Setting up in Consultancy

[Magin]

Hi
Joined a few weeks ago but only just got time to post. Im Maria and I am going through the process of setting up in business doing conultancy (broad term there not sure what else to call it) LOL

I work in Business Continuity arena for Category 1 responder (have been in the industry now 6 years) and am looking to start up in business around March time. My aproach is to be able to offer a more tailored approach to BCM than other consultancy firms, in writing plans, training, exercising etc and also concentrate on the medium sized suppliers in the area (Suth West).

Any tips on identifying clients and market research would be good

Magin

[peterjhale]

Hi Magin and welcome.

I guess your prospects know what "category 1 responder" and "BCM" mean?

Talking in code can sometimes mean your prospects get turned off

[Magin]

It will all be explained in the literature, basically it relates to the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, Category 1 responder is fire, police, ambulance, NHS, Coastguard (999 calls and public health etc). Business Continuity Mangement (BCM) is the holistic approach to embedding Business Continuity within a company, its main aim is to ensure that business can recover from mjor disruptions (over 90% of UK industry was indirectly affected by 9/11) and maintaining the critical day job elements as the business is experiencing and recovering from these disruptions. Coud be due to major fire, IT failure, Utilities Failure right down to key supplier failure etc etc! All things which to rectify will cost lots of money and could potentially cause the business to ultimately fail.

In essence planning for worst case scenario to business failure.

hope that explains it a tad better lol

[dsigner]

Hi Magin,
Sounds to me like this is something which is mainly for the big boys. Still if you have been doing it for 6 years you should know. Hopefully you have kept a contact list during that time. Write to them all (and do get rid of all that jargon completely) enclose two copies of your introductory pitch. Personalise each letter (remember me I'm the girl that spilt coffee all over your desk 5 years ago) and just ask if they could pass one copy on to someone they think might be interested. DONT ask them if they want your services. They will understand that from the secong copy. That way you get two for one and some of them will be hot leads. Hope this helps.

[slogger]

Hi Maria,

first of all welcome and secondly, the best of luck with your venture. Like yourself, I have taken the step of trying to take my day job to the masses. I am in the fortunate position that I am able to do it alongside my day job and structure my offering that way. My background is IT service management(having spent the last 18 months running a problem management team to ITIL standards) so all of the things you mention about (ie business continuity) are my bread and butter....
My initial learning have been as follows:
1) You get out what you put in.........I have come a bit complacent as I am doing it along side my day job, but I am now looking at new ways of creating exposure
2) Be clear of your market ? is it the large companies (who may have their own risk boards etc so your are going to have a battle unless they are looking for a consultant) or are you trying to target smaller businesses who wont have the money or the motivation?
3) Have a clear offering and be prepared to change it by acknowling that whilst you your onions, the customer actually knows what they want to buy

With regard to marketing, thats the stage I am currently at. I am fairly sure my offering is right and have tested it by running it past a couple of local companies as a free consultancy (allowing me to fine tune my questionaire and my report output). My next step is how to spread the offering to the wider masses when I have zero budget!
My final challenge is my web site ( www.goitil.co.uk ). At present it has been created using a template design tool. Going forward I would like to get a bespoke site set up but thats a bit of a way off yet!

once again, good luck
Rob