Hey everyone!
Jason here, digital marketing consultant.
And in this consulting tutorial, you're going to learn the three best ways to get started
with your consulting business or practice, as well as some different pricing structures,
to make sure that you're never burning the midnight oil for free and combating scope
creep.
So go ahead and make sure you check out the links in the description to a timestamp table
of contents, to jump around this video, as well as some other helpful playlists and videos
to growing and marketing your consulting practice.
Now, before we dive into these three different ways to make money as an online consultant,
let's go through three keys to success, that's going to help you set a solid foundation,
so that your consulting business starts off on the right foot.
And the first key to success is, super self-explanatory, but you actually do already have to have skills
and experience.
Being a consultant is not for someone who's just getting started in whatever field they
want to be a consultant in.
I know that might seem self-explanatory, but I have seen a lot of, especially in the digital
agency space, people who've only had one or two clients and then want to just strike out
on their own and use their clients as Guinea pigs, right?
When someone hands you cash, you should already know exactly how to deliver the result, that
you've promised, which is actually key to success number two, and that is remembering
that as a consultant, it's not about hourly rate.
It's not about monthly income or how big your packages are, it's all about results.
So for example, as a digital marketing agency, our clients pay us X amount of dollars and
they expect X amount of clients, in return.
With your doing anything creative, your clients expect a certain number of webpages, a certain
number of designs, a certain number of revisions, whatever you're doing, there's an expectation
of results and amount of work that's going to be done.
You want to make sure that it's crystal clear, when you start with a new client, exactly
what they're getting for their money.
It helps make sure that expectations are in line.
And then that way you don't deliver something, you think you're super happy with it.
And you're like, “Man, this client is really gonna be happy.”
And then they come back and go, “Why wasn't this done?
Why wasn't that done?
Why you do it this way?”
And then you just, you look at it, you go, “Oh my gosh, why are you nitpicking me?
I just gave you this awesome thing at this great price.”
So that's just helps you make sure, that what you think the client wants and what the client
actually wants are in line.
And getting it in writing, or at least in an email is an excellent way to go.
Now, the third key to success before we dive into those three ways to make money as a consultant,
when you're just getting started is focus.
And that is you must focus on two to three skills or services, absolute max.
Something that is really hard for new consultants to wrap their heads around, is when you're
delivering the client work, that should be the easiest part of running your entire business.
The marketing, the advertising, the sales that's where you're pulling your hair out,
trying to figure out where am I gonna get clients?
Or how do I keep clients on longer?
How do I streamline my customer service?
Those are all the things that should be keeping you up at night and driving you crazy.
When it comes to actually delivering the product or service, that should be the easiest part.
You should sit down at your computer or sit down at your notepad and just breeze through
it, it should be the easiest part.
So to do that, you need to focus on two to three skills that you're going to really hone
in on and master.
Because a jack-of-all-trades is not something you want to be as a consultant long term,
especially when you're just getting started.
So let's go ahead and dive into those three different ways.
Speaking of jack-of-all-trades, if you have no idea what those two to three services should
be, then you should start at an hourly rate and these are all going to build on each other.
Now, I know what you might be thinking, hourly rate, there the whole point of starting my
own businesses, so that I don't have to punch in and punch out, right?
I don't want to be a freelancer on Upwork, or I don't want to be scrutinized for spending
five extra minutes on something, right?
I get it.
I've been there.
My first consulting client, I was at $7 an hour.
And boy, was it not fun at all.
However, I learned a lot just like you’re going to learn a lot.
And you're going to learn a couple of key things.
Number one, you're going to learn how to communicate with clients.
Because just because you know how to do the work, doesn't mean you know how to manage
the client relationship, making sure they're happy, making sure that you check in with
them enough, so that they stay past just one project.
The second thing is understanding how much more work it is, when you're managing multiple
projects and multiple clients.
So an hourly rate is just a very safe way to get started with your consulting and make
sure that you understand how to communicate with clients, how to interact with clients.
You'll figure out how long that communication takes, because that could be a huge drain.
And it also helps you stay away from scope creep.
So when you're at an hourly rate and they ask for more, it's okay, you're going to be
paid for everything that you're doing because you're being paid hourly.
And then once you get the hang of it, you're ready for a monthly rate.
And so this can be a retainer or some sort of monthly service, where you're providing
a result on a month over month basis.
And this is the best place to kind of get into a nice stride with your consulting business.
This should be your initial goal.
So after you have a couple of clients, you're really going to want to wrap your head around,
how do I turn these one off projects, into something that's reoccurring?
So for example, with a web developer, you build this beautiful, awesome site.
Well guess what?
The client probably doesn't know WordPress.
They don't know HTML.
They don't know what FTP is, right?
They need someone to help them when their site crashes, when they want to add a new
webpage.
And so creating a monthly maintenance plan is a great way to have a great project in
the beginning and then offer a service, that brings in money month over month.
For example, with our digital marketing agency, we run advertising for clients, right?
So it's pretty simple.
There's a setup fee.
And then they pay us each month, to keep running the ads for them to bring them in new clients
and customers.
Something you can do, if either one of those examples doesn't really help you figure out
how to turn your specific skill into a monthly revenue service, then you can always go the
retainer route.
And this is something that I recommend as a last resort.
This is something I did in the beginning of our digital agency, where your clients have
questions and you are the expert, right?
So instead of consistently giving your time away for free answering their emails, taking
their phone calls, set up a monthly retainer, where they have access to you for a monthly
fee.
For example, when we first started our agency, it was 2 to 300 dollars just for someone to
have access to a specific email, where I'd always respond to their questions within 24
hours.
And then they got an hour or two of my time, to review their landing pages or to go through
their sales copy or write something for them.
And of course, it was at a discounted rate because they're paying every month.
It'll be up to you whether or not that time carries over.
And then the final, the big overarching goal of every consultant is creating a package.
And packages are one of the most misunderstood services, that consultants can offer.
And this is really your giant big end goal, because what packages allow you to do, is
they allow you to be a full service, like a five star hotel.
The person walks in and you take care of 99.9% of everything for the client and you walk
them from, “I don't know what the heck I'm doing to”, “Oh my gosh, I have this great
end product” Or “This great end machine.”
So the best way to show you this is to go through an example.
So I'm going to read off my screen here really quick.
So a service like a three star hotel would be, we set up YouTube ad accounts and manage
the monthly to get you customers.
Okay.
That's cool, like that makes sense.
That that sounds like it's going to help my business great.
Or we can do a package.
And we say, we have a six month video marketing program, where we build you an optimize brand
and advertising machine to grow your brand and drive sales.
And of course I'm using some buzz words in here, like program, machine, system, optimize
and so you can get fancy, fancier with your copywriting as you go through whatever you're
building.
But the main difference here, is in the first one, it's kind of like a three hard star hotel
or what you're doing on a month to month basis.
Yeah, we set this up for you and then we'll manage it and what kind of optimize it and
you'll get this cool a result.
Whereas with a package, what you're doing is, you're taking a step back and you're saying,
okay, they don't just want videos.
They don't just want YouTube advertising.
They want to grow their brand and grow their business.
So whatever the big overarching goals are for your client, you look at those and then
you say, okay, what is something that I can put together where someone who's brand new
or wants everything done for them?
What would that look like?
And what would be the big overarching results.
In this particular example, a six-month package, especially if you add the number of months
that are on, it tells the client like, wow! this person is gonna be doing a lot of work.
So it's just implied and you can charge a much higher price, more than triple in this
particular example.
So I hope you found those three keys to success, helpful to figuring out how to get started
with consulting and that these three different ways of making money online, give you some
ideas on how to structure your own services.
There's definitely no hard and fast rules, when it comes to which place to start.
If you already have an awesome idea for a package, great, start there and see how it
goes.
It's just always easier to start at the hourly rate because you're still learning the marketing,
the advertising and the sales, which is what's always gonna be the part of your business,
that's going to suck up the most amount of your time as a consultant.
So go ahead and hit that like button and subscribe, if you got some value out of this video.
Make sure you check out the links in the description to help you with your marketing advertising
and of course sales.
And until the next video, keep building the business you love.