A consultant is supposed to consult; nothing less, nothing more! But to become a good consultant you must have in-depth working knowledge and practical experience of the subject matter.
So, all you need to become a good consultant is to discover what you are great at. Some people become consultants only after spending years in doing particular job while others consider consultancy at an earlier stage.
In today’s world anyone with practical knowledge of the subject matter can become consultant in that particular niche. However, to start a proper consultancy business you must follow certain best practices.
This article will discuss step-by-step procedure to start your own consultancy business. Let’s start:
Step 1: Prepare Solid Grounds For Your Business
There’s a list of things to consider before starting consultancy business. Make sure to read this list carefully as these are obligatory before starting your business.Once you have explored all the areas you may start with the following:
- Registering Business Name
- Obtaining Necessary Licenses
- Filing Application & Getting Tax ID
Step 2: Get the Business Plan Ready
Business plan is a must, as it is the only way to highlight your objectives, cost and revenue forecasts. If you do not have much time to write a detailed business plan, you may consider writing one page business plan.
While developing your business plan (even the one page business plan) you will need to focus on some key issues, like what specific area of consultancy you will focus on, what type of market is out there, how will you target specific clients and so on. Do not forget to read our collection of reads for consultancy business.
- Top 10 Reasons Organizations Hire Consultant for
- Highly Demanded Consultancy Businesses
- Cost of Starting & Running Consultancy Business
- Identifying the Target Markets for Consulting Business
- How to Set Pricing for Your Consulting Business
Step 3: Prepare the Action Plan
Your business plan should clearly identify your goals and the strategies you will use to achieve those goals. With clear goals and strategies you must be able to develop an action plan that lists each task with its objectives, timeline and person responsible to execute the task.
The major elements of your action plan may comprise of but be not limited to:
- Business Website Development
- Social Media Profiles Setup
- Portfolio on Business Networks
- PR
- Social Media Marketing
- Search Engine Marketing
- Business Events Participation
- Media Buying
Step 4: Executing the Action Plan:
Execution of action plan in consulting business mainly focuses on acquiring new clients and hence your action plan is mainly the Marketing Action Plan.
Do read the detailed guide on How to Create an SEO & Social Media Optimized Business Website in Less Time
While marketing your consulting business, you must know that you should market your personal brand + your business name. Most of the consultancy clients come from direct marketing or referrals, so before running any paid advertising campaigns, must explore the free side of social and business networks online. Do check our guides on:
- Generating More Business from Linkedin
- Twitter Simplified for Small Businesses & Entrepreneurs
- Market Your Startup & Personal Brand Locally via Meetup.com
- Manage Your Online Reputation Smartly with VKonnect
- Let Your Startup Grow with EFactor.com
Step 5: Reviews & Upgrades
You must know this fact from very beginning that you cannot build an empire overnight. Especially in the consultancy where you have to be specific according the demands of clients you need to keep on upgrading services based on feedback from your clients. Besides asking clients to rate your service you can always leverage the social media to know the best practices to optimize your business performance.
Every new client that you bring onboard will make you learn a new way to improve your business, so the more satisfied clients you have in your list the better your business will perform and your reputation will improve!
