Starting Your Offline Consulting Business, From Scratch

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Hi, I’m back. Sorry for not having been updating my blog for a while as I have been pretty busy being a stay-at-home-dad and spending lots of time taking care of my daughter. Being a parent and juggling my online business is not easy and I have made some tough decision to take things slowly and focusing on what I feel is more important to me right now.

So now, I’m back and I promise to share more about what I have been doing so you can benefit too.

I have received some emails asking me about how one can start building his offline consulting business and the questions which were asked were pretty similar.

Here are some of the questions:
– Where do I get prospects?
– How do I know what kind of services to sell?
– How can I get my first customer?
– Where can I learn about offline consutling?
– How do I make money from it?

During the past few months of “disappearing”, I was also helping out some of my students in their offline consultation business and they have successfully clinched their first projects with many more to come.

Here is exactly what my students did and this is something you can easily follow too, if you are looking for fast cashflow.

Step 1. Go through these 5 days free marketing e-course and watch the training videos at https://yoursalesplan.com/ (Just sign up, it is 100% free.)

Step 2. While going through the 5 days training, think of your direct network and those people who you know need online services.

For example, one of your friends, who owns a shop selling shoes, is keen to get an e-commerce website. Or one of your existing customers need a website to promote his home interior design service.

What you should do is to list down at least 10 names and the type of services they will require.
For example.

James – setting up a website
Susan – setting up a Facebook fan page
Travis – search engine optimisation service
John – redesign of his website

What this will do for you is to open up a list of business opportunity with the people You Know. And what matter most is they trust you and will more likely do business with you.

Step 3. Once your list is up, contact your prospects within 24 hours. Drop them an email like this.

“Hi James, this is John here.

How have you been?

I have recently started an offline consulting business and wondering if you know of anyone who will need more online exposure or will need a new website.

Thanks,
John”

You realise that in the email, you are not asking for business directly from James. It is less intimidating and intrusive. You are in fact askinf for referrals. And if James know of anyone who needs your service, he will know who to refer to. Yes, that person is YOU. And knowing James may need your service, he will know who to contact. And yes again, that person is YOU.

Step 4. The next step is to do consistent follow up.

When you are new and are just building your customer base, you will not likely have a proven track record. So you need to be genuine in helping your prospects out. Offer free consultation and show your prospects how much you know and care about his business.

However, having said this, not all your prospects will become your paying customers. Maybe only 10 to 20%. And this means that out of 10 prospects, only 1 to 2 will become your customers.

So the trick here is to keep on contacting more prospects.

Congratulation! Once you have reached step 4, you are and should be making some money.

What do you think of the 4 steps? How useful are they? Do you think it is easy for you to implement? I love to hear from you.

If you have any question regarding any of the steps, do leave your questions below and I will get back to you within a day.