I manage a web company that provides help in the form of small business management and accounting software tools and know-how to thousands of startups and small businesses in all corners of the world and whenever I explain to people what I do, I constantly get asked the same question “Given my working knowledge, how could I capitalize on this and make earn cash quickly by becoming a small business consultant”? I am always delighted to offer guidance as I am fortunate enough to spend a lot of my day communicating with small business owners and workers ready to share their issues.

This is the advice that I offer:

The online world is the perfect medium for finding customers and it makes it simple to reach them and sell your expertise. A lot of small businesses turn to the internet to find knowledge or trusted advisors who can provide them with better ways of doing things and help them address key challenges.

Information marketing – package and sell your expertise to businesses through the Internet

What I discuss here is equally appropriate to businesses of any size. You can repackage and sell your expertise in a electronic format such as video, audio or documents. The tools to produce high quality content are widely available on the world wide web. Making a course in easy to consume internet formats is now easy and affordable. You just have to be prepared to dedicate a little time playing with the tools. The mission here is to produce some valuable material that you can either sell or give away to customers to encourage them to do business with you.

You should start with thinking through your objective. Consultancy and Information marketing are great bedfellows and if you do both can be very lucrative as the consultancy will provide you with the questions, the answers to which you can repackage and sell in digital format and sold over and over again.

If you are starting from scratch with no customers but have expertise you know would be attractive to others then make a two minute video to promote yourself and your expertise to your prospect(s). Unless you know the prospect(s) exact problem then make the video generic and stick tothe following format – S.T.A.R (Situation or Task, Action, Result). Be creative and concise. Now upload the video to your website/blog or even YouTube if you don’t have the former and send the target(s) an invitation by e-mail containing a personal message and a link to the video. Follow this up with a phone call. If you know the specific nature of the marketproblem then don’t make the video public, just put it somewhere secureon the Web or even on a disk and post it, again follow up with a call.

This approach is ideally suited to situations where you are individually targeting potential client(s). The one objective you should be constantly pursuing is the creation of a list that you can converse with and sell product to.. Treat the people on your list well and they will tell you their needs to which you can match and your content products. The more people on your list the more consulting and information marketing opportunities you will discover. If you would like to understand more about how to do this then click on any of the links in this article. I would be delighted to help you.