Mechanical Franchise

small business consultant

I manage an online 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 worldwide and whenever I explain to people what I do, I often get asked the same question “Given my what I know, how could I put it to use and make an income by becoming a small business consultant”? I’m always ready to give my opinion as I am lucky enough to spend a lot of my day interacting with small business owners and employees enthusiastic to go into detail about their challenges.

This is what I tell them:

The internet is the perfect medium for finding customers and it makes it straightforward to talk 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 better ways of doing things and help them resolve issues.

Information marketing - repurpose and sell your expertise to small businesses everywhere via the net

Make no mistake this opportunity isn’t just to be found in small businesses it’s equally applicable to large businesses. You can repackage and sell your expertise in a electronic format such as video, audio or documents. The software to produce excellent content are widely available on the Internet. Creating a series of lessons in easy to consume internet formats is now straight forward and doesn’t cost much to do. You just have to be prepared to spend a bit of time studying the software. The objective here is to produce [content.

You have to decide what you want to achieve. Consultancy and Information marketing can work together 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 could be turned into content and sold over and over again.

If you are starting from scratch with no customers but have expertise you know would be in demand by others then make a very short video to explain yourself and your expertise to your prospect(s). Unless you know the market exact problem then make the video generic and usethe following format – S.T.A.R (Situation or Task, Action, Result). Make your messages as interesting as you can and keep the narratives short. Now upload 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 prospect(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 approach is ideally suited to situations where you are individually targeting prospect(s). 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 bigger your list the more opportunities for consulating and selling information products you will uncover. If you would like to understand more about how to do this then follow any of the links in this article. I would be more than willing to help you.