by J. Stephen Pope
Here are just a few ways to increase and diversify your income from your consulting business.
1. Sell More Services to Your Existing Clients
Instead of spending all that time and money trying to get new business, why not try to sell more services to your existing client base?
If you are an accounting and tax consulting firm, for example, you likely have clients who need some assistance in their record keeping and documentation. In addition to your year-end tax services, could you provide monthly bookkeeping and financial statements, accounting system setups, training in accounting software, or other services to assist your client?
Monthly services, in addition to annually billed fees, will help you smooth out your cashflow and minimize the seasonal nature of your business.
2. Mass Market Your Advice by Productizing Your Services
Could you produce a folio, special report, newsletter, e-book, book, audio cassette, video, or course? If so, you could enjoy making money even when you’re not billing for your time. While asleep or on vacation, the sale of your information products could be generating additional income for you.
Sell such products through direct mail, mail order, exporting, and Internet marketing (your own website, your own affiliate programs, eBay auctions, and so on).
As well as the passive, residual income that information products can produce for you, they also help establish your credentials as an expert. This, in turn, produces more consulting opportunities for you.
3. Perform Group Consulting
Seminars, workshops, and teleclasses enable you to help many participants in a cost-effective manner. In addition to paying for admission, your attendees may also purchase some of your information products or even become your regular consulting clients.
4. Consider Additional Markets
Could you sell your consulting services to federal, state, provincial, or municipal governments? Could you be an expert trial witness?
If you consult with local clients, could you extend your reach nationally or internationally by using the telephone and Internet?
These few ideas are a starting point for you to brainstorm all the possibilities for exploding your consulting income.