Calling All New Consultants - Sell A Service, Not Yourself

Leave your ego by the wayside and focus on selling the right services.

Entering The New World of Consulting

Let’s imagine you’ve got great experience working for a big brand and now you’ve decided to leverage that experience to become a consultant in your industry. 

Surely plenty of companies out there can benefit from your many years of wisdom? You might even have a shortlist of companies you know aren’t doing a great job and can improve. You’ve seen other people do it, so why not you? 

This is how many consultants think about the challenge before them. It’s understandable, but it’s just plain wrong. 

Recognise The Challenge Before You

Here is a more realistic way of thinking about the challenge ahead.

You’re about to jump into a highly competitive industry with competitors who have a huge head start on you. They’re better at selling than you are. They have dozens of case studies and testimonials on their website. They know what to charge and how to structure costs to help the proposal be accepted. They know how to sell to bigger brands. 

And they’re a lot better networked than you are. They’ve been building their relationships and connections over the years. They have a much bigger reputation than you.

Here comes the real kicker. They’re also better at consulting than you. They’ve been doing it for longer and have refined a set of tools and techniques you don’t yet have. Head to head, they are a better consultant than you.

So why would any brand hire you - the person with less consulting experience, a weaker track record, and less knowledge about how to work with top brands? 

Faced with this knowledge, many new consultants seem to make the same repetitive mistake. They start talking about how great they are and their many years of experience at their past employer. Don’t do this. There is a better way!

Sell A Service, Not Yourself

Here is the single biggest piece of advice I can give you right now.

You’re not ‘becoming a consultant’, you’re starting a business. 

You need to

1. Develop unique products.

2. Make customers aware of those products.

3. Persuade them to buy that product. 

You are not the product, your services are the products.

Most consultants fall into the same trap of promoting themselves and their past experience. They should be promoting the unique services they’re offering.

There is a big difference between selling ‘Richard Millington’ and selling highly targeted services. For example:

• 3-Month Team Training Package 

• Comprehensive CRM Platform Migration

• Launching A New CRM From Scratch

There are no shortage of services you can offer and new niches you can explore (or even create!).

An acquaintance of mine sells confidence training. He evaluates the current level of confidence and builds a work plan internally to improve it. He sells it as a staff confidence booster service. All his marketing is aligned with the importance of building confidence.

Another acquaintance sells brand alignment consultancy to ensure all a brand’s assets are aligned, consistently used, and staff are trained to use it.

Another sells ‘low hanging fruit’ SEO services for organisations that can’t afford full audits and technical implementations.

There are all specific services. They each appeal to specific audiences. They might not be the right services but we will talk about that later. The key thing, for now, is to know you need to sell your services - not yourself.