Welcome to the Guide to Building a Small Business Marketing Consulting Practice or Agency.
Over the years I’ve worked with a lot of consultants and agency owners teaching them how to market their businesses. I’ve spent thirty years learning how to build my marketing agency and even developed an entire proven Marketing System.
Many businesses, even those that don’t call what they do consulting or coaching offer consulting in the form of services or information. Below are steps that I believe are the essential elements needed to build any agency, consulting or service related business.
Full table of contents
1
Develop a Problem Solving Point of View
As business owners and marketers are so in tune with this idea of promoting what we do and talking about our solutions, but until a prospect or a client understands that we understand the problems that they’re trying to solve, I don’t think we can make any kind of connection to the solutions.
Want to learn how you grow your consulting practice?
2
Turn Your Services Into Packages
Selling services is a lot like selling air. Make your offerings more product-like so that your customers have something tangible to grab onto. Putting a strategy in place to turn your services into products will take time and effort, but once complete, the rewards will start funnel in.
3
Create a System and Methodology
No matter how you look at it, marketing is a system. There is a systematic way to come up with a predictable path for growing a business. While every business is different with its own unique systems, the process for getting there isn’t unique at all.
4
Use Your Voice to Generate Leads
As content continues to grow in importance in the marketing mix, it must take on an elevated place in your strategy and planning. The use of high quality, education-based content has become an essential ingredient in creating awareness, building trust, converting leads, serving customers and generating referrals.
5
Get Paid to Convert Leads
Nothing is more frustrating than when you spend a lot of time and effort prepping an unpaid pitch for a prospect who doesn't end up signing on with you, or does, but the process to close the deal takes time.
Well, I have good news, you can stop spinning your wheels and actually get paid for this kind of work. I do it all the time, and you easily can too.
6
Build a Deep Partner Team
One of the most overlooked sources of leads for consultants is the valuable pool of non-competing businesses that serve the same target market.
By identifying a group of “best-in-class” providers in your market and finding ways to gain access to their customer base, you’ll be able to quickly flood your business with new opportunities.
7
Document and Delegate
Business models are changing. Your team can be anywhere in the world and you aren’t constrained to the talent in your local area for your hiring needs.
What does that mean for you as a consultant? You are able to deliver results for your clients by orchestrating many moving parts, services, and team members without the need to add overhead. Your endless to-do list can finally get taken care of because you can outsource the help you need.
Want to learn how you grow your agency?
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