Marketing
Many small business owners are very good at getting their businesses to a certain level, and then don’t seem to be able to go the next step. Some of these guys get caught in a trap where the business is making too much money to give up but not enough money to be really worth while. They desperately need help but either don’t know where to look, or can’t afford the fees charged by the large marketing consultants.
Similarly many would be entrepreneurs and small business owners can work out how to buy stock, and attract their initial customers but are not sure how they would take the business forwards from there. There is no way that these guys could afford to take on a marketing consultant let alone an untested one.
People like Jay Abraham, who is a well established marketing Guru make 6 figure fees by taking their fee out of any improvements that they generate. There is no reason for you not to do the same. Jay works with the team at early to rise (www.earlytorise.com) but sells his own information products as well as working one on one with business owners to boost their profits. I don’t need to have seen his work to know that he is well thought of in the marketing industry and to appreciate the benefit of taking fees out of results.
The joy of this approach is that you can say to the business owner, for every $X amount of profit I generate for you, you must pay me $Y. This might be a few hundred dollars initially with a small business owner, but if you can help grow a small business into a big business the benefits for you can be sizeable. The joy of this approach for the owner is that he takes no risk. If he expects to get 5% growth over last year and you help him to get 15-20% why shouldn’t he give you a piece of the pie?
Naturally you will need to find some customers in order to build a track record. My suggestion is that initially you fix your fees at a set amount providing you hit an agreed goal. As you build your reputation you can start to charge a percentage of the improvements that you generate.
In terms of finding your initial customers I would suggest the following approaches.
Networking
Advertise
Affiliate
Website
Run a course
Many of us have friends and family or friends or friends who run small businesses. However small these are it is likely that you can add value. The smaller the business the better; in as much as simply adding you as a resource will double the efforts of a “one man band”. The difficulty with these kinds of operations is that they tend to be under funded and the owner wants to feel in control. If you put together a proposal with a list of ideas that you think will work and offer to help implement them there is however a good chance that you will get your chance. Be prepared to scrap some ideas and don’t let yourself just be used as a warm body, if things are not working out then have a chat about it and if necessary walk away.
You can advertise your services in the local Yellow Pages, and the local newspaper classifieds ads pretty cost effectively. Stress the fact that you work for free unless you generate results and if possible stress references from previous customers.
I mentioned at the start that Jay Abraham works with the guys from Early to Rise, who essentially run an internet publishing business. Jay helps them run courses and provides input for some of the newsletters and in return his stand alone books and courses get recommended. I am sure that there are financial arrangements that work for both sides but fro Jay’s perspective he is accessing the 200-300,000 loyal readers of the daily newsletter every time his name gets mentioned. You may well be able to pull off a similar association with other internet businesses, particularly if you choose to focus on a specific sector such as electricians, or cake shops.
Building a website is easy, but you need to ensure that it gets seen, that people recommend it to each other and that readers come back. The easiest way to do this is to keep putting up fresh content, and to get it in front of the right readers. Marketing on the internet is a different game to marketing offline and thus my recommendation is that initially you focus on offline activities to promote your website but if you are determined you can quickly build traffic and a list of loyal readers, many of whom will not only respond to an offer for your consulting services, but in fact may ask you to help them.
If you want to generate interest from your community then running a workshop, or course is a great way to generate interest. Work with your local trade office to advertise your course and keep the cost reasonable, but don’t give it away. Free courses tend to hold a lot less value for attendees than good value paid courses. Offer content that will help small business owners and make sure that they understand your main business is not running courses, but building businesses by the time they go home. If you really want to get some exposure then offer a couple of free places to the local newspaper or radio station.
Your stock is mostly experience and ideas. If you have run your own business, are in marketing or took a marketing based degree then you are in a good place to start. If not then you need to start reading and learning before you consider this.
There are hundreds of case studies on the internet about how businesses have taken the leap from small struggling enterprises to massive corporations. Some of this was luck, some was great foresight on the part of the business owner but much of it was marketing and dare I say Hype. This is what you want to replicate, but initially with small businesses you only need to make small changes. Try to be too dramatic too quickly and you will likely scare the owners. Build trust and you will soon be a valued part of the team.
Your entire venture will be based effectively on word of mouth. You need to get 2 or 3 successes under your belt before you will be taken seriously by complete strangers. If you think a business is doomed, or the owner is not serious about effecting change then walk away.
If you are not afraid of working for free then you will make more money than you ever can in a paid job. The prospects here for profit sharing or even taking a share of company ownerships is huge.