Getting Started in Consulting, 4th Edition

Chapter 5 Finding the Economic Buyer

We’ve covered the basics regarding mindset and support, logistics and legal, administrative and financial. These structures and relationships are important in your stability to generate and sustain business.

So now let’s talk about how to obtain business, because you can’t pay the mortgage or the rent with administrative support or positive vibes.

Saint Paul Was the First Virtual Marketer

Historically, we’d know very little about the advent of Christianity without Paul (originally Saul of Tarsus), who wrote extensively about the people and times of the person known as Jesus. Of the 27 New Testament books, 13 are attributed to Paul, and approximately half of Acts of the Apostles deals with Paul’s life and works. Thus, about half of the New Testament stems from Paul and the people whom he influenced after his conversion on the road to Damascus.

I raise his exploits because he would travel, mostly by foot, to the Corinthians, Romans, Hebrews, Colossians, and so forth, and preach. And in so doing he would tell them to go to preach to others, and so on. Without anything resembling technology, he was able to spread the word. And, in fact, within 300 years of the death of Jesus, what we now call Christianity had grown from a dozen followers to 60 million within the Roman Empire. This growth was exponential, far more than could be expected from normal communications and conversions.¹

That incredible growth was an example of early viral marketing. ...