1. How To Become a High Paid Marketing Consultant
I often get asked about how to become a marketing consultant.
A lot of people, even YOU perhaps, want to help small businesses but you just don’t know
where to start or how to do it.
I’ve “been there and done that” so today, I’m going to give you the “down and dirty” on how to
quickly become a small business marketing consultant.
Here goes…
STEP 1 – Get Educated
The first thing you need to do is become a marketing expert. In the book Outliers, Malcolm
Gladwell says that to become an expert in your field, it requires at least 10,000 hours of study
and practice.
Well, that’s not necessarily so in marketing. In a couple of months of serious study you can
become a marketeting expert. If you follow a specific, well laid out roadmap, you can do it even
faster.
One of the very best sources of marketing training that I can point you to is Jay Abraham’s
material. His book, “Getting Everything You Can Out Of All You Got” is a classic.
You can also buy many of his older courses on ebay or at this page.
And of course, you can’t leave out Dan Kennedy. Dan has produced more successful
marketing consultants than any man alive.
Lower down in this article you’ll find links to all the, “How to Become a Marketing Consultant”
courses that I know about.
One of the first marketing courses I ever purchased was Brad Anton’s, “The Antin Marketing
Letter Collection!”
I don’t believe he sells it any more, but it was the training that birthed me into the world of direct
response marketing.
STEP 2 – Pick a Niche
I don’t care what anyone tells you, servicing a specific niche will make your marketing way
easier and dramatically increase your odds of creating a successful practice.
Here’s some of the specific benefits of servicing a niche industry.
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2. 1. Infinitely eaiser to find your prospects.
2. Save you money trying to reach your prospects.
3. Create specific solutions that prospects want.
4. Ability to replicate your solutions over and over again.
5. Generate more referrals a lot faster.
6. Greater focus by working a smaller target market.
7. Ability to offer tailored big ticket back end solutions.
The best niches are those which…
1. Have a high ticket product/service and can afford you.
2. Have many outlets in which to advertise.
3. Have bad marketing where you can make a big impact.
4. It’s easy to get to the decision maker.
Once you pick your niche, so many things will come into focus for you. Everything becomes
easier.
Marketing practices that serve every Tom, Dick and Harry business often struggle and end up
going out of business.
STEP 3 – Create a Methodology
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3. Now that you have some marketing know how and
you have a niche, you need to create a marketing methodology that allows you to find
opportunities for improvement and create quick hit and long term improvements to your client’s
businesses.
A “methodology” is simply a process or a way that you deliver your service. If you take a good
marketing consulting course, they should teach you their methodology of improving the
marketing of businesses.
In this step you’ll also want to define your what your proucts and services will be (i.e. what
services you plan to offer to your clients).
Typically, I would start out with some type of assessment to find potential quick hit opportunities.
Clients almost always want quick hit wins that generate enough revenue to at least justify
paying for your services.
Next, I would take a wholistic view of the business and help them to create a long term
marketing strategy that might include the creation of a Unique Selling Proposition, an effective
marketing message, and strategies for delivering that message and generating interest.
STEP 4 – Get Experience
If you’re a brand new marketing consultant you might consider selling your services for a low
entry price or even doing some pro bono work to gain experience and generate some
testimonials.
When people are paying you, they are expecting to receive services from an experienced
marketing consultant. You need to get some experience quickly, with the lowest risk.
You could offer to do work and get paid on a “performance only” basis, which means, you only
get paid when your client gets the results that you promised. It’s a no risk offer.
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4. STEP 5 – Create a Lead Magnet
The next step, in my opinion, is to create a “lead magnet.” A lead magnet is a piece of content
that you either give away or sell that is educational, but leads your prospect to inquire about
your services.
Your lead magnet could be an audio CD, a DVD, a written special report or even a book. I
prefer an audio CD or special report.
Audio is my first choice because it’s easy to consume, it has a higher percieved value and
because people are listening to your voice it increases your “likeability” factor.
A great lead magnet outline might go something like this.
TITLE: 11 Little Known Facts and Insider Secrets About {the problem you are solving}
Opening: Have a professional intro (I get mine done at AudioBag.com). Then I have an intro
from someone of the opposite sex who gives my bio.
This ebook was my lead magnet for my spa and pool marketing consulting business.
PROBLEM: Talk about the problem you are solving. Discuss the consequences of the problem
and how serious it is. Explain the potential dollar value of the problem.
SOLUTION: Introduce your solution. Discuss the what the solution is and what the benefits are
of the solution.
CASE STUDIES: Give a few case studies of businesses that suffered from the problem and
how they contacted you, the process they went through and what you did to help solve their
problem.
RESULTS: Reveal the results that your clients acheived from working with you. Express the
results in dollars saved or revenue increased.
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5. OFFER: Finally, you’ll want to have a call to action at the end of your lead magnet. I like to offer
a no obligation “exploratory call” or better yet, a “free consultation call.”
Let them know exactly what you’re going to talk about on the consultation call. Discuss the
benefits of the call to them. Explain what they are going to be able to do as a result of your call.
After you’ve created your lead magnet, develop a webpage or an email or phone in system in
which your prospects can request your lead magnet.
Use “progressive profiling,” which means, ask for their name and email address first, then on
the next page ask for their mailing address. More people will complete your request form.
I prefer to send them something in the mail. They’ll be more likely to read or listen to it and it
captures their mailing information, which will allow me to follow up with them over time.
Remember, even if your prospect does not take advantage of your services after requesting the
lead magnet, you still have a qualified lead that at some point in the future might desperately
want your services.
STEP 6 – Generate Consultation Calls
Now it’s time to start generating as many high quality consultation calls as you possible can.
You do that by marketing the heck out of your lead magnet.
I could write a book about marketing your lead magnet, but we’d be here too long.
But just look for ways to advertise. Here’s a few ideas.
1. Advertise your lead magnet online and on the web.
2. Create web content that offers your lead magnet.
3. Get JV partners to give away your lead magnet.
4. Offer your lead magnet on your blog.
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6. The key here is to get people to REQUEST your lead magnet. Do not just send it to them. They
need to request it.
When they request your information, they are 10 times more likely to consume it and take action
on it.
STEP 7 – Do Work
This is where you deliver your service. Here some tips for you to use to deliver marketing
consulting services that get results (in no particular order).
Tip 1. Create a marketing implementation plan with tasks, steps, deadlines, and
responsibilities (especially the responsibilities of the client).
Tip 2. Set full expectations up front with the client. Have them agree on what you’ll be
doing and what and when they’ll be expected to do.
Set their expectations for the timeframe you think they’ll be able to see results and what those
results might be. In addition, make sure you clarify what and when you’ll be billing them.
Tip 3. Document your results. Document the ROI on those results. Get testimonials of the
results. Publicize your positive results.
Tip 4. Write regular status memos and make sure your client is up to date on where the
project is and how it’s going. Make sure you communicate early any obstacles you might be
encountering and how that might affect the results.
Tip 5. Train your client along the way. Educate them as much as possible. Help your client
become self sufficient.
Tip 6. Create some quick wins with tangible results. Try to make those quick wins generate
enough revenue to pay for your entire services. Your client wants to see fast results.
STEP 8 – Document Proof
There is one and almost always one reason why your client will hire you. PROOF!
If you can prove without a shadow of a doubt that you can get results for your clients, then
you’ll close all the marketing consulting work you can handle.
Proof can come in many forms such as:
1. Client testimonials
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7. Write articles for industry publications.
2. Stats and data with charts and graphs
3. Awards or honors
4. Write ups in publications
5. Facebook comments
6. Survey or test results
7. Photos, videos, scans or screenshots
8. stories, analogies, anecdotes or case studies
These elements of proof can help you to demonstrate your expertise and get prospects begging
you to become your clients.
One of the biggest mistakes I seen marketing consultants make is not going back and collecting
this information.
Proof elements work even better when you’re targeting a specific niche industry.
The single most popular question I got from clients was, “How are my competitors solving that
problem?” Having proof can answer that question.
STEP 9 – Systemitize
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8. Unless you want to become a slave to your practice, you MUST systemitize your processes.
Systemitizing your process means to break what you do down into
step-by-step processes with instructions so that just about anyone will be able to replicate your
success.
Systemitizing can include writing down your process using graphcs and photos to show
someone how to do it.
It can also include shooting video or screenrecording your computer as you explain a task.
If you don’t systemitize your business you’ll find yourself recreating solutions over and over
again, which results in waste of time, money and effort.
If you ever want to find freedom in your practice, you must systemitize your marketing
consulting practices.
STEP 10 – Hire Others
Once you’ve systemtized your processes, it’s time to hire other people to do those processes
so that you don’t have to.
The #1 thing you should be doing in your marketing consulting practice is being a rainmaker, or
in other words, bringing in new clients (and even this you should systemtize and hire out).
Hiring people to run your systems frees up your time to become the rainmaker for your practice
by testing new marketing methods, channels and ways to get new clients.
Here are some tips for hiring people:
Tip 1. Quiz your candidates about their marketing knowledge.
Tip 2. Find out what they’ve previously accomplished.
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9. Tip 3. Call references and prior fellow employees.
Tip 4. Research them online, find friends and ask them questions about your candidate.
Tip 5. Hire people with pertinent skillsets who are way better than you.
Tip 6. Find people who are totally passionate about marketing.
Tip 7. Spend lots of time (hours) with your candidates to get a real feel for who they are.
Tip 8. Know the qualities you want in an employee and look for those qualities and don’t settle
for less.
Tip 9. Ask your current employees for referrals.
Hiring additional consultants or people to help you with the marketing work is a critical step.
Training a new employee is a very expensive process.
If you don’t make the right selection, you’ll end up wasting a bunch of money, time and effort
that you could have put into the “right” person.
STEP 11 – Expand
Now that you’ve got a methodology, some clients, replicateable processes and employees to
handle more clients, it’s time expand.
The key to expanding your business is creating a super
hot lead generation and sales process and then dramatically increase the leads going into your
funnell.
That means that you need to find new and different sources of leads that you can attract.
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10. For me, that’s meant spending more money on promoting my lead magnet.
That starts with knowing what a lead is worth to you. To know that, you need to know your
closing rates and the average amount of money you make on a client.
Once you know what a lead is worth to you, now you know how much you can spend to get a
new lead. Having this number helps you to determine where to spend and how much to spend
on advertising and promotion.
As you generate more business, you’ll also need to ramp up your staff and client support. My
one piece of advice is to stay as lean as possible while delivering the highest amount of client
service.
A lot of things can change fast in your market and the economy that can force you to have to
reduce your cost of doing business.
My other piece of advice as you expand would be to outsource as much of the work as possible
on a contract basis where it makes sense so that you can ramp up or pull back quickly without a
lot of difficulty.
Conclusion
In this article I’ve outline the high level steps to becoming a marketing consultant. I’ve been
there and done it and these are the steps I’ve learned from my own experience.
And again, this is a high level overview. It would take a longer course to go into the details of
how everything I’ve laid out is actually done.
However, below I have posted some links to “How to Become a Marketing Consultant” courses
that you can review.
I wish you the best of success in becoming a marketing consultant.
Links to Marketing Consulting Courses
The following are some links to “How to Become a Marketing Consultant” courses. Some are
information products and others are live trainings.
Jay Abraham marketing courses.
1. Martin Howey’s Topline Marketing Consultant’s Program
2. Richard Johnson’s HMA Marketing Consultant Course
3. Dan Kennedy’s Consulting and Coaches bootcamp
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11. 4. C.J. Hayden’s Get Clients Now! program
5. Mitch Meyerson’s Guerilla Marketing Coach Program
6. John Jantsch’s Duct Tape Marketing Consultant Program
7. Jim Ackerman’s PCM Coach Program
8. Bob Berg’s Go Giver Coach Program
I hope this article has helped you that aspire to start your own marketing consulting or coaching
practice.
P.S. If you want to know how some of the top marketing consultants in the business get clients
then you might want to listen to these interviews.
Read More . . . How To Become a High Paid Marketing Consultant
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