlight the main benefit of your services when you ask for referrals, and target one specific group of people.
The average person has 400 Facebook friends, a very large network compared to just a decade ago. By identifying exactly the kind of person you want to meet, you help them mentally sift through all their contacts to find the few people they know who could potentially help you.
Delivering Results
To be a successful consultant, you need either phenomenal coaching skills or phenomenal personal experience, or both. For example, Dan Pena, who started and sold a $480 million dollar company, charges $20,000 per day for coaching. People gladly pay this fee, because they know he has the experience to back it up.
On the other hand, world-class NLP trainers can also command astronomical rates, even among business clients. That’s not because of their business experience, but because of their knowledge and understanding of how to create change in people and organizations.
To succeed as a coach, you need to either have the background or phenomenal coaching skills. If you have either or both of these, you stand a great chance of being able to create results for others that they will rave about.
