Finding Clients for Consultants

The reality is that as a business owner, you’ll constantly be sourcing prospects, which will become a big part of your job description. Here are some of the ways to source prospects.

Always BOLO

You never know when opportunity will strike so, it helps to always put your ear to the ground or be on the look out (BOLO). The most unlikely person may be your contact to a lucrative project!

Referrals

Referrals are a very powerful selling tool. Prospective clients are more comfortable speaking to you and have more trust in your work if you have been referred to them by someone they know. Ask for referrals from past clients or ask clients to drop a good word on your LinkedIn profile.  A word about your reputation and providing value. 

Publish Articles

Publishing articles establishes your authority as a subject matter expert. Some HR Associations put out requests for article contributions which are then published on their website or in the association's Newsletter. This elevates your visibility among your target group. You can also publish articles on LinkedIn Publisher. Your articles will be available to your first level connections and subsequent their first level connections if they share your article. This is a very powerful way to grow your network/pool of prospects. Here's an information article on how to use LinkedIn to connect with prospects. 

Speak for Industry & Trade Groups

Speaking at industry or trade meetings is an effective way to be seen as a subject matter expert. However, this requires more than technical knowledge. Equally important is the ability to engage your audience through effective public speaking skill. If the fear of public speaking is holding you back, consider joining a local Toastmaster club. Toastmaster provides a supportive environment for its members to practice public speaking. Another alternative is to engage a public speaking coach. Working with a coach is more costly but you will save on time. 

Contribute

Explore opportunities to partner with your targeted industry association and local business community. You can contribute your time by moderating a panel discussion or facilitate a HR session for business leaders in your targetted community. Don't wait for the associations to approach you. Be proactive and propose activities/programs to the association. Most of the time, they will be happy to consider programs that will benefit their members and enhance the value of their membership.

Conduct Webinars

If you're familiar with web conferencing software or are tech-savvy, consider conducting webinars once you get a bit of a following or if you've gathered significant email addresses from the traffic to your website. As webinar is conducted over the internet, you can reach a wider network of audience/prospects.

When planning for webinars, make sure you have an effective webinar landing page with a compelling call to action. Check out these dos and dont's of webinar landing page.

HR Associations

If you have expert knowledge in a particular area, contact HR Associations to find out if you can share your expertise with their members through a webinar or a workshop. This is a great way to increase your branding among your target group. 

Another option is to advertise with HR Associations. HR Associations have dedicated sales team that will be able to advise you on the best advertising avenues for your product/services.

Networking

Keep your business networks healthy with constant attention. This includes both face to face and online networking. Look for networking opportunities in your local area (for example, breakfast  meetings) or leverage on social media sites  such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to increase your reach to prospective clients. Being a member of online professional groups can also be a great networking tool.

Cold Calling

Cold call is the process of contacting prospects who weren't expecting you to contact them and trying to sell them on your services.

Cold calling is a great way to generate leads. To cold call effectively, it’s important that you have a script to guide your conversation. Notice that the key word here is “guide”. You should not read out your script word for word. When cold calling, you must be able to explain how you’re able to help the person on the other end. Therefore, it’s important to do some research on the company before cold calling.

Most people absolutely abhor cold calling, but when you're starting your new practice, you'll need to suck it up and try a number of different ways to land new business.  Give cold calling a shot. 

Here are some basic tips:  

• Practice your pitch out loud. You can verbalize it in front of a friend and get feedback. Or, an effective method is to record your pitch.  Listen for the effectiveness and sincerity of your delivery, and make adjustments as necessary
• Be prepared to be rejected. To get at least one prospect to say yes, you may have to make between 20 and 30 contacts with people who have the authority to hire you.
• Make your phone calls before between 8:00am and 9:30 a.m. which can be a great time to catch someone when they might be more receptive to your sales pitch.

But cold calling is not only done by phone. It can also be done by email. 

Website Prospects Collected

The people who have visited your website is a great source for prospects. By registering on your website, you have access to their names and email addresses. If they have given consent to receive communications from you, you can reconnect with this group using a customized email marketing campaign.

Trolling for RFP’s

Research the internet or put feelers out for companies requesting for Request for Proposals (RFP). If possible, build a relationship with the project owner of the RPF at the organization. Chances are the organization may have requested/received RFPs from countless other companies and having a pre-existing relationship may give you an inside edge. 

Contractor sites

Check out online platforms like Guru.com that connect employers with freelancers/consultants for contract work.

Recruiters

Recruiters have good connections with hiring managers and particularly HR departments in an organization. Working through your recruiter network may lead you to assignments with those companies.

Also, in-house recruiters normally have deep insights into HR pain points within their organization. They may be able to connect you to the relevant person who could use your expertise to help resolve the issue.

Consulting Firms

When starting out, you may want to offer your services to established consulting firms. It can take some years of experience for you to be qualified for the high level consulting positions. Why not learn from the best?  Consulting firms have the marketing resources and infrastructure to help launch you into your new career.  Research on the consulting company before reaching out to them (for example, do they focus on certain industries where you have in depth experience?).

Create a Need

Instead of waiting around for prospects to find you, why don't you approach business owners with a solid case to help improve their business? For example, refer to the business' career pages on their corporate website and share with the prospective client how you would improve it. Provide ROI statistics with making such improvements. 

Traditional Advertising

We'll be discussing online or e-marketing in another section of the kit, but it's worth discussing the merits of traditional advertising. Depending on the demographics of your clients, traditional advertising may prove more fruitful. Here are some examples: 

• Classified ads in your municipal newspaper.
• Classified ads in your local business newspaper. 
• Print ads in HR magazines. Don't discount HR professionals as a client source. They're very often seeking out HR consultants for project work. 

Do some research about the demographics of your ideal clients. Find out what they like to read, where they frequent and target them!

Direct Mail

You may think that direct mail has gone the way of the dodo bird. It's simply not true!

Direct mail can be a powerful way to drum up new business because it's targeted to exactly the audience you want to reach. You create or rent a targeted prospect list, then send your prospective clients a sales letter, brochure, flier or "lumpy envelope" with a gift enclosed, all describing the consulting services you offer.

Here are some basic tips for creating attention-getting direct mail:

• Personalize your sales message. Use a mail merge program and address each envelope to the recipient by name. In the same way, your sales letter inside the envelope should be directed to that recipient by name. 
• Put a compelling message on the outside of the envelope.  Get creative with an attention-getter that can induce the recipient to open your envelope. For example:  "Don't have HR?  Hire Us. Now you do."   Avoid the "Free," "Limited time offer," and "Act now" which aren't going to be effective with the level of busy decision makers you're targeting. are all powerful
• Be succinct. Your prospect has to understand your offering and the benefits in a nano-second or less. Refer to the ConnectsUs Service Brochures for some ideas. 

Pro bono

Doing pro bono work is a great way to get your name out there or a foot in the door. You will also gain from meeting other people therefore, enhancing your network. You next paid job could be a referral from someone or an organization you have provided pro bono work to. Sometimes, great things happen when we least expect it!