How to Start a Consulting Business
10 step complete guide for starting a consulting business from scratch.
Look into area newspapers, radio stations, and local events where you can bring your brand to the people. Any outlet that makes sense for your business is one you should be seeking out.
Have early customers post their rave reviews everywhere that matters – your website, your social media platforms, and anywhere else where other potential customers will see them. Reward those early fans with special treats – access to special events, promotions, or discounts are always great, but even a handwritten thank you card can go a long way in turning a fan into a lifelong follower.
Another valuable (and easy to overlook!) marketing tool for your business are supporting photos, videos, and other visual evidence of your product or service in action.
Remember to let your target market experience as intimately as possible what it is you’re offering – give them a reason to remember your brand and seek you out. This means you’’ll need to put substantial care and effort into all of your branding materials because these images are often used on your website, social media marketing, and advertisements. And make sure you focus your efforts on your brand and target customers in mind with any marketing materials you create. Similarly, make sure that your photography, videos, and printed materials are professional, and that everything you put out represents your brand in an attractive, engaging light.
That doesn’t mean you need generic, overly stylized images – on the contrary; the more authentic the photos appear, the more likely it is they will engender trust in consumers.
As a new, up-and-coming business owner, social media is an inexpensive and easy outlet for terrific exposure for all of the beautiful material you’re creating. Maintaining Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook presence are important tactics to build a following and connect with your market niche. With the advent of micro-influencers, the potential reach a new business now has is truly massive.
Your number one priority should be to deliver a quality product or service.
A poor product or service experience will completely undermine your efforts to build long-term customer relationships. No one wants to spend money on crap. And, they certainly won’t do it twice. So make sure your product is delivering an awesome experience.
Your business’s service or product sits in the middle of a web of other peripherals that make up the overall user experience. The shipping or scheduling process, the product packaging, the demeanor of the service technician at your door or support representative on the phone, the refund policy and/or return shipping… All of these and more make up the complete user experience.
If you truly want to embed your brand into your customers’ lives, you need to do a friction-check on all of these processes. Every aspect of the user experience should be as effortless as possible and a pleasure to experience.
Make sure you have a professionally designed company logo, not a generic template used by thousands of other businesses. And, improve the user interface on your custom business website by making navigation easy.
Make placing an order or scheduling a service even easier. And prominently display contact information for your customer support team.
Make shipping and returns free if you can, and accept multiple forms of payment. And, allow customers to store their payment info on your site so they don’t need to re-enter it every time they want to make a purchase.
Think through every customer touch-point and make it as pleasant as possible. Removing peripheral friction removes the motivation to look elsewhere for a better product or service.
It’s more cost-effective to sell to existing customers than it is to acquire new ones. If you want to grow your business quickly, focus some of your marketing efforts on gaining repeat sales from your current customers. Two great strategies for engaging with existing customers are remarketing ads and email campaigns.
Remarketing ads target users who have already visited your website. This means that the people receiving these ads are the people who are likely to be the most receptive to your message – because they’ve already sought out your business on their own.
An eye-catching ad design steeped in your visual brand will help to keep your business on your customer’s minds. Pair that compelling design with a valuable offer and customers will flock to your site to take advantage.
The way people access the internet has changed. Over the years, the number of users accessing the internet from computers has declined, while more and more people access the internet from their mobile devices.
If your business is serious about achieving rapid growth, then you need to embrace the landing page.
A landing page is a web page specifically devoted to a single product or offer. And unlike your traditional website homepage, every element is laser-focused on a single call to action and intentionally designed to convert.
So, feature each marketing offer and product with a unique landing page on your website.
You may even want to consider creating landing pages for specific target audiences. This way, people who search for your product online will be taken to a webpage that caters to their needs and perspectives.
For every eCommerce store, the shopping cart is the final barrier between a prospective customer and a sale. And, shopping cart abandonment is an issue that all eCommerce businesses face. Customers load up their carts with items and then promptly disappear.
There are many reasons for cart abandonment – shipping price shock, a confusing check-out process, and using the cart for storage with the intent of purchasing later, are just a few. But, great design can help you nudge those almost-sales into actual sales. Even the most minor inconveniences can drive some customers away. And, these inconveniences are your guideposts for improvement.
Redesign your shopping cart interface to eliminate any friction points. Remember that simple is better than complex. And, transparency is better than mystery.
The less your customers have to do, the happier they’ll be. They’ll also appreciate knowing where they are in the check-out process and how much remains left to do.
Smart design improvements for the user experience can help tip those 'almost-there' shoppers into loyal customers. And, that’s going to grow your eCommerce business fast.
People are social creatures. We all want to belong. And, seeing other people to whom we can relate sharing a certain opinion encourages us to share that opinion, too.
When designing your eCommerce website, be sure to leave room for customer testimonials and reviews. Testimonials and reviews show that others have gone before and were happy that they did. This will give new customers the confidence to take the plunge, too. Take a look at how we showcase crowdspring reviews on our own site, as an example.
Your brand identity is your company’s public identity. Ideally, your brand should embody the best (and most essential) attributes of your company. That’s pretty unlikely to occur if you leave your branding to chance.
Start by making deliberate, informed choices about what elements of your company’s personality and service philosophy should be featured. And once you’ve laid the groundwork, the key to branding success is consistency.
Customers can’t get to know and trust your business if they don’t have the opportunity to experience your brand in a consistent manner.
An easily recognized brand benefits from mere exposure. The more customers are exposed to something – a product, a service, or your brand – the more inclined they are to like it.
Consistent branding also increases your company’s perceived value. Perceived value, or the worth a customer assigns to a product or service in their mind, determines how much customers are willing to pay for that product or service.
10 step complete guide for starting a consulting business from scratch.
A complete, 11 step guide on how to start a real estate business.
A complete 6 step guide to starting a cleaning business.
6 step comprehensive guide for starting a successful clothing brand or clothing line.
A complete, 9 step guide on how to start a brewery business.
The ultimate 9 step guide on how to start a medical cannabis dispensary business.
The ultimate 9 step guide on how to open an Etsy shop.
A complete, 10 step guide on how to start a photography business.
What you need to know if you want to stake your business claim in the Lone Star State.
A step-by-step guide to take your business online.
Choose from 30+ categories, complete a project brief, and pick a package that fits your budget.
Collaborate with dozens of creatives, give feedback and score, and get revised custom designs.
Work with the winner to finalize your favorite design and get print/web-ready files and full IP rights.
Not into crowds?
Pick a creative and work 1-to-1
Crowdspring is an online design platform linking businesses like yours with over 220,000 design and naming experts. Instead of investing over $10,000 with a branding agency - or paying an unknown freelancer for a single design you hope you like - crowdspring delivers dozens of custom designs to choose from for every project. With over 12 years of experience, we’re the reliable, affordable solution for small business.
Here’s everything you need to know about the important principles and theories that can supercharge your marketing and influence people to buy your products or services.
There are many ways to start a new business with no money. The most effective, for many people, is to bootstrap their new startup until they can transition to working on the new business full time.
You can assess what you can do for free, build up some savings, ask friends and family for a loan or investment, apply for a small business loan, look for small business grants or other funding opportunities, and find potential angel investors.
Here’s a video with 5 tips on how you can bootstrap your new business, even if you don’t have money to start it right away.
The difference between a business owner succeeding or failing is the foundation you build when you first start your business. That’s because you should prepare thoroughly before starting a business. And you should know how to adapt to changing situations – as often happens when you run your own business. Here's a complete guide on how to start your business and grow it into a sustainable and profitable business.
Most small businesses can be started and operated without a big team. Other than salaries, the biggest expense for many new businesses is the marketing budget. But there are ways you can stretch that budget. For example, here are 21 ways to market your small business on a shoestring budget.
According to the most recent analysis by Sageworks, accounting, tax preparation, bookkeeping, and financial planning where the most profitable types of small businesses, returning an average profit margin of 18.4%. Real estate leasing, legal services, outpatient clinics, property managers, and appraisers, dental practices, offices of real estate agents and brokers, other health care practitioners, management, scientific and technical consulting services, and warehousing and storage rounded out the top 10 industries.
There is not a single path to entrepreneurship. Some start a company in high school, or even earlier. Others start something in college and sometimes drop out of college to pursue their dream. And others start in their 40s or 50s. Each person has a unique path. Here are some great ideas for beginners: home cleaning, blogging, photography, freelancing, child-care services, and running errands. Each entrepreneur, whether a beginner or an experienced business owner, starts with an idea and then executes that idea.
But, coming up with a viable, profitable business idea can be tough. Here’s a guide to brainstorming and evaluating business ideas.
There are many businesses that are relatively easy to start. These include event planning, gardening and lanscape services, painting, yoga or other exercise instruction, local tour guides, tutoring, and many others.
2020 was an unusual year. With the global pandemic, people have been forced to get creative when starting businesses. This will continue in 2021. Many look to start businesses that can be operated online. These include online courses and coaching, graphic design, web development, instagram influencer, affiliate marketing, and many others.
There are many businesses you can run from your own home. These include affiliate businesses, selling on Ebay or Etsy, baking, freelance writing, freelancer design, freelance coding, helping businesses as a social media influencer, and many more.
Three of the most common challenges managers and companies face when managing remote teams and ways you can overcome those challenges.
Learn why registering a DBA (Doing Business As) name could be the right decision for your business.
Here are 6 tips to turn your hobby into a successful business.
How to land and keep the first customers for your new startup or small business.
Turn your business into a strong brand so that you can grow your small business or startup faster.
Here’s what you need to know about content marketing for your small business
Here are 12 quick marketing tactics you can execute in one hour or less.
7 proven customer service tips to help you put smiles on your customers’ faces.
13 ways that you can better manage your customers’ expectations, create loyal brand followers, and grow your business faster than ever.
Neuroscience can help you to make better marketing decisions and can help you to improve your marketing strategy.
Reasons why you need to expand your online presence and actionable tips to help you do it.
Why your office may be hurting your company.
We're happy only when you are.
Our support team is always ready to help you with a free, no obligation design consultation.