How to make money from consulting?
Consulting is advising business representatives to solve financial, legal, managerial and other problems. If you have been thinking about how to make money from consulting, read this article. In it, we share tips to help you do it faster.
Before you spend time learning the steps involved in starting a career, learn about what consulting is and what a consultant actually does. Often such concepts are rather vague, because they are used in different areas.
For example, a company often hires an expert for a specific short-term project, or a consultant may work as a freelancer for hire. In other cases, such a specialist works full-time, performing the tasks of an analyst. By working for an individual, you are more likely to help them with the first steps towards starting a startup. In a larger company, you are more likely to work in a team and solve specific business problems.
How to start?
Firstly, if you understand what business consulting is and want to make money on it, you need to get an education, at least graduate from a bachelor’s degree.
For employers, it is not enough for a specialist to have only work experience. Since working as a consultant often means a high level of expertise, a master’s degree is the best course of action.
However, keep in mind that large companies are most often looking for a person who is both educated and has work experience. If you have both, define your niche, that is, a specialized segment of the market for a particular type of product or service.
This will be one of the most important decisions you will make: it will determine the way forward, the types of clients you will work with, tasks and salary.
By choosing one direction, you will find more customers who will pay more. Narrow specialization allows to solve problems qualitatively. Consider areas such as setting up sales funnels, recruiting, business automation, working with social networks.
Offer people something that will be the answers to their questions and the solutions to their problems. Think about what you can do for others. Perhaps you will deal not just with social networks, but specialize in maintaining social networks for elite restaurants. Spend time researching what people in your niche are asking for. Then move on to the next tips.
Where do you want to work: for yourself or for a company
Depending on where you work, your daily tasks will differ. You can work for a big business, or you can work for yourself. There are more detailed options, each with its own advantages and disadvantages.
For example, large consulting firms use well-developed and clear methods of consulting. Their curriculums are usually clear and they will always provide you with enough work. They often open doors for long-term career advancement. On the other hand, you will have to take on a lot of routine tasks in order to climb the proverbial ladder.
Small companies are most often looking for highly specialized specialists, each of whom excels in solving specific business problems or in specific industries. As a rule, in such firms, work is more interesting and calm. Here you will have more chances to learn something from the masters and find partners. In addition, they have much less bureaucracy, as there is a smaller team. However, working in such a firm, you do not have to rely on fame or get to know the best in the business.
You can work in a division of a company, such as IBM. As a rule, there are good teaching methods, proven work algorithms, proven career paths. Of the minuses: most often you have to sell services as a product. Sometimes you will notice that you are forcing something on the client that they do not need.
Freelance consultants are in complete control of their business. You choose how to work with clients, which training opportunities to use, which projects to take on. The best part is that you get most of the profits. That being said, almost every advantage of the freelance lifestyle can be a disadvantage: it can be quite difficult to come up with everything yourself, find clients and convince them that you are worth hiring.
How much is your work worth
So, you have understood what you want to do and where to work. Any client will ask you how much your services cost: there are always those who work for low wages and those who are in demand and charge hundreds of dollars per hour.
It can be difficult to understand how much you can earn with the skills that you have. Luckily, a few good rules of thumb can help aspiring freelancers with this.
1 Double the amount you think is offensive. Ask yourself what is the lowest salary you would work for, what salary would make you dislike this job? If it’s 1000 per day, then look for ways to earn at least 2000 per day.
2 Drop three zeros. Close your eyes and imagine an ideal but realistic annual salary. Now divide it by two and discard three zeros. In other words, if your ideal salary is 1,000,000 🪙 per year, you will earn 40 thousand per month.
3 Research competitors: sell not at the highest, but not at the lowest price, find a middle ground.
Now look for the first clients. Search job sites, follow networking events where you can find new partners, find out where people who might need your services often go.
Create attractive offers and talk about them, become known in your industry. Even when you have made some progress, keep learning. Try to take different orders from time to time to expand your comfort zone. Learn from every project.
Qualities of a good professional
The qualities of a good specialist can vary depending on the niche. For example, financial consulting requires the skill of analytics, and marketing consulting obliges you to know everything about advertising. On the other hand, there are skills that are in demand everywhere.
Here are some of the qualities that make a professional stand out when it comes to applying their skills to the real world, rather than their diplomas and work experience:
- They see the “big picture" of how the organization works as a whole and understand how each part fits together. This helps them understand what is needed to run the business as a whole.
- They have excellent communication skills and can get along with anyone.
- A professional can admit his mistakes, especially if the failed work was based on his advice and opinions.
- They can find, analyze significant amounts of data, and share ideas clearly and quickly with others.
- They understand how changes will affect the entire activity of the company, what and how will affect a large-scale project.
Some of these skills are much easier to develop if you practice them. Try to constantly work on becoming better at each of them, and clients will not keep you waiting long.