5 Steps to Building a 6-Figure Consultancy Stop trading your time for money, and start trading value for money.
By Christian Martin Edited by Dan Bova
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
One of the strongest traits of the most successful entrepreneurs I know is the ability to boil down the complicated into something simple. It's like having the ability to turn a 1,000-piece puzzle into just five pieces.
These entrepreneurs are be able to see the big picture and the three to five essential actions, that if taken daily, will get them the result they want. Here are the five things you need to focus on to get to a six-figure a year coaching or consulting business.
1. Create a high value offer for a specific niche.
Most of you are probably struggling to scale your businesses because you don't serve a specific niche or solve a painful problem for them.
Generalists offer their services to anyone and do anything for a quick dollar. Specialists, on the other hand, solve specific, painful problems for one particular group of people, using a repeatable system that changes everything.
Your market will respond to your offer because the market will think "that's me" when they hear the offer.
You can charge based on results instead of your time, which means you go from charging $100 per hour to charging $3,000 to $10,000 per customer.
2. Research your audience.
When you start to serve one particular group of people, it makes it much easier to reach that group. If you're a digital marketing consultant, who helps small businesses with Google Adwords, you really have no idea where those people are hanging out.
If you are a digital marketing consultant who helps dentists grow their practice by 20 percent to 50 percent each month using digital marketing, then you're going to have an easier time figuring out where these people hang out. You can hang out in (or start) Facebook groups that cater to dental marketing. You can look up dentist directories, and reach out to dental practices with your offer. You can search dentists on LinkedIn. Anywhere that dentists hang out, you can find potential customers.
Related: How to Start a Consulting Business
3. Learn to sell transformation.
Most coaches and consultants making under $10,000 per month try to sell themselves, their methods or their process, when in actuality, all the client cares about is results. Consider the two following value propositions:
- I am a Google Adwords expert, focusing on dentists.
- I help dental practices grow revenues by 20 percent to 50 percent each month using digital marketing.
The dentist doesn't really care that you use Google Adwords. In fact, it makes his life, and the decision to work with you a lot easier if he doesn't need to think about it. Talking about your methods will only confuse prospects. Talking about results will incite excitement.
When you make this switch, and you learn how to sell a new future instead of your method, you can raise your prices, and you'll close a lot more deals.
Related: The Pros and Cons of Starting an Online Consulting Business
4. Provide a repeatable process to deliver results.
Many service providers I know secretly dread bringing on a new client. They know it's going to mean a lot more work, stress and complexity for them. It's another person to think about and another business that they are responsible for.
The best coaches and consultants offer one repeatable process to deliver results. That means they spend their time working on their process and producing systems instead of working on someone else's business.
They are working on their business instead of in their business. For most of you, this often looks like a 12-week group coaching program with online content, a Facebook group and weekly group calls.
When you get this, you'll actually get excited about sales calls. You will enjoy the process of selling, and you'll be able to bring on as many new clients as you want.
Related: 6 Steps to Getting Your First Consulting Contract
5. Relax.
When you make these five shifts, it's likely that you won't know what to do with your time. Often you'll hit your revenue goals much faster and have a lot less to do. You'll wonder why you aren't busy all day, everyday like you used to be, and sometimes you'll feel like that means that something is wrong.
In reality, it just means that you have started to focus on the few things that produce the greatest result. Now, it's up to you to learn how to relax.
