The New Consultant's Quick Start Guide

9Marketing

In this chapter you will

• Create a marketing plan
• Explore creative marketing options on a shoestring budget
• Practice a step-by-step process to write a client proposal
• Develop a client tracking system

What Is Marketing?

Marketing is how you advertise, publicize, or otherwise inform others of your consulting services and products. Your goal is reached when clients purchase your services and products. You may be the best consultant in the world, but until others know about you and purchase what you have to offer, you will not have any business. Obviously you cannot just sit back with your stack of business cards and wait for the phone to ring. You must market your products and services. You must promote yourself.

Your first work may be work that your former employer asked you to complete when you left to begin your consulting business. It may be work that you obtained through members of your network. But you will not be able to depend on people you know to keep you in business. You must reach out to others. The reaching out is your marketing, and your marketing plan will help identify and organize how you will accomplish that.

In Chapter Eight you clarified your niche. Your niche focuses on two things important to your marketing plan. First, it identifies what range of products and services you provide. In other words, are you a generalist or a specialist? Second, it identifies the range of clients you serve. Do you serve a wide market or a narrow market? With this ...