Be Brave Not Safe

In prior posts we’ve discussed the creation of marketing content in preparation for making some noise, to attract others to you / your services. Now that you’ve drafted this content it is time to finalize and begin making it available.

As you may know, or have guessed, the #1 marketing channel is the Internet! And, with relatively little effort you / your business can be marketed — to the entire planet!

While there are numerous “offline” marketing activities we’ll talk about later you MUST first have an effective online presence for others to find and/or check you out. This online presence includes (but is not necessarily limited to) a:

• Comprehensive LinkedIn Profile
• Website
• Blog and/or e-Newsletter

Let’s address the first item above. The other 2 will be covered in future posts…One step at a time everyone 🙂

LinkedIn Profile

In a prior post we discussed the creation of your bio and the fact that it (the bio) is NOT a detailed resume. That said, LinkedIn IS the place to share details of your background (very much like a resume) including your most recent endeavor (your business and the services you offer). You can use the bio as the opening section of your LinkedIn profile. From there, you’ll want to list every (applicable):

• “Professional” position you’ve held (i.e., you’ll note that my profile doesn’t include my high school / college years of bagging groceries and mixing cement 🙂 ).
• Education / degrees and training / certifications

And, instead of my going into further detail on how to setup a LinkedIn profile I’ll simply encourage you to “follow their prompts.” That is, LinkedIn has an EXCELLENT wizard that walks you through the steps necessary to prepare a comprehensive profile and make effective use of the tool for networking purposes.

If you’d like to view an example (my LinkedIn profile) click here.

Once you have your profile setup (or have enhanced your previously existing profile) in preparation for your business launch (that’s right, you have NOT YET launched your business) it will be important for you to have a second set of eyes review it and provide feedback. This would include people in your inner circle, including your Board of Advisors.

I would not suggest Facebook as a tool for marketing a consulting business. This is assuming (as mentioned in the introductory post on this topic) your business is targeting other businesses. While I am certainly NOT an expert in online marketing, I would suggest that Facebook is more of a B2C (business-to-consumer) than a B2B (business-to-business) marketing tool. However, feel free to prove me wrong (later). First, get started with the “professional” networking tool (LinkedIn)…

In future posts we’ll cover other topics related to your online presence. Hope you are keeping up 🙂

Click here to review the next article in the series.

The marketing plan for any business is multi-faceted: there are many moving parts which build upon one-another and must come together for congruent delivery to your audience.

We have recently been discussing the preparation and generation of marketing content. Prior to “making some noise” to your target market there are a few more topics to cover.

Consider the “noise” that we are going to make as “bait” to draw others’ attention to you / your business. Once you have gotten their attention, you must have solid foundational content so they (especially those who do not yet know you) can get a sense of you / your background and why they might consider doing business with you. To do so, you need to prepare:

• A Bio
• An Overview of Your Services

Your Bio

An effective bio (biography) is a concise overview of your background:

• Where your expertise came from / how you got here
• The results you have achieved
• Any special distinctions relevant to your service offerings

Note: This is NOT a detailed resume. It is a summary only. If you’d like to review an example (my bio) simply click here.

An Overview of Your Services

The purpose of this content is to outline, for your audience, the kinds of services you provide and what others can expect to achieve by engaging you. And, if you’ve been following the posts on this topic (of Launching a Consulting Business) you “should have” already generated this content, as it is part of:

• Your Value Proposition
• How you defined the competition (to eat their lunch)
• Your Shingle
• Your Pitch

If you’d like to review an example of the services my business provides, simply click here.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that what we’ve prepared for my business is perfect. I am suggesting, however, that it has seemed to work 🙂

In closing, once you have tackled the above, you are prepared for the next step.

Click here to review the next article in the series.