If you are thinking of setting up a consultancy business in the UK, or you have already set one up but want to grow, you are in the right place. I established my consultancy business in 2003, going from being a solicitor to a franchisee and one year later a full time marketing consultant.
I have tried, tested, measured and improved all forms of marketing tactics for consultants. I know how to do it the hard way and thankfully, I also now know how to to it the easy way. If you want to know the latter, download my free guide and save yourself from a lot of pain, expense and stress.
My name is Nick Jervis. I was a practising solicitor until 2003, but throughout the time that I was a solicitor I knew that I much preferred the marketing aspect of legal services than the ‘being a solicitor’ part. I hatched a plan to leave the legal world and to form my marketing consultancy, initially for solicitors but latterly for owners of all service based businesses, especially consultants.
I have written two best selling Amazon books, More Clients From Your Website and The Law Firm Growth Formula, so hopefully that gives you some confidence that I might know something about running a consultancy business (seeing as the latter book is 65,000 words long).
I have tested every form of marketing available for consultants and decided that the only marketing that I want to undertake is what I call ‘easy life client attraction’. This is the marketing where clients find you at the precise moment in time that they are ready to buy your consultancy services.
It is the best form of marketing for these reasons:
- It is the cheapest/most cost effective; and
- By the time the clients need your services they are convinced that you are the ONLY person to help them, so you never need to ‘hard-sell’ your services and price is not an issue.
Wonderful!
To discover all that I have learned about setting up and growing a consultancy business (and to save you from having to make all of the timely and costly mistakes that I made along the way), simply click the button below to instantly receive my free guide:
Click Here to Download My 6 Figure Consultancy Guide :>>
Below is a very shortened summary of my experience of setting up a consultancy business in the UK so you can perhaps do it a lot easier than I did!
Here is my five part guide to setting up a consultancy business.
1. Should You Start A Consultancy Business?
I left a well-paid job as a solicitor to set up a consultancy business because it is what I had always wanted to do. What’s more, I decided to do this at a time when I had a young family to support.
In hindsight you might say it was bad timing, I know my wife has said that!
However, I knew it was now or never for me before I got sucked further into the life as a solicitor to the point that I couldn’t leave it due to the salary levels. That would have killed me as I knew that being a solicitor was not what I was meant to do and it was eating away at me the longer I stayed in the legal profession.
So I jumped, and I jumped hard and far. I left the well paid job as a solicitor and went to earning nothing literally overnight. I did not keep a part time job, or start working on my consultancy business in the evenings; I just went for it straight off the bat.
I wouldn’t have it any other way!
For you now, if you can start your consultancy business whilst also keeping your full time job, or even a part time job, then do it. Or if you think that jumping straight into it is better for you, then do that too.
The point here is that only you can decide. But if you are reading this and something inside of you is jumping up and down saying ‘do it, do it’, you know that whichever way you choose, you owe it to yourself to set up your consultancy business.
2. Why Set Up A Consultancy Business?
Now I have covered the potentially ugly part, let’s have a bit more fun with this.
Here are some of my favourite reasons for setting up a consultancy business:
- You are master of your own destiny. If you earn good money, you can keep good money, it doesn’t go to the boss upstairs.
- You can set your own working times. Now I am not going to lie to you and say that it doesn’t involve a lot of hard work, especially at the beginning, but there are huge benefits to running your own business. I was able to go to all of my children’s plays and events when they were very young because I could set my own working hours and plan my day around them. Many of my ‘employed’ friends missed most of the events because they simply were not allowed the time off.
- You can set your own income limits. There is no limit to your income; it is completely within your own hands. At first you may well take lower paid consultancy roles, but as you grow in confidence and experience, you will soon realise your true value to your clients.
- There are many hidden benefits and opportunities. When you start your consultancy business you will soon find all manner of opportunities to create new income streams alongside your consultancy or completely separate from it. This is exciting, although I would say that at first the key point is not to get carried away with all of these ‘future’ income opportunities. The key point initially is to concentrate on your bread today rather than your jam tomorrow (which sadly never pays the mortgage or the other bills).
3. Where To Set Up A Consultancy Business?
This is a simple question to answer, based on my experience of running a consultancy business from home and now from a suite of offices.
You can run your consultancy business from absolutely anywhere. Generally, the only person that this matters to is yourself. If you think a client won’t pay you thousands of pounds a week or month if you work from home, I can assure you that that is your own mental block and not your clients.
I have found that I am far more focused and get more done working in an office, but that is very much just my personal preference.
At first, to keep costs down, it may well be sensible to run your consultancy business from your home.
4. When To Set Up Your Consultancy Business.
Nike it! Just do it.
The longer you spend thinking about it, the more excuses you will come up with not to do it, so don’t miss this opportunity.
If it is something you need to do, get started on it right now.
5. How To Market Your Consultancy Business And Win New Clients
- Get a website (a WordPress one would be my advice, costing around £1,000 – £1,500 is more than enough to get all you need to be up and running). Email me if you would like details of service providers.
- Promote your consultancy services using Google Ads
- Set up your profile on LinkedIn and connect with all of your old colleagues and contacts who may need your services now or in the future.
- Attend networking events for two reasons. Firstly, to meet other business owners and see how they find new clients, and secondly, if your clients attend these events, to find new clients for your business.
That really should be enough to get you up and running, but to take you to the next level and show you how you can access a free 20 minute “Consultancy Quick Start” strategy call with me, click the button below to download my gree guide:
