Starting A Consulting Business

Starting a consulting business is both easier and harder than it has ever been before, no matter what type of consulting you are offering.

Starting A Tutoring Business This was originally written for a particular type of consultant, but is a great way blueprint for starting a consulting business. Get your business started right. Worksheets, options.

Consultant Business Plan Financing your consultant  business.  Presenting a business plan for financing is very different from presenting one to start your business.

"Consultants" used to be fancy schmansy rich people who told us poor folk what to do.   They gave high priced seminars and created high priced CDs that we all bought voraciously.  Some of them still do all that.

But there is a whole new breed of consultant for the 21st century.  This is the consultant who has specialized knowledge, especially knowledge that can be shared across borders, around the world even.

The fancy schmansy type of consultant is having a tough time.  Money is tight in nearly every business and demographic.

But the consultant with specialized knowledge is thriving!

When Starting A Consulting Business, Which Type Of Business Does Well?

Ohmygoodness.  Hundreds and hundreds of different kinds of consultants are doing extremely well now.  Here are just a few:

• "Classroom" topics, like those listed in Starting A Tutoring Business;
• Anything computer related;
• Business coaches and business consultants of all kinds;
• Personal life coaches;
• Consultants in the non-profit arena;
• Anyone who can teach a new marketable skill;
• Helping people find jobs;
• Financial consultants, both business and personal;
• Retirement consultants;
• Child raising consultants, especially for behavioral issues;
• Marriage consultants;
• Landscape consultants

... and advisors of every ilk.  It is hard to image a type of personal, or business, consulting that is NOT doing well now. 

The Key To Consulting Business Success

But there is a key to this consulting success:  Targeting your market.

You simply cannot be everything to everyone.  "Business consultants" have a really tough time.  Small business consultants specializing in refocusing a mid-size retail business for higher profit do much better.

Identify a real need, then get it laser sharp.  If there is a skill you are lacking, go learn it.  If there is experience you don't have, go get it.  If you need testimonials, then go do some projects at no cost to get those testimonials.

Starting A Consulting Business From Scratch

Before ever going after Client Number One, identify your Target Market.  Then promote to that Target Market.

And if that sounds simplistic or easy, think again.  It is not simplistic, and it is certainly not easy.  The most important part of your business is what you do BEFORE you begin.  It is all the preliminary work that can trip you up, things like:

Establish your website and ensure that it is reaching your Target Market. 

Create advertising for your professional journals.

Write articles for your professional journals AND for lots of online sites where you can post articles.

Set up your communications and billings procedures to work smoothly.

Make sure you've got enough money to do what you want to do.

Starting a consulting business is a very real possibility, especially in the 21st century.  The communications capability of every single computer makes millions and millions of people potential customers.

Your job is to reach them effectively and turn them into clients.

The fact that you can work from home cuts down on overhead so significantly that it truly opens the door for millions of consultants who could never have considered this option before.

It is a brand new world for consulting.  Go get your corner of it!