How to make money from consulting? - How to make money

Consulting is to advise company representatives to solve financial, legal, managerial and other problems. if you've been thinking how to make money with consultingread this article. In it, we share tips to help you do it faster.

Before spending time learning the steps involved in starting a career, learn about what consulting is and what a consultant actually does. These concepts are often quite vague because they are used in different areas.

For example, a company often hires an expert for a specific short-term project, or a consultant may work as a contract freelancer. In other cases, this specialist works full-time, performing the duties of an analyst. When working for an individual, you are more likely to help them with their first steps towards starting a startup. In a better company, you are more likely to work as a team and solve specific business problems.

How to begin?

First if you understand what is business consulting and if you want to make money from it, you need to get an education, form at least a bachelor's degree.

For employers, it is not enough for a specialist to only have work experience. As working as a consultant usually means a high level of expertise, a master's degree is the best course of action.

However, keep in mind that large companies are often looking for a person with education and work experience. If you have both, define your niche, that is, a specialized market segment for a certain type of product or service.

This will be one of the most important decisions you will make: it will determine the way forward, the types of clients you will work with, the tasks and salary.

By choosing a direction, you will find more customers who will pay you more. Narrow specialization allows you to solve problems qualitatively. Consider areas like creating sales funnels, recruiting, automating business, working with social media.

Offer people something that will be the answer to their questions and the solutions to their problems. Think about what you can do for others. Perhaps you not only deal with social media, but specialize in maintaining social media for elite restaurants. Spend some time researching what people in your niche are asking for. Then go to the next tips.

Where do you want to work: for yourself or for a company

Depending on where you work, your daily tasks will be different. You can work for a big business or you can work for yourself. There are more detailed options, each with their own advantages and disadvantages.

For example, large consulting firms use developed and clear consulting methods. Their resumes are usually clear and will always provide enough work. They often open doors to long-term career growth. On the other hand, you will have to take on a lot of routine tasks to climb the proverbial ladder.

Small businesses often look for highly specialized experts, each of whom excels at solving specific business problems or in specific industries. As a rule, work in these companies is more interesting and calm. Here you will have more chances to learn something from the masters and find partners. Also, they have much less bureaucracy as there is a smaller staff. However, working in such a company, you don't have to rely on fame or know the best of the business.

You might work in a division of a company, like IBM. As a rule, there are good teaching methods, proven work algorithms, proven career paths. Disadvantages: Most of the time you have to sell services as a product. Sometimes you'll notice that you're forcing something on the client that he doesn't need.

Freelance consultants are in complete control of their business. You choose how to work with clients, which training opportunities to use, which projects to take on. The best part is that you get the best part of the profits. That said, almost every advantage of the freelance lifestyle can be a disadvantage: it can be quite difficult to create everything yourself, find clients, and convince them that it's worth hiring.

how much is your job worth

So, you understood what you want to do and where to work. Any customer will ask how much your services cost: there are always those who work for low wages and those who are in demand and charge hundreds of dollars an hour.

It can be difficult to understand how much you can earn with the skills you have. Fortunately, some good rules can help aspiring freelancers with this.

1. Double the amount you find offensive. Ask yourself what is the lowest salary you would work for, what salary would you not like this job for? If it's 1,000 a day, look for ways to earn at least 2,000 a day.

2. Drop three zeros. Close your eyes and imagine an ideal but realistic annual salary. Now divide by two and discard three zeros. In other words, if your ideal salary is 1,000,000 reais per year, you will earn 40,000 per month.

3. Research competitors: Sell not at the highest price, but not at the lowest price, find a compromise.

Now look for the first customers. Search job sites, follow networking events where you can find new partners, find out where people who may need your services often go.

Create tempting offers and talk about them, become known in your industry. Even when you've made some progress, keep learning. Try accepting different requests from time to time to expand your comfort zone. Learn from each project.

Qualities of a good professional

The qualities of a good specialist can vary depending on the niche. For example, financial consulting it implies the skill of analysis, and marketing consulting requires knowing everything about advertising. On the other hand, there are skills that are in demand everywhere.

Here are some of the qualities that make a professional stand out when it comes to applying their skills in the real world, rather than their degrees and work experience:

1. They see the “big picture” of how the organization works as a whole and understand how each part fits together. This helps them understand what it takes to run the business as a whole.
2. They have excellent communication skills and can get along with anyone.
3. A professional can admit his mistakes, especially if the failed job was based on his advice and opinions.
4. They can find, analyze significant amounts of data and share ideas clearly and quickly with others.
5. They understand how changes will affect all business activity, what and how will affect a large-scale project.

Some of these skills are much easier to develop if you practice them. Try to constantly work to become better at each one, and customers won't keep you waiting too long.

That is all! Develop financial thinking with Ilya Sitnov. Subscribe to our newsletter here and on Yandex.Zen so you don't miss out on useful materials.