How To Increase Your Consulting Income

As an independent professional consultant, or indeed as a professional trainer, it is easy to get bogged down in the business of finding clients, attending to their needs, getting paid for your time and repeating the process.

Continually identifying and locating prospective clients who require your specific expertise can be challenging, even exhausting and unsustainable at times.

An obvious solution for all consultants and trainers, and especially those involved in business development, is to create a continuing additional income stream that could take the pressure off a fluctuating monthly income, along with having the potential to increase over time, add value to your consulting advice, and increase your effectiveness.

Such a solution does exist and we have a proposal for you to consider if you are seeking to increase your consulting income. However, first let’s consider some other options.
 

Some suggestions: 

Before we expand on our proposal for an additional income stream, let’s take a quick look at other ways you, as a consultant, might increase your income:

• Join a more established consulting firm or partner with another independent consultant to share expertise and level out workload.  The challenge is to find a compatible partner or partners, but the benefits are that you can extend your effectiveness and put your combined knowledge to optimal use.
• Increase your charge out rates. However, in a tight and competitive market, this calls for careful planning, including research into your competitors’ rates and an honest evaluation of the value of the service you offer.
• Offer potential clients an incentive to engage you.  These might be guarantees regarding time frames, a free initial consultation, or warranties, but these must be transparent, clearly enforceable and of real benefit to your clients.
• Expand your skill set. There are a myriad of professional development courses available, in addition to educational webinars and professional certifications, including university degrees, that will enable you to broaden your knowledge and skill set.
• Continually update your website and ensure the focus is on your target market.  The “one size fits all” approach will attract prospects that may become timewasters.
• Become active on social media, again focusing on your target market.  Your message must clearly demonstrate that you know your “stuff”.
• Stay current by attending continuing education programmes in your specific skill area. In the current fast-moving environment, it is easy to fall behind and continual self-improvement is a marketable product!
• And, perhaps stating the obvious, but important nevertheless, keep a close watch on your expenses.  Avoid the temptation to subscribe for courses and pay for marketing materials that won’t add any actual value to your expertise and consulting services. Critically evaluate what is available before purchasing it.

Focus on building an additional income stream 

HR Profiling Solutions (“HRP”) works with consultants throughout Australasia. Many of our most successful consultant clients are those who have made the decision to expand their services by looking beyond their core focus.  This has involved becoming trained in the use of Extended DISC® and the commercially focused products associated with it (including the advanced FinxS online platform). The process is not an expensive one.

Many of the consultants we work with get their new clients to do the Extended DISC® questionnaire as part of their “get to know you” process.  Some even share their own DISC report with their client to open a discussion on behavioural styles and how they are likely to communicate with one another.  This is not an invasive process; the consulting firm explains that there are no right or wrong answers, while simultaneously demonstrating that the consultant can think outside the square.  In other cases, the consultant mightn’t introduce their clients to DISC reporting until they’ve identified a need, but their training in Extended DISC® and their knowledge of the multiple commercially focused reports available via FinxS, enables them to quickly identify one and add genuine value to their services.

So, what’s in it for the consultant and their clients?

The advantage to the consultant is that they quickly discover what motivates their client, or their client’s employees: what their true natural strengths are, the situations that reduce their motivation and what they are likely to want to avoid.  The Extended DISC® Behavioural Reports provide a great deal of information, including the identification of any emotional issues - all vital information that can take more than one consultation to uncover.

For the client, once they understand the depth of Extended DISC® reporting and see the value it offers their business in terms of recruiting, team building, leadership and management training, coaching and sales training, and the variety of differently-focussed reports available, it is not difficult for them to appreciate how the system adds value to their consultant’s advice.

This provides a genuine opportunity to build up an additional and continuing income that supplements the consultant’s core business.  It adds value to the advice provided as people issues are a fundamental challenge for many business owners.  And, once introduced to the benefits of using Extended DISC®, the customer will almost certainly return for further assistance in the future.

We are not suggesting that our consultant clients present themselves as human resource experts, as that field reaches beyond the intention of Extended DISC® reports, but many human resource challenges can be dealt with without involving a human resources expert.  Oftentimes, they are simply communication issues which may be addressed through an understanding of behavioural styles.

The consultant’s client is introduced to a system that can save them thousands of dollars.  The scope of Extended DISC® ranges from recruiting through to training, communication, leadership and management and even sales and service.  The list of advantages to the client is long, but most importantly, it will help them build a happy and compatible team, an important factor which directly impacts the profitability of any business.

So, how does it work?

HR Profiling Solutions, who are the sole distributors of the global Extended DISC® system in Australasia, conduct training sessions regularly at a competitive price.  We encourage our consultant clients to complete training up to Master Trainer status (Level 3) over time, which qualifies them to conduct the training themselves, providing another opportunity for income and further broadening their client base.

HRP provides material which enables consultants trained to Level 1 to debrief their clients.  Training to Master Trainer status is not necessary at the outset, as training to the levels below still enables consultants to provide general advice and interpret candidate DISC reports.  HRP also has Facilitator Guides available for purchase, which give consultants everything they need to run Extended DISC® workshops for teams, leaders/managers, and sales staff.

HRP provides ongoing support post training to both you and your clients.  We will provide technical advice and assistance to a consultant’s customers but will never interfere in the consultant/client relationship and certainly not discuss any pricing matters between the consultant and their clients.  We focus on cementing the consultant’s relationship with their clients.

We do not compete with our clients and do not become involved in consulting, except to provide product support and technical assistance with the product.

Consultants are billed at a volume-based price and although we can recommend retail pricing levels, we leave the pricing of supply and service to the consultant.  Where large volumes are required, or a specific project is planned, we will negotiate special pricing deals to protect the consultant’s margin and ensure their customer also benefits.

Following Level 1 training, consultants are given direct access to the advanced FinxS platform, which enables them to administer their own client base and tailor reports to align with their specific focus.  We are happy to provide assistance with report design and with using the FinxS platform.

And finally, once trained, consultants are not restricted geographically, but are free to operate anywhere on a global basis.
 

The next step?

HRP has made a strategic decision to focus more on supporting our consultant clients due to an increased demand for products from a range of business clients.  For this reason, we may refer prospects in certain regions directly to our consulting clients.

Any consultant or training organisation interested in finding out more about HRP’s consulting model, or who would simply like to compare Extended DISC® (and our support processes) with another psychometric system, should contact our General Manager, Kelly Fairhurst, directly on 0800 333 668 (New Zealand) or 1800 518 217 (Australia), or email Kelly at kelly.fairhurst@hrprofiling.com

All enquiries are treated in strictest confidence, without any continuing obligation whatsoever.  More information is available HERE.