How to Start a Freelance Consulting Business: Tips and Tricks to Make It Work

Are you thinking of starting a consulting business and monetizing your expertise? Freelancing is the perfect opportunity for you to monetize your skills and become an independent consultant. You can work on projects that excite you and get paid for them when you want. Sounds exciting, right? But before taking that leap, it’s important that you first identify what sets a consulting business apart from other kinds of businesses. A consultancy is a business that provides expert advice to other companies for a fee. There are several types of consulting businesses out there that employ different types of consultants, including strategy consultants, management consultants, marketing consultants, and so on. Each is a specialist field with its own unique set of challenges. 

How to Turn Your Expertise into a Business

If you want to start a consulting business, the first step is to identify your competitive advantage. What do you do better than anyone else? What do you have that others don’t? These are your competitive advantages. They are the differentiating factors that will attract customers to you and your business. Once you’ve identified your competitive advantage, it’s time to translate it into a business idea. Consulting companies can be a rather extensive lot, so let’s start with a few examples to get the juices flowing. 

If your competitive advantage is in your subject-matter expertise, you’re in an excellent place to start a consulting business. You could, for example, help startups and small businesses build their marketing strategy and implement it. 

Likewise, if your competitive advantage is in your ability to lead a team and manage a business, you could start a consulting firm around that. You could, for example, provide consulting services to startups looking to take on the next round of funding.

 Lastly, if your competitive advantage is in your ability to close deals and negotiate with clients, you could start a consulting venture centered around that. You could, for example, become a strategic advisor to CEOs of large companies looking to cultivate their sales teams.

What to Know Before Starting a Consulting Business

Freelancing is a risky business. You’ll need to put in long hours, face tons of competition, and set up a sustainable and scalable business model. There’s no doubt that starting a consulting business is a long and challenging process. With that in mind, here are a few things you should know before you get started. 

Know your client’s needs inside and out since there are so many different consulting businesses. To succeed as a consultant, you’ll need to understand your client’s needs inside and out. You need to know exactly what challenges they’re facing, why they’re dealing with them, and how you can help them overcome them. 

Stay organized and on top of your marketing efforts since freelancing has been a hustle from day one. You’ll need to put in long hours marketing your business and networking. You’ll also need to stay on top of your administrative efforts, like keeping track of your finances, managing your invoicing, and tracking your time. 

And of course, be patient and don’t jump into a contract too quickly since starting a consulting business is a long and winding journey. You won’t get paid right away. Instead, you’ll have to invest time into building relationships, pitching your services, and marketing yourself to find your first clients.

How to Start a Freelance Consulting Business: Tips and Tricks to Make It Work

Be clear about your value proposition

If you’re offering consulting services, you need to be clear about what you’re offering and how you’re helping your clients. This is your value proposition. It’s what you need to be crystal clear about before you even think about bringing on a client. Let’s use the marketing strategy consulting example from earlier. If your value proposition is, “I help startups build out their marketing strategy and implement it,” you need to be clear on how you plan to do that. You’ll also need to clearly articulate that value proposition to clients. You’ll need to be able to say it in person, put it in writing, and display it on your website. Clients evaluating several consultants, they’ll typically look for a few things. They’ll want to know your value proposition, how you’re different from your competitors, and how you’ll help them solve their problems. You won’t get the contract if they can’t clearly understand why they should hire you.

Be prepared to hustle

Freelancing will not be easy. With all the competition, you’ll need to hustle and work hard to find and keep clients. You’ll need to work long hours and push yourself beyond your comfort zone. If you’re not ready to hustle and put in long hard hours, you’ll probably fail as a consultant. Not only do you need to be prepared to take on client after client, but you also need to be ready to constantly promote your business, find new clients, and put in long hours. 

Go all-in on marketing and networking

As we mentioned earlier, you’ll need to put in a lot of effort marketing your business. It would help if you were relentless in your marketing efforts — sending emails, making calls, and networking like crazy. It would help if you networked with potential clients when you’re not actively marketing your business. You must attend conferences, join groups, and meet with people. You need to be constantly pitching yourself to potential clients. It would help if you worked your network to find as many clients as possible. It would help if you also worked your network to get referrals and recommendations from your clients. You need to be constantly putting in the effort to find new clients and new business. Finally, it would help if you worked your network and marketing efforts around the clock. It would help if you constantly found new ways to promote your business and get your name out there. And speaking of your name, branding is everything when it comes to marketing your company well. You will need to have a memorable name and brand for your firm so when it comes to naming a consulting business, make sure you pick the right one.

Don’t forget about your bottom line

While you must put in long hours and hard work, you must also ensure you’re profitable. You must ensure you’re pricing your services appropriately for your experience level. You need to make sure you’re not taking on clients that you know you can’t handle, and you need to make sure that you don’t overwork yourself. You must ensure you are leaving enough time for running a business’s administrative work. You need to make sure you have a healthy and sustainable balance between time spent on marketing, networking, and finding new clients and time spent on administrative tasks. You’ll burn yourself out if you don’t have a healthy balance. You’ll also find that you’re not profitable enough to support yourself and your business.

Wrapping up

If you love what you do and are good at it, then freelancing and starting a consulting business might be your dream. Consulting offers you the flexibility to work on your terms, choose the projects you want to work on, and charge your rates. While there are many benefits to freelancing, it’s important to remember that it is a challenging lifestyle that requires a lot of strategic planning and hustle to succeed. If you’re ready to leap, ensure you understand what makes a consulting business different from other kinds of companies, and be prepared to hustle!

How to Start a Freelance Consulting Business: Tips and Tricks to Make It Work