Anyone can start a consulting company, if you have experience, specialized knowledge, expertise, or interest in a specific area and if you know how/where/from whom to find the needed information. Whether you're a housewife, mechanic, gardener, engineer or teacher, you have knowledge that is salable.
Consulting can be an exciting and profitable business, can enable you to pick the type of employment that most interests you. You can also work full or part-time. You set your own hours. You are your own boss. Consulting is also a low start-up investment business.
Of course, as with any business there is no guarantee of income or clients, nevertheless, if you have expert information and are a self-starter, then this is quite possibly your type of business. If you are a retired person seeking some type of part-time employment, consulting is ideal.
The American Heritage Dictionary defines to consult as "to seek advice or information of." A consultant, then is a person who gives expert advice as a profession. If you're looking for freedom, independence, and creativity in the work that you do, then you can built your profession around consulting.
You can consult by writing articles, booklets, and ebooklets, you can consult via email or telephone and/or you can consult in person. To consult in person you must have excellent communications and people skills, have enthusiasm, and the ability to sell or market yourself and your consulting services.
Almost every person reading this article has an area in which they can offer their consultation services and their expertise. People want to improve themselves in all kinds of areas. Hence the popularity of "how to" and "information" books, booklets, ebooks, and ebooklets. These are generally the top-selling books. How to and informational articles are also popular.
You can offer your consulting services to individuals, groups, and companies. You can even consult on how to set up a consulting company.
Let's say you're a business professional. What are the areas of your knowledge? Start-up companies, fundraising, financing, business management, market analysis, advertising, import/export, etc. Then you can consult in these areas.
A freelance writer can consult on writing projects. A housewife might consult on refinishing bathrooms or organizing household finances, a gardener might consult on almost any gardening project, including container gardening or landscaping. If you're an excellent reader, you can consult on literacy or teaching literacy.
Your type of consulting company depends upon your knowledge and your personality type. To have your own business you must know how to work according to a schedule and be self-motivated. Your personality type determines whether you consult via writing, mail or email, telephone, or in person. In addition your client must be amenable to your type of consultation. For example, if your client only wants in person consultation and you consult via telephone only, then this is not your client.
As a consultant, your demeanor must always be professional and your consultant service must be run and managed as a business, whether home-based or office-based.
Guidelines on selecting a consultant field
Write down the area(s) in which you have expert knowledge, and/or you have ready access to expert knowledge and information. These should also be areas in which you are interested in consulting with clients either in writing, via email, mail, telephone, and/or in person.
For possible consulting areas look through the yellow pages, classified ads, and consultant's directories. These suggest areas in which you yourself can specialize.
In general, make a list of the things that people want to know. For example--how to save money? how to spend money? how to make money? how to invest? how to garden? how to read? how to cook? how to clean house more efficiently? what are the most nutritious foods? how to order wine at a gourmet restaurant? how to buy antiques? how to write how to books? Do you have expertise in any of these areas?
Go to Amazon.com
. Make a list of how-to books. Do you have expertise in any of these areas. Include these books in your consultant's library.
Ways of getting clients
Advertise advertise advertise. In addition, you need to have testimonials from satisfied clients. Consider writing a series of articles and/or self-publish a book on your area(s) of expertise. These articles, books or booklets can be sold and/or distributed free to potential clients.
Low-cost advertising includes press releases, classified ads, brochures, postcards, etc.
For information on financing, bookkeeping, licensing, supplies and equipment there are many small business books that provide useful information for every type of small business including consulting. These books are available from Amazon.com or your local bookseller. In addition there are many books on computer consulting, business consulting, investment consulting, travel consulting, franchise consulting, home-improvement consulting, self-improvement consulting, career and job consulting, advertising and marketing consulting, and consulting opportunities in general. You can also find many free guides on consulting and free articles online.
Being a consultant is not simply knowing but you must have the ability to do research to find out what you don't know, including interviewing other experts.
Fees
You can charge by the hour or per day. For example a consultant might charge $20-$100 per hour or up to $500 per day. If you consult in writing, then the consultation fee is the cost of the book or ebook. If you write articles as information resources, then these articles can be the basis of your consultation and can be easily revised as books, booklets, ebooks, or ebooklets and self-published at Lulu Press
or Xlibris
.
