Most consultants that I meet aren’t expecting to make $10 million per year offering their services. As professionals they want to make a healthy six-figure income. But the constraints on their time – both selling and executing their consulting – make it difficult to scale their businesses. They reach a sales-plateau with little hope of generating more revenues beyond that maximum level. This can lead to frustration and disenchantment; especially if that plateau isn’t enough to support the lifestyle they want for themselves and their families. Through experience (i.e. trial and error) I have found several strategies, which can help you make extra money by boosting your monthly sales by a healthy amount and don’t require much face time. If you want to add an extra $5,000 a month to your revenues then consider these strategies that work:
First strategy: Become an affiliate of complementary services
Think about the solutions you offer your clients. It’s likely that your recommendations will require that your clients buy products and services from third parties. In effect you are helping these third parties make a sale through no effort on their part. Why not get paid for it? Affiliate commissions are an excellent way to boost your earnings. Pat Flynn is an Internet marketer who helps entrepreneurs develop online businesses. What does every online business need? Webhosting. Pat doesn’t own a webhosting company but he earned over $38,000 < http://www.smartpassiveincome.com/june-2014-monthly-income-report/ > in affiliate commissions from Bluehost in June 2014 alone.
Second strategy: Stop offering discounts
Don’t offer discounts on your consulting services. Discounting is the worst way to secure a new customer or keep an existing one. A 20 percent discount on $10,000 in monthly services represents $2,000 less per month that you’ll earn on existing work. It also guarantees that you won’t be able to increase your prices later. No matter how many times you tell a client that this is a “one time discount” or a “a favor” they won’t see it that way. When it comes time to renew your contracts they will expect the same special pricing. Offering them a renewal at your standard rate will be received like price gouging. By offering a discount you will: do the same work for less money; spread the word that you work for less than your stated rates; lose the customer when you try to charge your normal rate; and feel irritated at your customer for treating you this way.
Third strategy: Package your knowledge
As a consultant you are paid for your brain-time; tapping into your accumulated knowledge is a better deal financially for your clients versus trying to solve the problem on their own. But once you complete your assignment, you move on to the next project. This limits your ability to capitalize on your know-how. To reach customers that can’t afford you or that don’t fit into your schedule create information products like e-books and webinars. These achieve several goals at once: first you can make money from multiple clients simultaneously; second it helps enhance your credibility in the industry which will help you land more consulting contracts; thirdly it let help you generate revenues from clients that could never afford your consulting time.
Make extra money: start today
Any combination of these three strategies can add an extra $5,000 per month of revenues to your professional services practice. Better yet these are all high-margin opportunities. Affiliate revenues have virtually zero cost of goods sold. Cancelling your future discounts has no related costs. Packaging your knowledge will have COGS but information-based products tend to have margins of at least 60 percent. Adding $5,000 in high-margin revenue is a nice way to get ready for the fall selling season.
