Business growth should be part of your plans from day one. Your business growth should come most frequently from increased marketing, better customer service, referrals, or improvements to your product or service line-up (according to our target market’s needs). But that’s not the only place that business growth can come from. Consulting is an excellent opportunity to grow your business.
Now, let me make one thing clear: I’m not suggesting that you replace better marketing, better customer service, and improvements to your product line-up- those are important to do and you should consider them the first priority when building your business. But there will come a time when you want to increase your business but find yourself at a plateau. Often, the plateau is the result of just enough customers to keep you very busy (but not enough to warrant hiring someone else)- or just enough capital to make your business profitable (but not enough to allow you to build out any more capacity at the moment).
Also read: How to Set Your Consulting Rates
Consulting may be the way to build your business. Although consulting can take time (which is billable), it often doesn’t take a lot of additional capital or assets to perform.
But who do you consult for? Depending on the types of consulting you do, it is likely that you may be able to take your expertise out of your own market and bring it to similar service providers in other markets. So, if you pave driveways and have had a lot of success in the upscale market, why not consult among other driveway pavers and sealers who operate in other (non-competing) upscale markets around the country?
If consulting outside your market is not an option, consider consulting to non-competing businesses inside your market. The same driveway sealer may be able to provide sales assistance consultation to other trades looking to break into the upscale market.
There are many benefits to adding consulting to your portfolio:
- Of course, the first benefit is the income you’ll earn for your time.
- The second benefit is a deeper knowledge of your industry or market. If you consult in a similar industry in non-competing markets, you’ll learn a lot about your industry and you will likely gain additional ideas to help you build your own business. If you consult in non-competing industries regarding a shared market, you’ll learn more about your market and how other businesses succeed (or fail) within that market.
- The third benefit is value of expertise: depending on what you do, customers may be more likely to hire someone who doesn’t just do business but consults to help others do business better. That doesn’t actually require any additional marketing effort on your behalf- just include it in your current marketing material that you consult with other companies.
- The fourth benefit is the potential for more non-consulting (core competency) work: By becoming THE name in your industry, you will be at the “top of mind” for your consulting clients so that, if they are ever too busy to accept a job, they may recommend your services to one of their customers.
