Five quick ways to boost your consulting practice

​Are you leveraging your strengths to build business?
 
Every consultant wants to bring in more work. But there’s a difference between those who do and those who simply want.
 
Business development is not a binary effort. It’s multifaceted. That is, you don’t “turn to it” one day, and “set it aside” another. Similarly, there’s no single “switch” to flip to drive in more traffic. (If only it were that easy!)
 
Like an engine, your business development needs all its parts in order to work. True, you could yank out a spark-plug cable and a V-8 will keep sputtering along, but—to play out the “engine” analogy—let’s pare this down to its most important components.
 
1. Finish with a flourish.
 
Whatever you’re working on now is an opportunity to generate more work. We’ve written about this before, but here’s a twist on that theme: Go for the standing ovation. That imagery was chosen on purpose. You don’t want to simply (!) check off all your deliverables as “done” and then submit your invoice. Leave them wanting more.
 
This is very doable. Of course, it’s a rare project that accomplishes everything a client would ever need; that’s why reports usually (read: “should”!) conclude with a “Next Steps” section. That’s a sell.
 
But you can also think of the order in which you deliver your deliverables. If there are, say, five things you’re required to hand in, ask yourself: “Which is the sexiest?” Which one will really interest the client the most? That’s the one you save for last, if you can. That’s the one you finish with. That’s the one that will leave them wanting more. Create the opportunity for yourself—and then seize it.
 
2. Don’t fish when you’re hungry.
 
While this may be the most obvious precept, it’s probably the hardest to hew to. You don’t—you can’t—compromise the quality of your work when you’re “in the black hole,” yet you still need to replenish that pipeline at all the time. So how do you do it?
 
Here’s one way to think about it: Exercise. While, ostensibly, there’s never any time in the day for that workout, you still manage to squeeze it in, don’t you? Why? It may feel good. It may burn off stress. But most likely, you simply know that it’s something you need to do. So while “there’s no time” to do it… you still do it. You create the time for it.
 
If the “physical exercise” analogy doesn’t hit close to home for you, there are others. Think of things you do that you simply need to do, all the time. Like eating. Keeping your car fueled. Brushing your teeth. Yes, these all take time, but you make time for them. Treat your biz-dev as equally essential.
 
3. Be sociable.
 
Social media is an essential element of your business-building efforts. Some people enjoy this aspect more than others; some people leave fingernail marks as they’re dragged into it. But from the “minimum-effort-to-maximize-the-system” standpoint, you don’t have to do all that much. See what kinds of groups your clients belong to on LinkedIn, then join those same groups. Chime in on a conversation that piques your interest. Post a link to a news story you found interesting.
 
Don’t expect instant or overwhelming results. But stay with it; the effect is cumulative. And the web is, well, big. You might be surprised, pleasantly, by how many people listen to what you have to say.
 
4. Build a backlog.
 
This is sort of a riff on Point 2 above, but it’s tuned to blogs. Case in point: We wrote this blog post only about an hour before you clicked on it. Or did we write it a month before you clicked on it? The answer is: You can’t tell. While we’ve written before about how to create an editorial calendar for your blogs, it’s nice to know that you can, more often than not, pre-fill it. Unless your blog is about a just-breaking news story, you can craft it during your down time, and no reader will know. Indeed, they’ll tacitly appreciate the extra time you had to give it that extra layer of polish.
 
5. Do low-tech CRM.
 
While we’re certainly fans of cutting-edge/SaaS-enabled solutions like Salesforce.com, we also believe there’s a viable old-school way to keep those leads from growing cold, especially if you’re a solopractitioner or are working in a boutique shop. It may sound embarrassingly simple, but all you need to do is select an interval at which you think it’s appropriate to “shake the trees,” and then make contact accordingly.
 
Just populate your calendar. If Client A said, “Check back with me this summer,” add that to-do for June 1st. If Client B said, “We’re going to be going crazy when that trade show comes up,” hit them up early and offer to help. For the others who haven’t provided business for a while but are still good leads regardless, touch base with them on, say, a quarterly basis. Drop them an email. Forward them a link to an article they may like. Depending upon your relationship with them and the geography, there’s even (gasp!) the phone and (double gasp!) lunch. Think of it this way: What’s the worst that could happen if you take that approach? You could either 1) have a nice conversation, or 2) a nice meal. How horrible is that?
 
6. There’s a “6”?
 
Of course. Tips 1 - 5 assume you’re doing all this yourself. Tip 6 is “Get help.” If you’re wondering how we know so much about all these precepts, it’s because we help our clients succeed at them all the time. Contact us and we can help you build your business, too. 

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