Did a colleague forward this newsletter? Sign up to receive your own copy: Last month: No More Root Canals Blog & Buzz See tips #10 and 11 of our 25 Tips to Become a Great Consultant: - The Secret to Consulting Success - Win—Don’t Just Answer—Every RFP Question Guerrilla Consulting Blog, July 2005 Is putting stock photos of business people in your proposals a wise move or a waste of space? Guerrilla Consulting Blog, 7/28/05 HR consultants are finding that the world is flat. Guerrilla Consulting Blog, 7/26/05 Are you a "serial closer" of sales? Read why that's not a good thing. Guerrilla Consulting Blog, 7/25/05 Is there a difference between a consultant and a Pez dispenser? Guerrilla Consulting Blog, 7/23/05 Does this mean consultant jokes will outpace lawyer jokes? Guerrilla Consulting Blog, 7/21/05 Can you hear your client now? How about now? Guerrilla Consulting Blog, 7/19/05 Mike McLaughlin was quoted last month in the Globe & Mail's Monday Morning Manager and the San Francisco Chronicle column Mind Your Business. Listen to Brain Brew Radio's interview with Mike McLaughlin to learn the secrets of writing about your business. June 2005 Upcoming seminar: The Art of Guerrilla Marketing for Consultants, Institute of Management Consultants Confab 2005, Reno, NV 10/24/05 Registration & details. Additional Resources for Consultants Management Consulting News Interviews with consulting leaders, articles, research results, job data, and news. This month: » Interview: Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind on the growing importance of right-brain skills for consultants and other professionals. » Articles: The revolving door for CEOs, The consulting industry’s future, Consulting firms in the news, and more. Guerrilla Consulting Web site Guerrilla Consulting blog

The Guerrilla Consultant – a newsletter dedicated to applying the principles of Guerrilla Marketing to the work and lives of consultants.

When It Rains, It Pours

Most consultants would love to be so busy that clients are lined up waiting for their services. The reality is that many consultants are likely to experience, at some point, the feast or famine syndrome: streaks of challenging, profitable work, followed by stretches of the doldrums with little paid work in the pipeline.

Can you smooth out the ups and downs of this syndrome? Read on to find out.

Enjoy the article, and let me know what you think.

Mike McLaughlin
Co-Author, Guerrilla Marketing for Consultants

Beating Feast or Famine

A consultant once said to me, “One of the biggest challenges in consulting is juggling the pursuit of new opportunities with my 100% commitment to existing clients. It’s scary not knowing where my next project is going to come from, but how can I chase prospects when I’m already running so fast?”

There’s only so much time in the day to handle client service, administrivia, marketing, and the demands of life. And it’s easier to focus on the work right in front of you than to find the mental bandwidth to think about the future.

The trap is that consultants get so immersed in delivering value to their current clients that marketing temporarily takes a back seat. If you don’t actively promote your business, your market visibility ebbs and you unintentionally sow the seeds of famine. The result is a dwindling sales pipeline once your current projects end—which they always do.

Here are four tips to help you strike a balance between serving your existing clients and finding new ones.

1. Focus Your Resources

How should you allocate your marketing resources—your time, energy, effort, and your marketing budget? The key is to find just the right balance in marketing to three groups: existing clients, prospective clients, and the broader market.

Without question, your best source for new consulting work is from your existing clients and the referrals they can provide. Your current clients should generate the largest share of your profits, so plan to allocate 60% of your marketing efforts to your existing clients.

Prospective clients represent the next generation of work for your practice. Your goal is to convert prospective clients into paying ones—if they fit your targeted client profile and have problems that you can resolve. Commit 30% of your marketing resources to win work from this group.

It’s always important to maintain visibility in the broader market. This includes everybody in the business world not represented in the two groups above. Invest 10% of your marketing resources in the broader market. Focusing on this group is less efficient, but the effort has the potential to generate important contacts and leads.

The 60/30/10 percentages are rules of thumb, and are not set in concrete. If you’re just starting a practice, you’ll expend more of your marketing efforts attracting prospective clients. As your practice grows, move toward the 60/30/10 percentages.

2. Take a Step Back

It may not be new advice, but the most potent weapon to battle feast or famine is a well-thought-out marketing plan. Take a step back from your day-to-day work with clients to create a long-range marketing plan that’s realistic, will help you achieve your goals, and has your buy-in.

Where do you want your practice to go? What clients do you want to work with? What sets you apart from other consultants?

Without a real plan that addresses those questions, your marketing will always be a hit or miss proposition. You might make time for marketing when it’s convenient, but you will put it aside when more in-your-face activities overwhelm your schedule.

The most effective marketing plan is short—seven sentences to be exact. It should fit on a single page. Feel free to add as much detail as you’d like, but begin with the basics. Even if you already have a marketing plan, try to re-craft it using these seven points:

• Explain the purpose of your marketing.
  What results will you achieve for your practice through your marketing efforts? Maybe you want to increase your market visibility, attain a certain market share in your industry, develop new business with existing clients, or launch a new service offering.
  
  
• Explain how you achieve that purpose by articulating the benefits you provide.
  Why are your services needed? Why should clients choose you instead of a competitor? Spell out the substantive value you provide for clients.
  
  
• Describe your target market(s).
  Who do you want to reach with your marketing message? You might, for example, target specific industries, segments within an industry, or a particular business function, like Finance, Human Resources, or Information Technology.
  
  
• Describe your niche.
  What’s your specialty? Maybe you excel at improving employee productivity through training programs, or helping clients retain their best people by implementing career development programs.
  
  
• Outline the marketing tactics you will use.
  How will you convey your message to your target market(s)? Select the marketing tools you’ll use, such as publishing, publicity, speaking, or direct mail, to name a few.
  
  
• Define the identity of your practice.
  How do you want clients to think of you—collegial, objective, analytical, creative, tough, collaborative, results-oriented, or generous with ideas? Identify the culture and reputation of your practice.
  
  
• Quantify your marketing budget.
  How much will you invest in marketing? You can specify a dollar amount, or you can commit a percentage of revenue from the business to marketing activities.

The process of creating your marketing plan will force you to make choices about the future of your business and about how to allocate your time and resources, especially if you are serious about achieving the objectives you’ve described in your plan.

3. Draw Yourself a Map

Have you ever been convinced that you knew where you were going only to find out that you were totally lost? When you’re lost, looking at a map—assuming you have one—can quickly get you back on track. A Marketing Road Map spells out the details of how and when you will implement your marketing plan to steer your marketing activities in the right direction.

Preparing your Marketing Road Map is a strategic and tactical activity. It begins with your ideas on how to present your practice to the market and sets a precise schedule for each marketing activity on your plan. Your Marketing Road Map will always show you where you are and what you need to do to arrive at the future you’ve designed in your marketing plan.

You should derive energy and enthusiasm from your marketing plan and Road Map to keep you driving toward your goals—in spite of the fires raging in the short-term.

4. Maintain Your Traction

The most successful consultants know that marketing is a continuous process. Marketing success is about creating momentum through consistent action over a sustained period of time. You must be the constant force behind that process.

Once you have momentum, it’s easier to lose than it is to maintain. Stop paying attention to your marketing activities and you’ll lose your hard-won marketing gains—you’ll have to start from scratch.

How much time is enough to maintain your momentum? Opinions vary, but try to spend a minimum of 20% of your time on marketing your practice. Variations of this rule are everywhere, so assess your own situation. But keep at it, no matter what.

You should schedule marketing time at the beginning of every month and every week. Treat your marketing “appointments” with yourself like client time: It’s uninterruptible, unless there’s an emergency. Reserve marketing time on your calendar and watch your market presence and success grow.

The consulting business can seem like a roller-coaster ride, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Keep your practice in the mind’s eye of your targeted clients, no matter how busy you are serving others. That will smooth out the ups and downs and pay dividends down the road. Take time every week to advance the visibility of your business, and you’ll experience continual feasts—without the famine.