As an author, you’re an ideal person to offer coaching and consulting services centered on your books.
Businesses and individuals need expertise they don’t have and spend billions every year on coaches and consultants to receive it. As a coach, you work closely with an individual or a small group to give them know-how, inspiration, and guidance through a project. As a consultant, you advise a company or professionals.
The first step in setting up a coaching/consulting business is to determine what you will consult about. If you write nonfiction, that’s easy – you coach and consult about your book’s topic – finance, design, marketing, rock climbing, skiing, drawing, whatever you wrote about. Of course, some of these fields lend themselves more to coaching (rock climbing lessons are for individuals or groups of people interested in learning the hobby) while others are more on the consulting wavelength, such as finance or marketing.
Next, you’ll want to set your fees. Consultants can earn a lot of money, based on their experience and their reputation. The more you have of both, the higher the fee you can charge. Before establishing your price, review what other consultants are paid. Compare their skill set and experience to yours and charge accordingly. As demand for your services grows, you can raise your fees. Warning: Don’t undercut the competition so much in pricing so that you run yourself out of business. Estimate what your expenses will be and make sure your price is above that number.
After that, you must market yourself so you land jobs. Start by building a website that focuses on your coaching/consulting business. On that website, emphasize your expertise, your ability to identify and diagnose problems, your teaching skills, how you’re good at coming up with new, successful ideas, and how you work as a catalyst of change. Your books can be a page on the website. In addition, have business cards and social media platforms set up for your consulting business. Your author’s website also should include a page about your consulting business.
When marketing your consulting business, you have an advantage in that people who need your services already are looking for you. The challenge is to help them find you and to convince them that you can best meet their need. To accomplish this, you’ll want to employ target marketing, in which you aim your promotions specifically at such businesses and their leaders. This can be done in multiple ways:
• Social Media – On Twitter and LinkedIn, tweet and post blog entries you write about the field you consult in. Your blog entries should include links to your consulting business and related books you authored. Every day attempt to gain followers and connections on these platforms. You also can promote your books via these posts and tweets, but you primarily are promoting your coaching/consulting services.
• Networking – You’ll also need to get out and talk with people. They might be other professionals at business-related gatherings such as local chamber of commerce functions or national conferences or by being a public speaker at various events.
• Advertising – Be wary of advertising in magazines and professional journals; there usually is a low return on investment. Only do so when the ad will reach your target audience and once you’ve become established with steady income and are looking to upscale the quality of your clients so that you can demand a higher fee for your services.
As your consulting business takes off, you’ll want to develop repeat customers. During the rough times, they’re the ones who give you the money needed to keep going. Achieving this means giving more than your all for the first several clients until you succeed in creating a loyal base.
Throughout your career as a consultant, you’ll need to stay up to date on your field. New technology and innovation lead to constant change in every profession. You have to stay abreast of it and the trends and fads. After all, you don’t want to sound dated when you consult, and most businesses are looking for a consultant to bring to them the most current information and methods so they can themselves can keep up.
Finally, be forewarned that you may need certifications or a special license to be a coach/consultant. Some states require that you register yourself with them as a consultant or that you be certified or licensed to coach or consult in your field. Not doing so at worse can be against the law, at best you won’t be hired because businesses or professionals won’t recognize your expertise without the certification or license.
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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past decade, I’ve helped more than 300 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.