How to Find Consulting Clients
breakintoconsulting.com
breakintoconsulting.com
We've been doing the consulting portion for 3 months now and are on pace to hit 10k (mostly mrr) this month.
I don't believe there is any super special process. I figured this out through months of failing and piecing things together.
You should make content to establish yourself as an expert. I did for recruiting. Over the course of 6 months I went from some random person who knew nothing to an authority in the space.
By doing that, I get invited to speak and train teams across the US. Our business is pretty simple. We make content, which helps our lead gen efforts be more effective because people know who we are. Through that, we shoot for 20 meetings booked a month.
We try to close 5% of the opportunities we generate since we aren't really sales people.
And then once clients are closed we work like hell to fulfill what we told them we were going to do!
There really isn't a magic sauce. Its just about the volume needed for sales (I struggled with this for awhile as an engineer).
Also: a crisis in your consultancy department will further reduce your focus on the SaaS part. A successful SaaS play with longer lead times and a hard to reach market requires deep pockets or a very tight belt. Adding a consultancy arm is akin to killing the SaaS project, only slowly.
Everyone doesn't have to go after some big VC play. I am 23 and really enjoy learning the way I am. Maybe one day I will care about a SaaS company but for now, learning and bringing in good revenue is more important.
P.S. I'd argue going out of business because you are too prideful to do things that bring in revenue is worse for a SaaS company, but too each their own!
You are not a SaaS company. You are a consultant with a hobby. If your point is to have a lifestyle, you’re doing it wrong.
Consulting is a treadmill, chasing that revenue. You’re only as good as your last gig, and you’re on their time, not yours.
This problem remains true even at scale. If literally everything goes perfectly for decades, you’ll eventually be a McKinsey or a BCG, the best reputation in the world, premium pricing ... yet you’ll still spend most of your time trying to get that next revenue gig. If you let up even for a moment, you’re dead.
SaaS (when done well), you get recurring subscriptions to a healthy point and it’s money for free. You can take months off at a time, get inspiration, come back and make an amazing new feature, stair step your subscriptions, and go play again, or make another SaaS, etc. If you want extra revenue, only do “ProServ” to help prospects move into your subscription and become self-sustaining. Get them hooked, then get out of their day-to-day.
Starting at your age, I tried both ways. On the fourth try, went from zero to seven figures liquidity before 30 using this model (utility w/ pro-serv onboarding), and because the valuation multiple on recurring billing is so much higher than on a body shop, hit nine figures of equity by 33.
At the same time, I had the flexibility to “run the company” from the ski slopes for six weeks a season, tinker for months at a time on what the next SaaS could be, operate using “4 hour work weeks”, even deliberately drop in and sabbatical in different industries to look for the next personal skill-up and next idea.
You do have to make a choice between funding and lifestyle. You never intended to raise funds, that’s fine. While I tried both choices twice each, and financial freedom came through funding, this is both anecdata and purely personal choice.
If you want “FU” money, it’s faster through funding but you have to learn to satisfy additional masters. If you just want a revenue stream for however long that SaaS tech remains relevant, you can be content to “only” double every year till you hit six or seven figures a year of cash income, then shift to hobby mode for a decade, but be aware that you might become un-fundable after two to four years because VC will see your growth curve track record as too shallow: “If this could be a home run, why isn’t it already?”
Being prideful or having purpose and focus are very different things. Write your goal on your forehead and look at yourself in the mirror every morning. Be a goal monster.
FWIW, I agree with you :-)
You should make content to establish yourself as an expert. I did for recruiting. Over the course of 6 months I went from some random person who knew nothing to an authority in the space.
1.) Find a niche.
This is the most difficult part. If your niche is too obscure, you'll find yourself in a situation where you're an expert in a field that three people on earth have heard of. That's not a good way to get consulting leads! But, if your niche is too general, you're going to end up competing with so many people that your ability to become an expert will be a function of how good you are at marketing. In a perfect world, you would already have some expertise in this space, but this isn't a strict requirement, just be aware that if you're trying to attract consulting clients, it's very bad if your potential client knows noticeably more than you do.
2.) Start a topic board.
(An outliner is an excellent tool for this, but you can use anything - a text editor, paper, a white board.)
Chances are, as soon as you pick a niche, you'll believe there are an endless number of topics to write about. You'll start off strong, publish five good articles, then sit in front of your computer, try to start an article and realize you have absolutely nothing to say.
Sometimes, you can generate a topic by reading some relevant news sources, but most of the time, you'll lose momentum, so it's important to have a repository of half baked content ideas.
3.) Figure out your medium.
Are you a great writer? Do you have a good voice for podcasting? Do you have a good face for video? Do you have a good face for podcasting?? ;)
When you get good, you'll likely want to branch out into other mediums. Think, for example, of the legions of marketing bloggers who have branched out into marketing podcasts. But, at first, it's easier to focus on one medium, get really good at it and then branch out. When you're new to producing content, it's too easy to blame the wrong medium when you should really blame shitty content. After you've been around the block, you'll get a sense of whether your treatment of a topic will work on your audience if it's presented in a certain medium.
4.) Find one or two people who you trust to serve as editors/first eyes.
Ideally, this will be someone who cares about you enough to tell you that you sound like a buffoon.
5.) Build out a schedule.
When you're getting started, your real task is to produce a habit, not produce amazing content. If you form the habit while producing great content, that's even better.
If I was publishing a piece of content every Monday, my schedule would look like this:
Sunday - Start new draft.
Monday - Publish previous piece. Finish first draft of new content + send to editors.
Tuesday/Wednesday - Wait for first round of feedback. Start picking a topic/finding sources for next week's article. As soon as you get that feedback, drop everything and make a choice. Can you salvage this piece by Monday? If yes, move forward. If no, bail and start on a new draft.
Thursday - Send current draft to editors. Depending on the first round of feedback, this may be a first or second draft.
Friday/Saturday - Wait for feedback, make sure all your sources are together for your next article and figure out what you'll really want to say. As soon as you get feedback, massage the article and prepare the post to be published Monday. Scheduling a post works great here.
---Repeat---
You'll notice there are only two rounds of feedback from editors. In my experience editing and writing, if I can't massage a piece within two rounds of feedback, it's best to put that topic back on the topic board and revisit it at another time. This problem is especially acute if you have more than one editor. For some reason I don't understand, if I'm working with multiple editors, by the time we get to a third draft, my editors start to diverge.
The small lesson is don't waste time on fucked content. The bigger lesson is that if you routinely need more than two drafts to complete a written article, you're either a shitty writer who picked the wrong medium, or you're a shitty expert who picked the wrong niche.
5.) Always be open to learn.
I was able to make a dent in recruiting because I am an engineer and know about problems engineers have. Further, I found a niche where recruiters want to learn how to write basic web scrappers and started teaching them how to do so.
If you find a similar niche or compliment to the industry you want to enter that you have some experience in, its pretty easy!
Some people say this is like asking someone out on a date. I've been in a relationship for 5 years so that didnt help me a lot.
I had to just start doing it. And anticipated the first 20 would go horribly wrong.
And thats kind of what happened. Now I don't really get attached to an opportunity at all. The faster you can get to that point the better you will be at selling.
When you're looking to date, you'll see (and hopefully meet) lots of interesting people. On average 1/10 of the people you find interesting will find you interesting.
Then, of the 1/10 who find you interesting, about half will be in a place to do anything about that.
That attitude has been good for me in sales, because it has kept me from getting too attached to a prospect. Though, when I was getting started, it was tough because I didn't iterate on my approaches quickly enough.
Yes getting "out of the building" is important, and going out & meeting people is key. All the time. Also don't hard sell people. Instead introduce one person to another person. At first you are simply giving your connections. But soon people see you as a go-to person, and will bring things to you. Also people don't forget gifts of introductions & business you bring.
Another thing. Don't go to "peer" events with other engineers. These events are useful to build your knowledge, but not work building your business. Stronger leads come from business owners, managers & CTOs. Start going to events outside your subject area of expertise. Go to pitch events, vc events, startup events, entrepreneur events.
You will be surprised how valuable you will be in a non-tech business event. This will also teach you to communicate better with non-tech folks. And share what you know. Also ask people, "what events do you recommend?" Then go to those events. And so on!
If you expect business people to cross the business/tech communication chasm, you have a lot fewer options than if you are the one to cross it. Learning their language helps you understand the value they get from your services, which gives you more leverage on rates.
My best generic advice is to try to put yourself in the mind of your perfect client/customer.
It can be easy to forget this, but they're just as desperate to find help as you might be trying to find work. Think about where they might go—online or offline—to find help, and go there. Rinse and repeat. You may not even meet your actual client this way, but may meet someone who knows someone. That's just about nearly as good.
Once you have a few stable clients, that's where a good network comes into play. Do good work, be nice, and tell people what you do, and the work will keep coming in (and likely in amounts greater than you can handle).
Are these companies that have minimal funding and no or very few full-time engineers, and you're building them a prototype to help them get off the ground? Or are you doing something very specialized, like setting up a Kubernetes cluster or something and training the team to maintain it after you leave?
Or, are these companies that have existing well-functioning engineering teams, and you basically join the team building product features alongside them but as a consultant?
Just asking because I've worked at a lot of startups but haven't ever been in a situation where we've hired a consultant. So I'm curious what the working relationship is like, I feel like there might be some friction between full-time employees who are often super committed, working long hours, maybe taking a pay cut to work there, and a consultant who's just in for a few months.
I do pretty much everything on the technical side to get the product off the ground and scale it, from wireframing, to writing the code, and ultimately helping build the team or onboarding a FT CTO or VP Eng. My period of involvement varies from about 6 months (generally takes at least this long to find a good CTO candidate) to 4-5 years, at which point I'm usually leading the tech team.
And how do they pay you, if not with equity to offset low co-founder salary?
Really intrigued to know; I wasn't aware this was a model that worked.
How long did it take for you to go from a few stable clients to too much work to handle?
Congrats!
> How long did it take for you to go from a few stable clients to too much work to handle?
About 4 years. It's definitely a long game. The first years were pretty rough. Although, to be fair, I started doing work right in the middle of a recession.
Good luck! Also, I'm happy to answer any other questions you might have. Feel free to contact me directly, too (email in profile).
We most need it in our content and sales efforts. These would speed up our growth like crazy.
Do you still do the work yourself or do you just manage?
I (re)started my tech blog after several years and made it more active and discussed things which were kind of like a "niche" that is web scraping and automation. I wrote posts how things are done and put code on Github. At one side I was building my Github and on other hand my SEO optimized posts attracted Google and eventually developers and..site/business owners too that helped me to get contractual work.
The biggest issue with us, techies, is that we don't know how to sell ourselves. Blogging could be pretty effective to get consulting work.
Right now I'm at ~$2k a month and also I've increased my rate thanks to your work.
This article is not "shitty" but it def was inspired by your article
If there is no requirement to be onsite, I'd steer clear of meetup. For the same effort you can grow something across the US/outside/etc
Your personal network is the most important thing, in my experience.
Don’t bother.
The author wrote back within the hour asking how he could help. There were several emails that followed.
While there is a lot of what you claimed out there I feel this site isn’t one of them and the author is genuine.