small business consulting

I run a Saas company that provides help in the form of small business management and accounting software tools and education and support to thousands of startups and small businesses in all corners of the world and whenever I explain to people what I do, I repetitively get asked the same question “Given my working knowledge, how could I put it to use and make regular money from small business consulting? I am always willing to give wisdom as I am fortunate enough to spend at least 75% of my day communicating with small business owners and their teams who are always willing to chat at length about their issues.

Here is what I tell them which I hope you will find useful:

The digital world is the best way for finding customers and it makes it easy to interact 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 new methods and help them resolve problems.

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 produce professional standard material are widely available on the net. Making a tutorial in simple to use internet formats is now simple and inexpensive. You just have to be prepared to dedicate a modest amount of time playing with the tools. The goal here is to create 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 are great bedfellows and if you do both can be very provide a substantial income 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 valuable to others then produce a no longer than 120 secs video to promote yourself and your expertise to your prospect(s). Unless you know the prospect(s) exact problem then make the video generic and usethe 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. Always follow this up with a phone call. If you know the specific nature of the potential client(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 market. You should always focus on growing a list you can interact with and make sales to. Treat the people on your list well and they will tell you their needs to which you can match and your content products. 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 visit any of the links in this article. I would be delighted to help you.

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Filed under: Business Opportunities • Personal Finance

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