How Do I Become a Consultant? (Digital Marketing)

Tired of working for a company 9 to 5? Looking to become a consultant, especially in digital marketing? Stick around, I'm going to give you your beginning steps to get into a new career. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. I am Dan, Millennial Motivator, here to help you learn how to create, engage, and inspire I put out videos Monday through Saturday on business, digital marketing, how to grow online using social media, paid click ads, you name it, it's here. How to grow your business effectively. I'm here to help you guys learn how to do that. So if that sounds like it's up your alley, go ahead and click that subscribe button over here, the little bell, and you'll get a notification the next time I throw a video up. As for today though, ladies and gentlemen, what we are doing is I'm going to give you guys a breakdown of how you move from a traditional job into a consultant's And I get a lot of people asking. It is something that I have done full-time for several years now. I do alright. I manage for my family. I'm living a pretty nice life. I've got lots of blessings. So I'm not one of those 6-figure multimillionaire consultants. I am not one of those guys, so I'll throw that disclaimer there now. I'm just your run-of-the-mill average guy, works his butt off, but I've got a consultancy. So I figured I'd at least help you guys learn the initial steps that you need to get there. And then once you want to learn how to make a million bucks doing it, go learn from a millionaire. That's not me. Okay guys, first and foremost with consultancy, and this is the one that often people fail at, what is your offer? What is it that you can consult? How, how can you help a company outside of their existing workforce to achieve something? Often when people move into consultancy, whether it's digital marketing or otherwise, What they fail to realize is it's an advisory role for the most part. If you're doing hands-on work, it's a remote job. For the most part, if you are doing overview strategy or offering a view as to this is how you are built, this is how you can improve, you didn't see that before, this is what I bring to the table is my experience in being able to help point you in the right direction, send you where you need to go, and we're off and running. A big thing you need to stop and look at is what are the skills that I have? What are the experiences that I have? What companies have I worked for successfully? Great. Now, if I was to boil down all of that into one offer, what is it that I could offer to a company and say, I could come in, I could take a look at this aspect of your business, whether it's financials, marketing, accounts, HR, you name it, some system within a business that you can sit down and say, I have experience in this. I have successfully helped businesses do this as an employee. But now I'm transitioning into a consultancy, and I would love to help your company. Make sure that this is where you dedicate the bulk of your time. Don't take forever doing it, but as you are planning out your consultancy, this is a key thing that you have to have nailed down. What is it that you can afford to consult to? I know how to consult to digital marketing. It's something I've worked in for years. I know how to use the networks. I've used them personally for growth and gain. That is something that I can comfortably and confidently speak to, and so that's the offer that I bring to companies. I see what you've got, I see where it's broken, I see how to fix it. This is where we go. You can do the same thing for any skill set. You just need to know who needs that skill set, who's not doing it properly, and are you qualified to speak to it. I'm not talking a degree, I'm talking your experience and your knowledge. All right, guys? So, step 1, what can you consult on? Next up, Oftentimes, guys, experience will speak more than PhD letters after your name, certificates. People want to know what you've achieved, and as a consultant, this can be very difficult when you get the ball rolling. I remember my first couple years as I was getting started, trying to lock down the first few clients was very, very difficult because people wanted to know what was my experience in the past, what was my strength, what was my forte, what had I done in the past. And the reality is, as a consultant, I had done very, very little. So, if you are getting started in a consultancy, make sure that you leverage your past positions in a company doing the same type of work that you are doing as a consultant. The value to this would look like, I've worked for— let's say you want to get into investment in stocks. I've worked for a bank for 15 years, and these are the portfolios I've managed. I can't give you exact names because whatever, yada, yada, yada. Here's the success that I've had. Here's the growth that I've had personally with my own investments. This is the growth that I've had, and I can bring that to you. You have to use your past experience in the workplace to transition into consultancy until you have several clients that you have consulted for. The other option that you can use is you can offer your skills pro bono using that same method in order to pick up the first few clients. Now, I'm not saying pro bono forever. I believe in getting paid for the work that you do, but But you have to realize what you are doing in your first couple clients, taking on a consultancy pro bono, is so that you can build the authority in your consultancy. Okay? So it's great if you approach companies and say, here's my skill set, here's my experience, here's what I've done. But they go, yeah, you've never really done it from a consultant role. We're not very confident that you can actually deliver that. You need to be a lot more hands-on from what we've seen, and we're looking for somebody that knows how to consult a team effectively. No problem. Oftentimes when you drop a dollar figure and make it pro bono for the first, call it 30 days, call it 3 months, call it whatever, just lock down that initial offering and do that for 1 or 2 clients and show the success that you've had. Now the caveat with that is guys, you have to make sure to deliver, right? If you offer out 3 pro bono contracts and you blow it, well now you've wasted your time, you've wasted your efforts, and it may not be the right consultancy for you. Make sure, guys, that when you're reaching out to those initial clients, you're reaching out either with past work experience that's relevant to your consultancy, or you're offering that same experience. Here's my past experience, but if you're not sold, I'm happy to work pro bono for the first 30 days, demonstrate what I can bring to the table, and we can make a decision from that point on. This is a great way to get started, guys. And after you get this ball rolling using that tactic, you're going to find that less and less do you need to do that. You'll be able to throw up your consultancy experience from past clients. And offer that to the new clients that are coming forward, all right? So offer your past work experience. If that's still not enough to push them past the dollar sign, offer a short period pro bono and then convert that into a paid gig, all right guys? Moving on, what's next? Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Constantly be looking for new consultancy opportunities, guys. Know your niche, know your customers, know your clients. Ask for referrals, ask for people that they've worked with in the past. Ask if they know anybody else. Constantly be growing your network and expanding it in consultancy, guys. Most of my contracts that currently exist come from personal relationships or referrals today. That was not the case initially. Initially, I had to put out thousands and thousands and thousands of cold market or warm market offers through LinkedIn, through social networks, in order to get those initial few clients. Then once I had those initial few clients, it was simply a matter of me dedicating the time and energy delivering on those contracts while I reach out to people that are fellow acquaintances, people that have similar businesses in the area, and using the job that I was currently doing successfully as leverage. Hopefully that makes sense, guys. Take what you're doing and constantly use that to branch out into similar places to similar people that need similar work done. This is gonna be a really quick and fast way to get into things. Now granted, I've worked in just about every industry— fashion, automotive, entertainment, music, film, You name it, I've done it. Food, I— everything from a mom-and-pop shop to an international conglomerate, I've done it. I've been there, okay? Now, the way that you transition from one niche to the next is oftentimes, guys, you'll see subtle segues from, from food to fashion. Very similar ways that you market those, okay? Very image-driven, very, very female-centric, uh, for the most part. There are men out there that love food, there are men out there that love clothes, but for the most part, it's a very female-centric market for both of those industries. Okay, so once you've done work in one, you can leverage that into the other. Same way the other way around. Say you're doing gaming, you're consulting for gaming companies, or you're consulting for automotive companies. Those are 2 very male-focused, male-driven industries. You're able to plug into that. And that's not me being sexist. I know there are women out there that know more about cars than I will ever know. I know there are women gamers out there that are phenomenal gamers and and they do a great job running their companies as designers or CEOs or VPs, that's, I get that. But the majority of the industry is male. So the reality is take similar customers and clients that you've already consulted for and branch out into that. Now there's lots of tools out there that you can do that with. I highly recommend the big 2, LinkedIn and Twitter. You guys can find other videos on this channel that will show you how to use LinkedIn effectively to reach out to people in the necessary market, but the reality is guys, Anywhere and everywhere, you can use LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, you name it. Social media is a great place to reach out and plug. You can create your own website, use the blogs to drive traffic inbound. You can use inbound marketing on your own website. There's lots of videos on this channel about how to do that effectively, but the reality is, guys, once you've got the skill in place and have started doing it for a few customers and clients, it's easier to branch out to a similar market, similar niche, similar need. Hopefully that helps, guys. Those are the 3 points that I want you to have locked down if you want to get into the digital marketing— not necessarily digital marketing, but the consultancy game at the very least. Know what you're gonna consult from, know your skill set, reach out, offer that pro bono period at first to get the first few contracts, and then leverage that. And last but not least, guys, constantly be looking to expand into similar markets, similar clients following your expertise. You build yourself a nice little niche market and And you'll be ready to roll. Hopefully that helped you guys out. If you're still struggling with ideas about consultancy, feel free to drop any questions in the comments below. If you like the video, or know somebody that's looking to become a consultant, feel free to share this out to them. I always appreciate the shares, guys, and I will catch you tomorrow with another great video. See you then. Thanks, Dan.