Surface Ripples

How Do I Market My Company?

Just been talking with a friend whom I have known since 1996 who has started her own consulting company. Dangerous, you say, in a time of budget cuts where consultants and outside contractors are the first to go. Actually, she combines several skills which, for the budget-conscious firm could actually REDUCE their costs and improve company, managerial, team and individual performance. Normally, you would hire different consultants for all this - she does it all!

She has a professional-looking website (http://focusworldwide.co.uk), so the right image is there. She needs to make sure that her firm comes up at the top of the list in Google searches, etc.

What did we come up with? No rocket science (and if anyone else has any other ideas, please share). First thing I told her was to get on LinkedIn (TM) So that professionals can find her. The we started talking about whom to target, and came up with a strategy of top-down and bottom-up. Top down on the basis that if you shoot for the moon, you get the stars, and bottom-up because you have to start somewhere and you have more credibility if you can point to past successful projects (no matter how small).

We discussed sectors - she could do all: finance, industry, government, NHS, education, so not limited to one market (a major strength, in my view). Her product is also scalable, so she does not have to take on only medium to large clients. She operates from home, so low overheads meaning lower costs to clients!

She already has successful projects under her belt, so I suggested she ask if she could include them as case studies on her website (removing names if necessary to protect reputations). If this was not possible, what about asking for recommendations to post on the website? As an added incentive, she could offer to reduce the cost of services by a small amount if case studies or recommendations were forthcoming.

Another way of getting her name into the market was "pro bono" work for local governments or charities. Always helps to have the local government on side, and charities may have influential people on their board of trustees. Do the work for the charity for free, but the cost is a presentation to the trustees and being able to hand out her business card...

Local Chambers of Commerce and Business Associations were a "must", as well as making sure that her banker(s), lawyer(s) and accountant(s) also know about her in case they could generate leads.

Friends and colleagues past and present can also help - they know you best, after all. Added to this, she could mention to parents at her children's' school that she has just started up - it's amazing what the "kids' network" can produce!

As for charges, we discussed various ways of countering objections like "We don't have the budget" or "That's too expensive". If she can get her foot in the door to present, the organisation has clearly acknowledged that it needs/may need help, and should understand that this comes at a cost. What she can then do is find out what the objection is (do they want to pay less, not now, or not at all?) and then present alternatives to reduce the final bill (I mentioned the "cost" of a recommendation or case study above).

A great session, and one happy friend at the end who was determined to put what we discussed into practice. Watch this space...

Labels: Strategy

posted by William Martin @ 23:12