Ask HN: How do I land my first small-business client?

1. What you are interested in is only tangentially relevant at best. Consultants are hired based on their clients' interests.

2. You have discovered the difference between pretend work and real work. SEO, blogging, branding, tweeting, etc. are pretend work. Real work is identifying leads, qualifying prospects, and closing deals...then doing the work and actually getting paid. Pretend work is easier because you can control it and nobody slams the door in your face when you tweet or goes with someone else because they were $5 cheaper or closes down with your invoices unpaid.

For all the things you've mentioned, I don't see a value proposition. How does Docker make someone money? More importantly how does Docker make any specific business money? It's a long road to develop a consultancy with a backlog.

Good luck.

Disagree: Blogging, branding, including creation of whitepapers, creates credibility and shows what's behind a value proposition. Knock on a door without a brochure, and the customer has no idea of the service.

Agree: Need to knock the door in the end.

I would suggest picking one field - either security or usability. While you may actually be an expert in both, it will be easier to position yourself as an expert in one. This will make your marketing more straightforward.

Then, you'll have to figure out how to educate your potential customers. If they don't know they have a problem, you'll have to teach them. Where do they hang out (online and in person)? Can you teach them why they would need your services and how you can help? Perhaps with a presentation or a whitepaper?

How would you sell Park & Eaton's services to yourself? I sometimes get most creative when thinking about myself as the customer, particularly because I personally do not like buying things.

It takes time to generate attention on social media without controversy or craziness. Hang in there.

You have a great logo (hooray for spaceships!). Your website is also clean (not too overwhelming) and easy to navigate. I would recommend first selecting a few small businesses that you would like to have as clients. Can they understand your website - your message? I ask this because there are some areas where the wording can be rephrased. Especially with small businesses, you won't just be selling to technical people, but you will be selling to busy people.

Examples are powerful. These don't needed to be displayed publicly, but have something ready (and interesting!) to show potential clients what you can do. I don't see a problem with your two interests: security and usability auditing. Some people may advise you to focus on one or the other, but this is IMHO.

If you are willing to write blog articles, would you consider writing and submitting articles to other sites, like the huffingtonpost.com or medium.com? You want to make it as easy as possible for people to find you online; it doesn't take much for a website to get lost.

Ultimately, to get your first clients, I'd recommend treating each one with a lot of personal attention, and showing them that you truly care about them and their businesses. When you initiate contact with them (try to get a meeting, invite them to lunch or coffee, offer a contest, etc.), present your services as accessible, valuable, and profitable - a direct way to help their bottom line (with metrics to back you up). Even without client history, you can do this by doing old-school research and by being as prepared as possible for misinterpretations and specific concerns. Good luck!

Pick up the phone and start calling people. Sell them your service. You get a lot of rejections to start with, but that's how you learn what to say to get further. Eventually you'll start to get positives.

There is literally no other way to build a consultancy business.

I'd also suggest picking one (security auditing or usability auditing or runway analysis). It's hard (trust me, I know, I haven't been super focused in my consulting) but a clearer message if you stick with one area rather than three.

It's all about fixing their problems and/or filling a need or desire. In other words, start with the "why": why does a company need your services? What problems do they have and how would you solve them?

When I go to your web page, it looks nice, but put yourself in my shoes, I'm a small company. Why would I care about "sustainable software development"? I'm a small biz, and when I hear "software development", I think of a barrel of cash being thrown out the window.

Consulting is really no different from product development: you have to be finding the pain, talking to people about their pain, and then you can mention how you might be able to solve that pain. As an example: "Has your company's systems been hacked? If you think the answer is no, think again. 83% [made up] of all companies have been hacked and don't even know it. We can do a basic security audit for you for [free/fixed-price] and if we can help you fix it, there's no charge."

Good luck and if you'd like to chat about Docker, let me know -- I'm working on a Docker sideline, but I try to focus on the pains it solves, e.g., the "it works on my machine" problem rather than, "hey, Docker here!" ;).

security and usability auditing

Do you know who your prospective customers are? Can you profile them to a very narrow group? Small companies as a group is a big segment. You need to narrow your prospective customer base to a very small group and then reach out to them.

Letting them know they need something has just resulted in defensive attitudes. So I can't figure out how to show my usefulness without forcing someone into (what they feel is) a corner.

Smaller the business more focused they are on either increasing the revenue or decreasing the cost. If you can't show how your service immediately impacts revenue or cost, you are not going to get much traction with them.

If you've ever tried marketing your services to small businesses who tend not to even be aware they /need/ your services, what have you done?

Tough proposition if you have to educate the market that they need something, you are going to need lot of money and resources for educating the market. You need to offer something that businesses already know they need. You may need to look at service providers who already providing complementary services to small businesses and target and consider them as customers.

Personally, I can't figure out what are you offering and why should I buy.

I used to be where you were - I wanted to be an independent consultant, I wanted to find clients and I wanted to grow my business. Now I operate as a high-end consultant for application security. I can tell you what I did, and hopefully it will help you as well.

I offer web and mobile penetration tests, source code analysis and best practices workshops for companies between the seed and Series A stage (I have also worked with recognizable enterprises you'd know of). Through September I'm fully booked at 100% capacity, mostly with Y Combinator companies. I charge a static rate of $10,000/week, though I discount this for certain circumstances (good referral, long term contract, etc).

So, that's me. How did I get to this place? How can you get to this place?

1. I network a lot. I don't go to meetups. I don't have a blog. I don't hand out business cards. I network with people in 1x1 ways that show my value. My best referrals have come from people who I helped pro bono for something seemingly insignificant who turned out to be very well connected. I don't network in a way characteristic of a salesman, I do so in a way that starts by genuinely listening to someone talk about a problem. If I can help, I frame myself as a person who can solve a business problem that happens to be related to security, not as a fly-by-night freelancer. I talk to people because I genuinely like talking to people - I will often just welcome people to email me to chat - not for a consultation, literally just to chat. It opens doors. The best way to start this is to literally reach out to people who are in influential groups - not influential people themselves - and help them in an honest manner. They will naturally refer you to people who have both problems and excess money, who are your qualified leads.

2. I have a strong value proposition. My work involves a lot of technical proficiency - I'm not just using a vulnerability scanner - and I deliver very solid results every time. I don't give canned reports and I can communicate effectively with both developers and managers. I am consistently well referred to others and over time this has led me to a place where I have excellent clients more often than not and I have to say no more than I can say yes.

3. I have read probably every comment by patio11 (Patrick McKenzie) and tptacek (Thomas Ptacek) on consulting. I have probably read all of them several times, in fact. They are both very good people (talk to them sometime) and they both have excellent advice. Those comments give you literally everything you need to know to run a consultancy on your own. They will give you all the non-technical savvy you need to run a technical business.

4. I am confident in my rates and don't back down from them. I will change on scope, but not my rates. I charge weekly and if I am not a good financial fit for someone I make a good faith effort to redirect them somewhere else.

5. I'm honest. I used to work at a security firm, one of the largest in fact. A lot of firms do things I don't agree with, like writing "has autocomplete enabled" on a security report. This doesn't mean that they are bad people, but it is tonedeaf to what your client really wants most of the time. I don't exaggerate findings and I do present my work in a very honest light. I also strive to be honest in business dealings as well. There is a lot of snake oil in this industry and I don't rip off my clients - I will not work with someone if something feels "off" or I don't feel I'm legitimately contributing value.

You can do it. It took me a long time, but you can do it. I would advise you start out by subcontracting another firm that needs work. Dirty secret - many security firms will subcontract to you, and you can build a client base that way.

Let me know if I can help you in any way, my email is in my profile. I agree with what others have said here that you should focus on either security or usability. Do one thing, and one thing well (or at least one domain well). I also don't think you should be putting so much effort into marketing. A blog is helpful for long term leads, but it won't help you in < 6 months usually. Ads are impersonal and probably won't get you what you're looking for either. Find influential groups and mingle with them in an honest way.

Also, if you're going to work in security, I advise you to work at a security firm before striking out on your own. If nothing else, it will show you the entire process the "real players" use.

I think you need to figure yourself out a bit more, because you're not achieving what you want to yet. Sit down, and write answers to the following:

1. Who are you? What is your value proposition? Why should I hire you?

2. Look at your answer above. If you're dispassionate about it, does it really solve a business need? Ask a few uninvested friends in the field.

3. Do you have a network? If not, why do you have a blog or Twitter? That's not how you build a network. That's how you maintain a network and grow a network. It isn't a seed, it's water.

4. Who can you immediately identify who needs your services? How can you put yourself in front of them in a way that is more organic than forced?

Good luck.

So as someone who has a consultancy where we have focused quite a bit on the SMB market I can speak with experience when I say that it is a tougher market at times. Our enterprise clients are harder to get usually but much easier to sell to in a lot of ways. You are doing a lot of the right first steps IMO, many of which I personally did too when I started out. Some suggestions after reading your site quickly and reading your questions.

1. Your site doesn't communicate to the small business owner. You need to tell/teach them what you can do for them, not use "jargon" or terms they can care less about. In the end they are wanting to know what problems you can solve or how you can help them make more money. So for example, instead of just saying security and usability on the site. Frame it in the terms of "did you know", and mention some specific statistics on SMB's where you have relevant knowledge which you can use to improve upon their issues for them. This is helping them understand what you offer versus just stating terms they may not be 100% familiar with.

2. In general SMB's don't care about you making their team slightly more efficient, they care how you can save them $10k/yr, or better yet, how you can make them an extra $10k or whatever the magic number is. Many times it is about how you market yourself and what you say more then what you are offering that helps them buy.

3. SMB's get defensive typically when you approach them too fast or too hard about what they are doing wrong. They all know they are doing things that aren't necessarily correct but they have "made it this far". So generally it is not about telling them they are wrong and need to change, its about framing the conversation to say, hey did you know that you have done amazing so far and I am impressed, but it got me thinking that if you did XYZ, you could actually make more money every month or save 1 FTE's time per year making you more net income etc. That is how you spin a conversation and avoid the defensive response. Of course you have to find your own valid position but that is how I do it. But this opens the door for them to say, oh yea? Tell me more. Even if they say your full of shit tell me more, it is opening the conversation and they aren't defensive.

What I think you are finding is that while you have the skills to fix issues, you don't yet know how to present and discuss those skills with people to convince them to hire you. You probably have had some luck but I would bet it was with people that were either introduced to you by someone they trust or you had a prior/current relationship with somehow. That isn't a knock, it is how we all start. The great news is at least IMO everyone can learn the sales/marketing skills, they aren't secret or all that hard, its just how you frame conversations with prospects. And you have to expect it will take building up a little bit of a relationship with them.

Feel free to reach out to me via email, I am pretty happy to share my experiences good and bad. And good luck, it is fun figuring it all out, at least I think it is.

Have you tried freelance networks like TopTal?