SolveYourProblem
eBusiness Series:
How To Start Your Own
Coaching or Consulting Business
( 18 pages )
How
to Get Started: Consultant
- Build
a thorough business plan. It is crucial to have a sound business plan
from the very beginning of your consulting endeavor. A
good rule of thumb is: If you can plan for it ahead of
time, by all means do so. This includes, but is not limited
to:
- Pre-establishing
your strategic approach for running the day-to-day aspects
of the business. This includes considering items such as:
Securing a business credit card, establishing standard
hours of operation, deciding whether or not to invest in
purchasing certain tools as opposed to renting services
or tools (like choosing between buying a laser printer
or using a service like Kinkos).
- Marketing your
business. Deciding how to market your business in the most
cost effective way possible. Will you need business cards?
Would it be in your best interest to hire someone to design
and develop a website for you? How about radio or television
advertisements? Newspaper ads?
- Establishing
principal funding. Will you be starting this business from
scratch out of your own pocket? Are you interested in acquiring
funding from an “angel investor”? Do you have friends or
relatives who may be interested in getting in on the ground
floor with an initial investment based on your reputation
and experience, which could later pay off for them in the
form of a return on their money? Perhaps you may want to
offset the initial investment by applying for a small business
loan at a financial institution. You will also certainly
want to investigate grants, tax credits, and loans made
available by the federal, state, and municipal government
which are often made available to individuals starting
a new small business (particularly if you live in the United
States, which has many programs available for just this
reason). These are the types of things you may want to
take a closer look at when deciding on how to find your
venture.
- Decide upon,
design, and build your work environment: This is a crucial
part of beginning your consulting business and much care
and concern should be taken with this step of the process.
What kind of a work environment you will need to do business
in will vary wildly depending on many factors including:
- Your
budget: How
much money you have at the onset will be one of the major
factors in establishing your work environment. If you
are starting this on a very limited budget, you will
most likely want to build a home office. If you are going
to need a lot of space for equipment you may want to
consider clearing out a garage, spare bedroom, basement,
or loft space in your home and using that area to build
you place of business. Any of these areas will be very
useful for a wide variety of consulting business types.
If creatively designed you should be able to accomplish
nearly any type of clerical, development, artistic, or
light manufacturing work in as little as a 10 foot by
10 foot bedroom (or even smaller if all you need is a
computer and a desk). If it is within your budget after
all other elements of your business (such as equipment,
certifications, and licenses, etc.) are funded, and you
absolutely cannot use any space that you currently have
access to for free, you may want to consider renting
a small studio or office space.
While it is crucial for you to have a separate area that
is “for business only”, it is also the least efficient usage
of funds as far as getting “bang for your buck”, as real
estate is a very expensive part of the business world and
the longer you can put off having recurring bills such as
rent and various utilities, the better. Remember, when you
rent an office, you not only have to pay rent, deposit and
possibly tenancy insurance, but you will also need to pay
for separate phone lines, power, water, and Internet connectivity
(if necessary). When you are at the onset of establishing
any business your financial mantra should be “is this the
BEST use of the funds I have?”
- The type of
business you will be running/the type of equipment that
will be necessary: Most consultants will, at least at the
beginning, only need enough room to house the equipment
necessary for running the “office” portion of the enterprise
(ie: computer, desk, phone, filing cabinets, etc.). However,
if you going to be participating in certain types of consulting
that will require a more robust workshop you will want
to factor that into the decision making process. Network
engineering consultants, for example, will want to have
enough room to set up a mini-NOC (Network Operations Center)
laboratory for testing configurations and ideas for clients
before rolling them out live. Also, depending on the type
of business, the equipment and facilities as well as the
space will be important as well.
If you are going to be doing any type of computer consulting,
you will want to make sure you have a desktop computer, a
laptop computer and broadband Internet connection, at the
very least. If you are going to perform in a consultant capacity
for studio musicians, you will want to have enough space
to house a small-scale music studio. Thanks to modern technology
making things not only more powerful, but smaller, you should
have no trouble fitting a semi-pro level recording studio
in a closet sized area (but more room is ALWAYS better).
Consideration should also be taken for equipment you already
have. If you are going to be mixing things you already own
with new equipment, take care to ensure interoperability.
There is no point in spending $1,000 for an expensive electronic
tool if it going to make $2000 of equipment you already own
prematurely obsolete in the process do to interoperability
issues. You goal here is to achieve a balanced synergy between
the space you are using, the equipment you bring to the table,
and the new gear you will need to invest in. Think of it
as a kind of business oriented feng-shui process.
So, in a nutshell,
the above are some of the major considerations you should
be investing your initial time and effort into when building
your fledgling business. This is by no means an exhaustive
list of everything you should consider or challenges you
will likely encounter in the beginning, but it should serve
as a strong outline to prepare you for what you will be getting
into at the ground level of a consultancy, or any small business
for that matter.
 
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