Summary: Understand how to best position your consulting and related services to customers and capitalise on the opportunities presented by a knowledge-based economy.
In a knowledge-based economy, information and content is king. So, now is never a better time to position a consulting and related service to your clients so that you can provide a valuable service for them or help them learn something new within a training session or mentoring role. If you already have a website that is a bit of an authority in a particular area, this is a great opportunity to provide a paid service through that site.
Once you decide what type of consulting or related training service you can offer based on your expertise, skill set, and background, the next step is to convince others that you can truly deliver a beneficial service to them that can address one or more of their personal goals or professional objectives. From there, you need to begin a marketing campaign that is focused on how you can help others. Consider these ideas:
- If you don’t already have a website, create a blog and website that focus on your niche and positions you as a leader in your service area or aspect of the knowledge economy.
- Develop case studies that illustrate how you can provide a beneficial consulting service.
- Regularly tweet and post on your social networking sites, offering up “titbits” of information that will entice others to delve into your service.
- Apply linkbait strategies to get others to link to you to create a viral campaign for greater website traffic to your website and blog (read more: what is linkbait | linkbait options).
- Be a speaker at industry trade shows within your field of expertise so that major companies or consumers see you.
- Film and broadcast an infomercial if you have the budget to do so that explains the type of consulting you do and include success stories if you already have them (alternatively you can use a decent camera phone or digital camera against a white background to produce reasonable enough vids on a budget).
- Offer up your writing services as a guest writer for magazines and newspapers that further connects the idea with the reader and potential customer that you are an expert and successful at what you do.
- Issue press releases about how you have helped other clients through your role as a consultant or service provider (with their permission).
It is best to use a range of these tactics in order to cover the most channels that are directed at reaching your potential consulting customers. Be sure to offer up a consistent message when using multiple channels to leverage brand-building and create considerable brand equity around your consulting service.
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