Have you had it to here with your corporate job? If moving on to setting up a consultancy is your business future, then you’ve had sufficient experience to sell yourself as an expert. You could do quite well.
Here are some average annual incomes for various types of consultants, sourced from firms that track income.
- Financial: $74,320.
- Corporate strategy: $140,939.
- Automotive: $64,878.
- Operations: $87,229.
- Information technology: $72,324.
- Healthcare: $87,711.
I’m not a consultant but I am the co-founder and president of a professional ghostwriting service called Ghostwriters Central, Inc. My company has existed since 2002. In that time, we’ve completed thousands of projects for clients worldwide. Primarily, we write books, screenplays, wedding toasts, speeches of all kinds, stage plays, and much more. My goal with this article is to demonstrate how a pro writer can help you to succeed.
Let’s get started.
If you’re like most who go into the consulting business, your primary problem is getting known for your expertise and client service attitude. It’s a marketing issue. The first big thing is establishing credibility and landing clients. You need to prove your value to prospective clients and gain recognition in a competitive market. Without a well-known brand or track record, attracting clients can be difficult, especially if competing against established firms or consultants with a long history in the industry. This is what we’re going to focus on.
Become a thought leader to raise your profile. This would consist of creating “content” (a severely overused word these days) that not only showcases your expertise but also pushes forward industry conversations, challenges conventional wisdom, or introduces new ideas or solutions. Here’s what these pieces might include:
- White papers: Detailed, well-researched documents on specific industry challenges, emerging trends, or complex issues. They often include case studies, data analysis, and proposed solutions or frameworks.
- Reports: Annual or periodic reports that analyze market conditions, predict future trends, or review the impact of recent changes in the industry. These could focus on technology adoption, regulatory changes, or consumer behavior shifts.
- Future forecasts: Articles or blogs predicting future industry developments, based on current data, trends, and your expertise. This positions you as someone who can see beyond immediate concerns.
- Solution papers: Documents that outline innovative solutions to common or emerging problems within the industry. These could involve new methodologies, tools, or approaches you have pioneered, or significantly contributed to.
- Opinion pieces or editorials: Commenting on recent news, policy changes, or significant industry events. This shows your involvement with real-time issues and your ability to interpret how these affect the sector.
- Guides or ebooks: Comprehensive guides that educate the market on complex topics, new technologies, or best practices. These can range from beginner’s guides to advanced strategy documents.
- Discussion papers: Content designed to stimulate discussion, challenge existing norms, or propose new questions for the industry to consider. This might include critiques of current practices or calls for innovation.
- Success stories: Narratives where you share personal experiences, client success stories, or lessons learned from projects. This humanizes you while demonstrating practical application of your advice. “Humanizes.” That means giving you a personality. I handled website marketing for a real estate appraiser. I recorded real life stories about his work, which included dodging rottweilers on the property, and walking in on a woman in the shower — her husband hadn’t told her he would be coming by. Nobody else had anything like it. The goal? To make him human, to give a sense of the kind of man he was.
- Original research: Conducting or sponsoring research that provides new insights or validates existing theories, thereby contributing original content to the industry’s knowledge base.
- Expert panels or discussions: Organizing or participating in discussions with other thought leaders or industry experts, either through written Q&A, podcasts, or video content.
- Vision statements or manifestos: Articulating a vision for the future of the industry or sector, often with a call to action for peers, competitors, or regulators.
Each piece should be crafted to not only inform but also to provoke thought, encourage debate, or inspire action among peers, potential clients, or the broader industry audience. The key is to present ideas that are not just informative but also transformative, positioning you as someone at the forefront of your field’s evolution.
I have outstanding writers under contract. We can research and write your documents, blog entries and articles, and we can write the text for your website. A book can be a profitable marketing tool and can raise your profile in that marketplace. A professional writer can discuss with you how to approach a subject and make it work for you. Through the interview process, the writer will transfer your knowledge into words on a page. A writer can prepare your speeches, papers and reports. A writer can help craft narratives around your journey, experiences, and case studies which not only humanize you, but also illustrate your expertise through real-world examples.
A writer will also be familiar with search engine optimization – SEO – and know how to structure written material for the web so that it can be found by those searching for it.
A ghostwriter will mimic your voice, ensuring that all produced content feels authentic, thus maintaining the personal brand while scaling content production. One trust writer will assure style consistency from element to element, project to project.
And that writer will save you an enormous amount of time. While you’re at an industry function working the crowd, that writer will be completing your next task. If you’d like to know more, that link near the top of this article will take you to Ghostwriters Central and its contact information. Work with us. Click it now. We’ll simplify your life and help you to succeed.