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For those that do consulting, how did you start?
I'm looking to expand my income sources.
Currently I'm working as a Project Manager / Consultant for a tech company (part-time, freelance). I've worked in management/commercial/financial areas in various companies either as a full-time employee or as a freelance.
It seems like it's fairly easy to start as a consultant as a developer. But it seems like my background would make things a bit more difficult. I don't want another part-time PM gig.
I would love to do consult on growth or revops.
How would you guys start?
Currently I'm working as a Project Manager / Consultant for a tech company (part-time, freelance). I've worked in management/commercial/financial areas in various companies either as a full-time employee or as a freelance.
It seems like it's fairly easy to start as a consultant as a developer. But it seems like my background would make things a bit more difficult. I don't want another part-time PM gig.
I would love to do consult on growth or revops.
How would you guys start?
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I always say the same: anyone can be a consultant. The key part of consulting services is that someone pays you to share with them your knowledge/experience/expertise
My main service is the Consulting Service. 2 hours online meeting where I answer their questions, help them to take decisions, guide them with doubts, etc.
Create a simple landing where people can book your time and pay. You can use things like Calendly or Cal.com
You can start with a service of 1 hour and offer it to people you already know. Target customers that are those "growth / revops" and offer them your expertise to help them improve.
After some years working with my "personal brand", I created a "Consulting Company" so I could target bigger companies.
The Consulting Service is the key entrance to my services. All new customers should make at least 1 consulting before doing a Mentoring or planning workshops and webinars for the company.
I leave here the website so you can check and take ideas: en.promium.pro/consultancy
(I don't know if your answer disappeared... lucky me, I have the habit to copy the text before publishing/sending, as it disappeared).
In 2013 I started creating websites with WordPress. I was very engaged in the community, organizing events and giving talks.
In 2017 people started asking me for talks about productivity. The reason? I was always very relaxed, even if I was freelancing with clients projects. So, I started to give talks about how to manage customers, projects, time management, tools, automations, etc.
After that, people started to ask me for help and hiring me. So I created my personal brand "ibonazkoitia.com" offering the services you saw on the other page.
Years pass and I created a YT Channel (@PROductividadpro) and a productivity platform: PROductividad.pro
Most of my customers come from YT. In that channel, I teach how to use tools, so they hire me to teach them how to implement those tools in their companies/teams.
Since last week, I changed my Twitter profile to be a "maker profile". But my LinkedIn is still in Spanish and focused mainly in PROductivity.
In 2023, I changed the "ibonazkoitia" website to "PROmium". The plan is to create a new website with my personal brand, but focused on the "maker" part. So I will use LinkedIn + YT + PROductividad.pro for the productivity brand and sell the PROmium services.
Hey Ibon, it wasn't an accident I deleted the reply because I missed your first post and I though I had asked something you already answered.
Thanks so much for the detailed answer. This is really helpful! This has given me a lot of ideas.
Cheers!
Glad to help with my experience :)
Happy to chat more in detail -- seems like it is very similar to my work with
#addison
the main challenge with non-dev roles is the trust/authority factor -- people will place a bigger emphasis on the relationship.
How I kickstarted my fractional CFO work was mainly through "marketing through teaching", doing webinars, live workshops, and 1:1 coaching around startup finance and capital raising. This was in collaboration with accelerators and word-of-mouth. From here, I started building a brand/reputation in the startup community, and slowly got to convert attendees into formal engagements.
Currently, I am transitioning into more "aggressive" lead generation, meaning focusing more on outbound prospecting because it is more predictable and I can focus on higher quality leads (higher ticket and/or higher probability). "Marketing through teaching" is very good to establish yourself as a trusted expert, but it takes more time to build predictable momentum given that it is more of a "catch-all" method, and audience tends to lack immediate-intent.
I am still figuring out my outbound prospecting strategy, but I'd recommend you to have 2-3 lead magnets in the area which you're looking to focus on and start doing outreach to your target customer profile.
Take a look at companies that have recently joined or graduated from accelerator companies, or recently vc-backed companies. Those could be good targets for you to start with.
This is really hepful! I appreciate the detailed response.
#upgroves umbrella.
"Marketing through teaching" (or showing) is more or less the approach I was looking to follow.
Yeah recently funded companies are looking for ways to grow quickly. But I feel like I would need a couple of success cases first though. Did you do any free work at the beginning?
I want to leverage my LinkedIn audience to promote my service there. Hopefully all can fall within the
@Paulina Yes, I did about a year and a half of free work (while working FT); this was either comprised of workshops or 1:1s. From there, I started eventually getting paid for the 1:1s, and a few small engagements came out of the workshops.
Side Note: At that time I did not have at that time I did not have an engagement mechanism (newsletter or email marketing). So I didn't really have a system in place to nurture and convert relationships. That's where the 1:1s came in handy; but it was all passive (again -- at that time it was a side thing for me)