Marieta Lean Consultant Legal Sector
Hello Professionals,
I am interested to understand more what are the good practices when starting to build a consultancy from scratch?
1. What are the initial steps to think of?
2. How do you make the strategy?
3. Are there any specifics to prepare and think in advance of?
If some of you have ever taken part in a project like that- I would appreciate your thoughts and knowledge sharing.
Many thanks,
Marieta
Colin SME Exit Strategist
Hello Marieta,
This is an interesting and highly relevant question. As automation and lean processes spread across the Corporate sector, more people are finding themselves redundant, and at an earlier age.
I encourage people thinking about developing a self-employed consultancy practise to start on their business plan while still in full-time employment. In my experience, most people underestimate how long they will require to build a sustainable revenue stream. This is especiallly so if they have no direct experience of generating and closing their own opportunities.
The plan needs a clearly defined goal, which needs to be translated into a revenue objective. This in turn will dictate how many customers you need. Decide what your ideal customer looks like, and try to recruit the first one or two before launching on your own. Self-employment can be very fulfilling, but it is better to plan for this and control the outcome yourself than to wait until your employer decides that it is time for you to go. More on this topic in my blog.
I would also encourage anyone starting out in self-employed consultancy to join a network of similar people. For example, in the UK I work with ibd Business Advice Group, which provides acreditation to self-employed business consultants.
I hope this is helpful, Colin
Alex Data Analyst
Hello Marieta
Nowadays it is very easy to start a consulting business, the job is simple, you are interested in the situation of the company and you are using your experience to provide the best advice to help the company „grow”.
But of course, if things were so easy, everyone would start such a business, the only difference is the passion and determination to create yourself an „efficient consulting” reputation. An efficient consultant needs to know every detail of the field in which he/she works, this makes the difference between good consultancy and bad consultancy.
Before you start your consultancy, you need to take a few steps:
- first of all you have to choose carefully the field of activity, as I said, it must be a field you are the best at because the managers will trust your advice…. And you don’t want to disappoint;
- secondly, a very important thing is if you need a special license to work in that field field, for example Prince II, 6 Sigma, Scrum Master.
- another important aspect is if you are enough organized to deal with the different business issues, if you think you can do it on your own, you can do it…. You can also create a company to work with other consultants to increase productivity;
- one aspect that you need to keep in mind is the competition, if you want to work in a „saturated” field of consultancies, you have to be good enough to get reputation and brand awareness;
- last but not least, you have to think about your goals. If you just want a consultancy to support and improve your main business or if you want to create a real consulting business, in either of these two cases you need some clear goals to follow.
The field of consulting has always been successful and does not involve a lot of costs, it actually involves as much cost as you want, for example, advertising costs and marketing campaigns are great ideas for startups.
So, if you want to enter into consulting industry you need a little effort at first until your reputation will „speak” instead of you.
I hope it will help you!
Bring your startup/business/company
to the next level.
Marieta
Colin