By Marcia Yudkin / Published on July 12th, 2007 / Marketing
consultants and launch their practice. After helping so many people figure
out their easiest, most promising way to start earning money with a new
skill and build a clientele, I should probably patent the method! Here are
the steps, though, which I believe will work for just about anyone who's
already had some professional or personal experience as an adult.
First, ask yourself what groups of people you have contacts with or you
have a special affinity with because of your professional or life
experience. One protégé had been an executive recruiter two careers
previously, and though he didn't have any current contacts in the industry,
knew he could come across with uncommon credibility with recruiters since
he had "been there." Another decided to target gay and lesbian business
owners in her city, since she belonged in that category and knew several
professional groups where she could network and contribute to their
newsletter.
Second, catalogue your preferences. Do you enjoy working with the folks in
the groups that came up in answer to question #1? I strongly believe that
if you don't respect and like your clients, it comes across and your
business will never catch fire and glow healthily. One of my trainees
decided not to pursue ad agencies as clients because she'd met too many
"phonies" at such organizations.
Third, research whether a certain niche is reachable and large enough to
sustain a practice. A protégé who wanted to do copywriting with software
companies in her geographical area between $10 and $50 million in annual
sales was able to identify more than a hundred of them within a two-hour
drive of her house. That meant a green light for her launch. If there
were only four or five such companies, I'd have encouraged her to find a
different niche to start with, or to target other groups at the same time
from the start.
Fourth, do a reality check: Does this group have the money and willingness
to pay for your services? Some professions and demographic groups are
accustomed to paying for professional services, while others aren't used to
doing so and balk at even reasonable fees. For instance, as a former
college professor I should have been able to rack up tens of thousands of
dollars from other professors wanting to be published. However, in 20
years I've encountered very few professors open to the idea of paying for
help on their writing, and I discourage others from choosing this as a
niche. Likewise, I don't believe it would be wise to target 20-somethings
as clients, since their own earnings are low and they've probably never
hired any kind of consultant before.
Fifth, decide on one or more marketing vehicles that you feel comfortable
with and fashion a pitch for your services using them. One former sales
executive excelled at calling up strangers and marketing to them by phone,
while practically everyone else I've worked with chose some combination of
direct mail, networking and a Web site to get their business off the
ground.
I should add that when launching your professional practice, it's smart to
do a few jobs free to collect a portfolio of samples and/or testimonials.
After you milk your chosen niche and have a solid financial foundation, you
can certainly change your target, adding new groups and abandoning
populations that don't fulfill your expectations. You might end up
offering your services to anyone and everyone, but that's not the shrewdest
starting point. Even with my easy-start formula you'll need some patience,
but it maximizes the odds that business will start and continue coming in
at a rate that encourages you to stick with it until your practice is
unquestionably off the ground.
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Marcia Yudkin marcia@yudkin.com is the author of the classic copywriting
guide, Persuading on Paper, and 10 other books. You can learn more about
her ten-week, one-on-one copywriting training course at
http://www.yudkin.com/become.htm.