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Both of those words say "think for yourself." Formulas are for herd animals.
Chip thanks a million times. I have an IT experience over 10 years. Tired of being under ones roof, living by their laws, their rules. Am definately going to follow & apply these steps. Thanks again
T
S.A
T
S.A
...if you haven't left your day job. It's not easy. Especially in the first years.
Get your feet wet while still maintaining a steady income stream, then make the jump when you feel comfortable that you can sufficiently replace that stream with your new venture.
Just picking on nits here BUT ...
Chip, you referred to choosing a specialization as creating a niche.
What you are referring to is micro-marketing. Taking a large market (IT or IS) and breaking it down into smaller and smaller elements until eventually you end up with a tiny thing that your customers can understand (e.g. SAP implementation business process analysis). Sometimes it is confused with long-tail marketing (which is actually a reverse view). It is product and market focused and is intended to help you focus your marketing efforts on specific benefits and a single product. It's about making it easy for your customers to understand your message. .
HOWEVER, niche marketing (ie creating a niche) is about your customers. It's about taking all the various possible customers and then breaking them into tiny segments. For example, you might start with all IT customers then move to all SAP customers then to SAP customers in distribution then to SAP customers in distribution on the west coast. The purpose is to identify a single class of customers with almost identical characteristics. In that way, you can arrange to place your messages where they are and you can target your message to appeal to them.
Like I said, picking nits....
Glen Ford
http://www.trainingnow.ca
http://www.vproz.ca
Chip, you referred to choosing a specialization as creating a niche.
What you are referring to is micro-marketing. Taking a large market (IT or IS) and breaking it down into smaller and smaller elements until eventually you end up with a tiny thing that your customers can understand (e.g. SAP implementation business process analysis). Sometimes it is confused with long-tail marketing (which is actually a reverse view). It is product and market focused and is intended to help you focus your marketing efforts on specific benefits and a single product. It's about making it easy for your customers to understand your message. .
HOWEVER, niche marketing (ie creating a niche) is about your customers. It's about taking all the various possible customers and then breaking them into tiny segments. For example, you might start with all IT customers then move to all SAP customers then to SAP customers in distribution then to SAP customers in distribution on the west coast. The purpose is to identify a single class of customers with almost identical characteristics. In that way, you can arrange to place your messages where they are and you can target your message to appeal to them.
Like I said, picking nits....
Glen Ford
http://www.trainingnow.ca
http://www.vproz.ca
... of specialization. I wonder what the others are.
Producers -- especially "universal" producers such as accountants, lawyers or IT types -- tend to see only one dimension (the market). "I do computer repair. I don't care what your business is. A PC is a PC." Even worse, they tend to see the market in gross terms. "Project Management is a matter of managing projects. I don't care if it is a marketing project, an IT project or a merger & aquisition."
Unfortunately, the customer tends to see themselves in their own dimension. "I need an accountant. He has to be familiar with Dress Shoppe retailing. After all, our tax laws are different."
I haven't seen any other dimension. Most of the other candidates tend to be different levels of detail along one of the two dimensions (e.g. industry vs size of organization). And using other entities (a typical way of determining dimensions) usually just gives a variation on one of the two.
Perhaps skills might? Be an interesting pub discussion.
Unfortunately, the customer tends to see themselves in their own dimension. "I need an accountant. He has to be familiar with Dress Shoppe retailing. After all, our tax laws are different."
I haven't seen any other dimension. Most of the other candidates tend to be different levels of detail along one of the two dimensions (e.g. industry vs size of organization). And using other entities (a typical way of determining dimensions) usually just gives a variation on one of the two.
Perhaps skills might? Be an interesting pub discussion.
If you want to be able to live on your consultant career, you must have something to offer to your customer.
I saw a few of my colleagues jump ship at our company to start consulting, saw them being successful at it, and knew that there was a ready market for consulting in my niche. Our company's level of service had slipped significantly, and lots of clients needed expertise that consultants could provide. I also knew that the hourly bill rate was several times what my salary was, and also knew a few marketing channels where I could tap into clients.
I remember getting my first check for consulting, and thinking, "Holy crap! They paid me this much to do something so easy?!" I was hooked.
Since then, I've grown my business every year--even during the crazy recession--and QUADRUPLED my income.
I'll never go back to a "real" job again.
Greg Milates
StartMyConsultingBusiness dot com
I remember getting my first check for consulting, and thinking, "Holy crap! They paid me this much to do something so easy?!" I was hooked.
Since then, I've grown my business every year--even during the crazy recession--and QUADRUPLED my income.
I'll never go back to a "real" job again.
Greg Milates
StartMyConsultingBusiness dot com
It is a part of ordinary business practice, when one is still an employee. It's when people decide to seek you out, because you are committed to a level of quality beyond the minimal of job specification. They desire a little something, that isn't built into the soulless, heartless, anonymous transactions that " the business " has become reduced to delivering. You become reliable, to people, for a kind of service, which truly deserves the name. It humanizes the entire deadly process, of having to undergo time given up to the thing that people secretly loathe - " work ". For work, in that sense, is other people's asset - not one's own. But work, in the sense of the pleasure of helping others, on a personal basis, is a joy, and a solace, for all the many attempts by perpetuators of the awful soullessness, to reduce you to a discontentee, a functionary, and a timeserver. For you, work becomes something special, which builds consultancy, as people seek you out, specifically, to do what others won't, and don't want to be bothered with. Consultancy is doing things personally for people - with them - and not simply servicing companies, institutions, agencies, bodies.
Thanks for this post. My first response to much of what you said was, "well of course". Simultaneously my other first response was, "it feels damn good to hear someone else say it"!
I'm 18 months into my first consultancy. I haven't achieved my financial objectives yet, and it's been extraordinarily hard work. At the same time I _love_ the work I'm doing! I've met many really cool people my clients who are generating a lot of return traffic.
We'll see if I can break the profit barrier before I run out of capital, but in the meanwhile the part that is working is all about what you said: human relationships and finding something to offer that people value.
I'm 18 months into my first consultancy. I haven't achieved my financial objectives yet, and it's been extraordinarily hard work. At the same time I _love_ the work I'm doing! I've met many really cool people my clients who are generating a lot of return traffic.
We'll see if I can break the profit barrier before I run out of capital, but in the meanwhile the part that is working is all about what you said: human relationships and finding something to offer that people value.
I'll take that as a high compliment, because I think some of the most important truths in any situation are the ones that everybody knows but nobody says. We're often too busy chasing after the novel schemes that will make it all easy and instant.
It sounds like you've got what it takes to succeed: passion and persistence. I wish you all the best success. Please let us know how you make out.
It sounds like you've got what it takes to succeed: passion and persistence. I wish you all the best success. Please let us know how you make out.
Chip, I've been under the gun with a deadline and am just coming up for air now. I'm flattered that you linked to my poem. You can tell the kind of day I was having! I do think that very few people...even entrepreneurs...talk about the challenges of running a business. But the truth is that it can be tough at times and you do have to have a good sense of what's in it for you. Fortunately, I can usually find a long list of reasons that makes it all worthwhile.
>> The best practice is the one that works best for you, today.
That's excellent advice, whether for consulting or life.
>> The best practice is the one that works best for you, today.
That's excellent advice, whether for consulting or life.
Your poem aligned with my experiences on the day that I read it. As much as we independents like to think we're self-sufficient, it's always nice to get a word of encouragement from someone else who's following a similar path.
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