Question

Topic: Strategy

Taking Consultancy Business To Next Level

Posted by Marie on 10/15/2004 at 5:16 AM ET 250 Points
Hi there.

Firstly, I am sorry that this is so long for my first post.

After reading the forum for the past 5 months, I have finally done what I should have done then and asked this question! Also, I wanted to give you some background info so that your answers would be relevant.

I run a small marketing consultancy firm based in Manchester, England and I made a decision in January 2004 to expand the business.

I had woken up to the realisation that many of my retained clients were taking advantage of the fact that I always delivered - often within unrealistic notice of deadlines (stupidly I didn't question this, just did it) and it resulted in me allowing some of them to get almost double the amount of my time for the same fees which was causing me to be constantly stressed and more importantly was reducing my ability to take on more profitable work. I was only billing 50% of my time but working enough hours for 2 people.

We work mainly for small to medium sized companies and to date 80% of our work has come from retained clients and 20% word-of-mouth referrals and until recently we had not undertaken any marketing or business development activity for ourselves.

I wanted to gear the business to become less reliant on myself, not least to decrease the average 17 hour days I was working. I also took office space - previously I had a home office and worked out of different retained client's premises for 2.5 days a week.

In addition, I recruited an experienced full time member of staff to help with the existing workload and to look at attracting new business in their own right with a view to become self-sustainable over an 8 month period.

Now it’s October and in reality he has taken on board around 40% of my "old" workload and generated very little new business. This is not through lack of ability or enthusiasm; we are both "busy" but still with the older retained clients as the main focus of our activity. I am in the process of reforming our business relationships with these clients and after much soul-searching (and misplaced loyalty on my part) I am also going to cease working for two of them where the relationship has become more personal than professional. A balance is needed and I am hoping some distance will rectify this.

I am now in a position where the fees I generated when I worked alone have not increased much on a monthly basis yet overheads have significantly leaped. This is not sustainable and we have to attract more business.

By dealing with the issues I've outlined above and accurately charging for the time we work, we will have a significant amount of time freed up to focus on business development (this is the time we are basically working for free at the moment).

Therefore, we have created a business development strategy focusing on activities such as networking, direct mail, finalising our web site, production of a monthly e-newsletter and each of us allocating dedicated telemarketing time on set days each week. We have also produced a company information booklet and have created a small database of prospects to target with the booklet and e-newsletter. Our prospecting will be done to selected companies who we would like to work for in our specialist industry sectors.

Potentially one area for us to focus on is events as I am well known and have a good reputation in the North West with some prominent clients on board. I am thinking about piggy-backing on this to launch a series of seminars / workshops etc for small to medium sized businesses covering a variety of marketing related topics. At the moment, I present monthly seminars for other organisations / industry bodies to their members and (a) enjoy doing the events and (b) feel that this may be the route to attract new core business for the firm. Feedback from our events averages at a positive 93%.

I would welcome any thoughts / advice / input on strategies that have worked for you and / or ideas and methods that could help us both on the general development and the events side.

Thanks for taking the time to read this post and I look forward to hearing from you.

Marie
To continue reading this question and the solution, sign up ... it's free!
SUBSCRIBE
Or, SIGN IN

RESPONSES

  • Posted by Blaine Wilkerson on 10/15/2004 at 11:01 AM Accepted
    As I read your post, I thought it was a joke...a joke on ME! EW are in the exact same boat. Well, I am continuing to grow and filter out the abusive clients, but I know EXACTLY how you feel.

    So, what did I do (am doing now)? Well, I decided since I was the primary driver who achieved/acquired the current status of my company, I would continue to fill that role. AS a matter of fact, I am taking steps so I can focus on building the company and others can take on the projects. I love working on client projects, but I'm really good at one client in particular...MYSELF.

    I gave away chunks of my company to a hand-picked team of marketers with different niche'. The agreement is simeple, I build the business, send them clients, and in return all projects are performed as Jett Enterprise productions. They keep a lion's share of the profit, and we all work together to build the brand.

    You have to be a risk taker and a trusting person, but I believe in...well...it's my little secret for now. I'll write a book about it one day...but it involves focusing on the clients instead of yourself.

    In summary, partner up with someone, and keep doing what you do best. Even if it is CEO type duties, stay with what you know and do very well and let others handle the rest. AS a matter of fact, I am interviewing people to handle a UK brand of my company..if you are interested, please send me an email.
  • Posted by mgoodman on 10/16/2004 at 9:01 AM Accepted
    The e-newsletter approach is certainly one way to go. It's not one, though, that works in every industry/situation.

    In "Rasputin For Hire," I suggest another approach that has worked really well for me (and several other consultants interviewed for the book): give people a free sample of what you do. Do enough homework on your prospective client and his/her business that they can't help but believe you're going to be a valuable resource. Address an issue that's near and dear to their hearts, show tham how you think, how thorough you are, how well you know their industry, etc. That's the ideal way to land new clients.

    Also, your practice of charging for your time is a road to disaster. It's not in your clients' best interests, and it's certainly not in your best interest. It motivates the client to abuse the relationship and it motivates you to be inefficient. Instead, consider billing by the project. Bill what it's worth to the client. If you can get it done efficiently, you make more money. If you're inefficient, you make less. The client gets a fair deal either way, because he/she only pays what the project is worth. (Actually, the client gets a slightly better deal if you're more efficient, because the project can be delivered ahead of schedule.)

    All of this is covered in some detail in "Rasputin For Hire." I'd recommend you pick up a copy (Amazon.co.uk has it) -- not because what I have to say is so wonderful, but because I was able to interview almost two dozen consultants in different fields, with different conclusions, and come up with a fairly tight consensus perspective on what it takes to be successful in consulting.

    Sample chapter, table of contents, etc., available at www.rasputinforhire.com .
  • Posted by Marie on 10/18/2004 at 8:20 PM Author
    Thank you everyone for taking the time to share your thoughts with me. I have tonnes to digest here and I particularly found the links useful. Praf, the Marketing Ball stuff on Action Plan made me think - being unfamiliar with baseball it is a different way of looking at things. Also, the site that Dave recommended is excellent, I have read several articles already.

    Blaine, I am intrigued! I will email you shortly to find out more. Again, lots of things to think about and adapt into our business so sincere thanks to you all.

    Marie
BACK TO TOP

Post a Comment

Related Discussions

Community Info

Top 25 Experts
(Strategy)