Leveraging Other People's Time/Talents

[Alfonso Crawford]

Yo! 'Tis I, again.

I've been thinking about my skills, and I see that I lack abilities that can create an immediate value: everything I do takes months/years to establish; which isn't too great, even if the return on investment lives much longer than that. Something else I've learned is that I have a head for business: I can organize things well, if given the chance.

When I was involved in a tattoo-shop, I was able to make things happen very quickly. People with talents "quicker" than my own have relied on me to get them running, in the past. If only I could find some more talented people whom I could aid, maybe I could start generating income just from doing that! I can get websites built and resources wrangled when half-delirious from a good nap: surely that's got to be useful to somebody! Despite my awkward history, I'm actually pretty good at talking about business, too!

Ah; but therein lies the problem! Where to find the folk, eh? Always step-two and -three handle themselves, but -one never quite comes into focus. How do you suppose a budding representative should enter the world? I'm just winging everything, so far; and I'm not in the most stable position, because of it. With the American economy as it is, someone whom is willing to do the footwork of finding directions is something of value? (Perhaps, if I was good enough to do this sort of thing for a living, I wouldn't need to ask around about getting started, eh?)

I'm thinking that I need to just go outside more often than I currently do. I'll try to express myself, in general, more often; and people will start to think of me, when the think of… stuff.

Too Long; Didn't Read
I'm a knack for helping other people get started with their ventures, but I don't know how to advertise it: do you have any suggestions for how a consultant gets going, themself?

[ssandra]

Hi,

I am about to start my own business (text consulting) and this is what I am planning to do;

1. Have all your basics covered: own website, name, up to date on rules and regulations, business cards, prices you want to charge etc.

2. Have your past "clients" give you references and have them ready to answer phone calls from prospective clients with positive answers about you.

3. Be very clear on what you are good at (your core business) what you could learn fast (extra services) and what you will not do.

4.a Tell everybody (yes, everybody, everywhere!) what you are doing. Ask every single person you know (twice removed cousins and ex-colleagues included) to sent you an email with names of people who they think could use your services

4.b Find out all complementary services to starting your own business (accountants, local chamber of commerce, office rental space companies etc) and give them a call to see if they can give you referrals. (make it interesting for them, either offer them money for every new client, or agree to refer clients back to them with needs, making it a win-win situation.

5. Give everybody you know and who gets to you via your network a followup call and/or email explaining what you do, and that you would like to make an appointment to see what you can do for them.

6. Get started doing what you are good at!!

The more clients you get, the larger your network will be and the more new clients you will get.

Something very important is to remind the people in your network to refer people to you. It is not their day to day job, so they will forget. Make it their time worth it as well... If a person referred someone to you and it turns out to be a client afterward, invite them for a lunch or cup of coffee to thank them. NEVER FORGET TO THANK THEM FOR THE REFERRAL!!!!

I think you might have something here... i can imagine there are plenty of people with certain skills out there who would love to start their own company but have no idea about basic stuff like website building etc..

Anyway, good luck with it!!

Liefs Sandra