Michele w interview with a consultant
- 1. Interview with a Consultant Michele W. January 23, 2015
- 2. XXX, Business Consultant XXX University Small Business Development Center May I introduce to you…
- 3. Question 1: How do you market your services? • Website www.XXX.edu/sbdc • Social Media https://www.facebook.com/XX XSmallBusiness https://twitter.com/XXXSBDC • Pitch presentations utilizing the whole SBDC team to identified partners in the industry. For example: Invited all lenders individually to learn about our services, and learn of theirs.
- 4. Question 1: How do you market your services? • Traditional media when necessary. Newspaper is effective for certain demographics. • Word of Mouth. Do not underestimate the power of referrals. Taking good care of existing clients invariably leads to them sending in another. • Follow-up. Stay in front of existing and potential clients regularly by utilizing email blasts, updates on social media, and civic engagements!
- 5. Question 2a: What approaches to marketing your services have proven to be most effective for you? Why? • Social Media has proven to be very effective means of getting younger clients in the door. Our society is moving at an incredible pace and expects immediate results and satisfaction. • Going to online intake forms with instantaneous feedback has streamlined the process and given clients insight into how they could have similar technology for their organizations.
- 6. Question 2b: What approaches to marketing your services have proven to be least effective? Why? • Social media is very ineffective for clients of a certain older age demographic that are not accustomed to using it. For these clients, traditional methods, including newspaper ads remain more effective than other forms. • It all comes down to identifying your audience. What is effective for one client demographic may be least effective for another.
- 7. Question 3: What have you learned about marketing consulting that you wished you had known when you started out? • Keep up with the changes, or your competition will have you for lunch. Too often we interact with a client that has incorporated the old “word of mouth” market plan for the last twenty years because it has always worked. Along comes an up and coming start up that incorporates the latest client management software, utilizes email blasts and effectively navigates the web and social media, and quickly takes market share from the sedentary business. • Today’s customer is more educated, less loyal, and willing to switch brands at the drop of a hat.
- 8. Question 4a: What unique challenges have you faced in marketing your consulting services based on the kind of consulting that you do? • What message are you giving your client? • Because our services are subsidized by three entities,(XXX, The Federal Small Business Administration and the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic development), the clients we interact with were always being told our services were free. In fact, they were never free, they were paid by another. Using the word free caused a perceived value issue for our clients. • How good could free consulting be?
- 9. Question 4b: How have you met those challenges? By modifying the message to “no cost” instead of free, we were able to keep values intact.
- 10. Question 5: What trends, if any, do you think exist that might be changing the way that consulting services are marketed? • Trends point to shared/partnered job opportunities in the future, where everyone is an independent consultant and industries only employ for the life of a project instead of the life of an individual. • I envision a future with consulting brokers that act as an intermediary to clients. They will help define the scope of the project and package it in such a way that multiple firms will be able to bid on it. • This is already happening in the technology field with application and web design. Expect it to spill over into other markets soon.
- 11. Question 6: What advice would you have for prospective consultants in taking advantage of those trends? • Focus on your pitch, specialize, and understand key differential advantages that your consulting business brings to the table over another. • If a collaborative brokering environment becomes the norm for selling consulting services, realize your audience has changed. • You are no longer selling your service to the end user, but an intermediary. Adjust accordingly!!
- 12. Question 7: Based on your experience, what advice would you give a prospective consultant about marketing? • Understand your product. • Understand your competition. • Be able to give examples of your work. • Polish your pitch. • Make sure your message is consistent on all sources of media used. • Identify and know your ideal client. Understand what buying principles drive them. Listen to their needs! • Don’t assume you know what the client wants.