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Starting a Consulting Business By Leveraging Your Work ExperienceStarting A Catering Business. Are You Passionate About Parties. Do You Live To Cook. Now You Can Realize Your Dream By Starting A Catering Business. 1f4f
There have been many
discussions about what is necessary to "engage" a client. Engaging a client
becomes even more critical for a consulting firm which is just establishing
itself, especially since the firm probably does not have many (or any) prior
clients to use as a reference. A firm should perform
preliminary research to identify the types of services capable of being offered.
They should then perform a comparative analysis of these services in
relationship to the services being offered by competitive firms (if any), and
they should also review the current needs of identified target markets.
A consulting firm sells
professional services. The consulting firm must ascertain the value of the
professional qualifications which they are bringing to the market place. The
consulting firm must also assess the perceived value of these services from the
perspective of the target market. If the consulting firm has a valuable service
to offer, then this service is what they should be marketing to potential
clients. For start-up consulting
firms, the fact that they probably do not have a long list of previous clients
poses numerous problems. Since they can't identify what they've done with
previous clients, they sometimes tend to reduce the value of the professional
services capable of being provided by reducing the dollar value of services
proposed. This is definitely a flaw on the part of the consulting firm, and
every effort should be made to prevent this type of "negotiating tactic" to be
used when engaging preliminary clients. Reduction of fees to engage
initial clients should not be a device which is used to obtain a client base
necessary to substantiate the value of services offered. In other words, if the
firm is not convinced in its' own mind that the professional services they bring
to market are valuable to potential clients, a reduction in the consultant fees
to engage clients will do very little to validate the actual value of the
professional services offered. Another way to view this
dilemma would be: Does the actual value of professional services offered
increase as the firm's client base increases? It may be true that a firm's
experience and proficiency may increase over time, but are the professional
services minimal at the outset, or, is the level of client experience the only
thing which a firm lacks when it first starts out. A firm may chose to take
certain steps to address the lack of client experience, but it does not seem
prudent to reduce the value of the professional services offered merely due to
the fact that the firm has minimal client experience. Tip! The one area that is most often overlooked when starting your own business is the personal sacrifice and commitment that is required by both yourself and your family. A firm may chose to provide
certain fixed services on a pro-bono basis, separate and aside from the proposed
work they are performing. These pro-bono services may reduce the total cost of
services provided to the client, but the for fee services are still being
provided at the normal rate. Reducing the fee creates numerous potential
problems with the fee vs. value of services offered. Providing additional
services at no charge avoids this problem, and also addresses some of the needs
which start-up firms experience in their attempt to engage new clients. Charging
$120./hr and providing some additional pro-bono work is definitely different
than doing all of the work for $100./hr., although the net cost to the client may
be the same. It should be easier to
refuse to do something for free, than it would be to convince a client that the
value of your services have increased by $20./hr! A firm should determine how
to adjust for a lack of previous client experience, and this should be something
which is addressed in their operating and marketing procedures. It is another
operational responsibility (similar to managing the firm, accounting, human
resources) which is required to be dealt with in order to maintain a successful
firm. Finally, if a firm does
reduce the value of professional services offered, at what time will they feel
confident enough to place an accurate value on these services, and how will this
be accomplished with existing clients, and potential clients who are aware of
existing fee structures? Cam Forbes, founder and Managing Partner of Opus One Ventures has been speaking, training
and coaching business owners, entrepreneurs, and sales people around the world.
For more information about Forbes' "Consulting Solution Toolkit" and how to get
started in Consulting, visit Consulting Startup Kit or get his his free
report about getting started in consulting.
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