Monthly Archives: March 2017

Five Steps in Marketing…

Time to begin a new series… on marketing… the last in the triad of “getting business.”  The other two elements are generating leads and making sales. Like the legs of a stool, all three are equally important.

Don’t overcomplicate things. Getting business is much like going fishing. There are three simple steps:

  • Marketing – Decide what kind of fish you are after and where you might go.
  • Leads – Based on that, decide what kind of bait and tackle to use.
  • Sales – Catch the fish and get them in the boat.

Here are five key marketing questions to consider:

`(1) WHAT services will you offer? And is there a market? Are there any fish in the lake? Is there competition?  Barriers to entry? Any way to test? Remember, you don’t need to catch all the fish —  only enough to feed you.

(2) WHO will you offer them to? What kind of fish are you going after? Who is your ideal client? Come up with some personas — law firms with 5-20 attorneys who need help with juries? Engineering managers with EMI test failures —  my personal favorite?

(3) WHERE will you go to find them? Mountain streams for trout — southern lakes for bass. What are your target niches – industry, geography, B2B/B2C/B2G?

(4) HOW will you reach them? Bait and tackle. Gave you twenty ways to generate leads. Now is the time to pick a couple, make a plan, an start executing. It’s never too early. Remember, if you want a baby, it takes nine months. So if you want a baby in a month, you should have started eight months ago.

(5) WHY are you doing this? Probably the most important question. Hating you job or boss is NOT a good reason. Nor is just getting laid off (or fired.)  Is there a higher calling driving you? A drive for independence (my favorite?) Do you want it so bad you can taste it? Is there something you always wanted to do, and now is the time?

Take some time to consider these questions, and jot down some answers. We will expand on each of these questions in future posts.

Stay tuned…

© 2017, https:. All rights reserved.

On handling “stumbles”…

Here is a reply I left at one of my favorite blogs/web sites —  Pamela Slim — a champion of starting and building small businesses (not just consulting.)

In her post, Pamela discusses how to react after a “stumble,” including her own examples.

She asked for comments, so I shared mine:

One of the best pieces of advice I got on “stumbling” was shared with me almost forty years ago. As a brand new sales engineer (I had pivoted from ten years of design work) my boss sent me to a sales training class.

During a break, I asked a a more experienced classmate how he handled losing a sale.

His reply was “Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and move on. ”

He went on, “Furthermore, if you’re not failing (stumbling), you are not trying hard enough. Every failure is a learning experience. After twenty years, I still lose sales but I’m doing just fine. ”

Ten years later, that advice was invaluable when I started my own engineering consulting firm. Actually, I started twice, and the first time I stumbled badly.

But I tried again later, and then the first day in business (1987) the stock market crashed. Scary, but I succeeded anyway.

That same advice sustained me again when my late business partner and I started a training operation in conjunction with the consulting. It took us four times to get that right.

We eventually ended training over 12,000 students in hundreds of multi-day classes around the world. What a blast! Glad we didn’t let a few stumbles stop us from that adventure.

Pam is so right! Don’t stop – just step back and figure out what to do next — and next — and next. It took Thomas Edison hundreds of trials until he got the light bulb right. But when he did, he lit the world.

Yes, I’ve discussed this topic here before, but it is worth hearing again.  Remember the jingle we all heard as kids, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”

But before you do, back off and evaluate.  You may need to try something different. As Albert Einstein said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.”

© 2017, https:. All rights reserved.

What if it doesn’t work? At least you tried…

Probably the NUMBER ONE QUESTION if you are standing on the edge of the cliff, about ready to make your own JumpToConsulting.

So, what if it doesn’t work? The brother of Go-Daddy founder Bob Parsons once told him, “Well, if it doesn’t work, they can’t eat you.” Parsons is now a billionaire.

Incidentally, web registration was the backup plan for Go-Daddy — the original plan was on-line tax software. Always good to have Plan B!

Full disclosure — my son (a catalyst for this blog) was their Controller when Go-Daddy was just starting out. He has great stories about working for Parsons, and might have stayed but moved back to Minnesota for personal/family reasons.

My son has since gone on to several more entrepreneurial adventures – including a stint consulting – which ended when a client made him an offer he couldn’t refuse as a VP of Finance.

Probably the simplest solution is to climb back into the corporate womb. I did that myself after a false start. Got laid off (fired actually) from a startup, so I hung out my shingle.

Not good planning. After three months, it was clear this was not going to work — at least for now. My “Plan B” was to find another job, which I did.

But the itch was still there, so three years later I tried again — and succeeded — even though the stock market crashed the first day in business. Thanks to the first try, however, I was much better prepared.

But what if you are successful, and just don’t like it? There is no law that says you must stay a consultant forever. As a bonus — you are likely valued more by your new employer.

Here are two more examples:

Dave specialized in EMI/EMC engineering (electromagnetic interference and compatibility) as I did. He started several years before me, and built a successful practice.

Shortly after I made my jump, I ran into him at a trade show. He was now working for a company. Concerned, I asked him why.

“Why the move?” I asked. “And is there something I need to know?”

“No, not at all,” he replied. “A client made me a very attractive offer. Besides, I was getting tired of having to hustle for business. This new move is a dream job for me, but I only got it due the visibility of consulting.”

Dave did quite well in his new position and enjoyed in immensely.

Steve, another engineer, was a talented writer and editor of a technical magazine. We met through my efforts to write articles (a favorite marketing method) and stayed in touch.

Several years after I started JumpToConsulting, Steve hung out his consulting shingle as technical marketer. We shared ideas, and thanks to his talent, hard work, and contacts, he was very successful within a year.

But then Steve stopped consulting. Concerned, once again I asked why.

“What happened,” I asked.

” Well,” he said, “I discovered I really like working with a team, and not all by myself. I miss the camaraderie.”

So like Dave, he went to work for a favorite client. He quickly moved onward and upward in his career.

(Edit – After his company cut back, Steve is back consulting. Much easier to start up the second time.)

Some lessons learned here:

  • You don’t need to be a consultant forever.
  • You may be seen as more valuable for your experience.
  • You have visibility to many more opportunities than had you stayed where you were at in the first place.

The downside is that once having tasted freedom it may be tough to go back. (It would be for me.) But given the right opportunity, maybe not. Careers can be funny that way.

P.S. Tagged this post in “Success Stories.” Even though all three examples eventually left full time consulting, they did so after trying and succeeding. No doubt they could do it again!

“Better to have consulted and quit, than to never have consulted at all.” 

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