I want to learn how you identify relevant companies, introduce yourself to them, convince them to give you the opportunity to present yourself and your services, convince them to hire you for a project etc. ?
Any recommendations on how to learn this would be much appreciated.
There hasn't been ANYTHING new in selling for at least 30-40 years with an exception of the social selling trend, but that can be mastered rather fast over the net.
Yes, it's really that simple. Learn, apply, pivot. Repeat. You'd be surprised how many account / biz dev managers never had a chance to read. Therefore they speculate about "intuition" and "talent", which are obviously BS. Master the process and you'll shine (and your head is going to forever free from thinking endlessly if you could have done something better). I wish you luck.
A couple of things:
+ "your services" consist of whatever solves the client's problem.
+ don't waste time trying to convince people to hire you. People with real problems don't need convincing. You can spend forever trying to convince someone who doesn't have real problems.
+ consulting is a relationship business. Relationships take years to build. The best potential clients are in established relationships with established consultants. New consultants see a higher percentage of bad potential clients: amateurs and non-payers.
+ selling is hard. Almost everything else is easier.
I'm trying to answer the question on what needs to be learned first. I honestly don't know.