If you’re a consultant and wondering why you’re not making enough money, you’ve come to the right place.
Here I present you the 6 shocking reasons why you’re not making enough money as a consultant. And believe me, the sixth reason will be the most shocking one.
Also this article is only about the reasons behind not making any money. If you are looking for ways to make money as a consultant, just follow this link.
Reason #1 You’re Not Making Money As A Consultant: Nobody Knows You
Well, the word “nobody” here is kind of an exaggeration, but only just a slightly bit. Because I can tell you if you’re not making enough money as a consultant, chances are almost literally nobody knows you.
Today’s global economy is all about numbers. We have the ability to reach millions or even billions of people, but so have our competitors.
So if there are only a couple dozen people – family members, old friends and acquaintances from past business ventures – knowing you as a consultant, that’s just not enough.
Make sure you utilize all available online and offline channels to reach out to your target market and get known by more and more people.
Reason #2: Don’t Have Enough Products
You might say, why should I even have products as a consultant? I’m just charging by the hour.
Chances are, unless you’re an extremely famous specialist in your field, if you’re charging by the hour, you always have that feeling of not making enough money.
You need to have several products – or services dressed like products – in order to make a solid income. This includes books, different types of counseling, and preferably off-the-shelf products (e.g. online courses). So start creating and offering your own products, and don’t stop until 10.
Reason #3: You’re Not Fast
Yes, being slow in a superfast economy is a big handicap, and I’m not talking about being fast with your services.
The most important factor that affects your income regarding speed, is how fast your business communication is. Your consulting job to be done might take time – that’s reasonable. But your communication must be almost instantly in order to survive in this economy.
So stop blaming clients if they try to reach you on Messenger or by phone or any other type of instant communications channels, but implement a way of answering every single question or quote request as fast as possible.
Reason #4: Not Using Your Phone
Your phone is still your best friend when it comes to making money. No matter how advanced online techniques there are for getting clients, you must still use your phone if you want to make real money.
I figure there are basically two problems with most consultants when it comes to using their phone. And unfortunately both of them result in less income.
- Some people insist on personal meetings, be it a sales meeting or a client-consultant session. Use your phone wisely, you can save enormous amounts of time and effort.
- A lot of consultants think that online channels do it everything. That’s far from the truth. While the internet gives you great possibilities, as stated above, personal interactions are still the best way to make sales.
Just a bit of personal information here for your reference: I’m making over $30,000 a month as a consultant while I’m writing this, simply selling online courses. Still we have our office phone on our website, and we do a lot of sales via conventional telephone calls or even Messenger. In fact if we only were to use online sales techniques, half of our income would be lost.
Reason #5: Not Using Real Life Examples
Being a consultant, you give advice to people. If this advice is useful and their quality of life improves,
chances are they’ll come back and even refer you to other would-be customers. Reselling to existing customers and referrals are the two most secure way for every consulting business to make big money.
Reselling to existing customers and referrals are the two most secure way for every consulting business to make big money.
On the other hand, if you fail to deliver real results, you loose both of these income sources, and it’s guaranteed that you’re going to struggle financially.
If you’re not 100% sure your advice works in real life, if you’re only using theoretical knowledge from books with no practical experience, it just won’t work.
So make sure you don’t believe anything you read, but try everything and only use it as a consultant if you’ve seen it producing results.
Reason #6 Helping The Wrong Clients
This is the most shocking reason you’re not making enough money as a consultant.
Your task is to help people get stronger, smarter and more successful – or businesses to be more effective and lucrative. You would think helping the weakest and most vulnerable is your most noble task.
I might be unpopular, but it’s the complete opposite. In general, your weakest and most vulnerable clients will be the ones that you can’t help. And the stronger and the most successful someone is, they will be your best client with the best results.
If you put your energy and attention on people who are not committed enough and are not able to take responsibility, it’ll all be wasted. The more time and energy you put in weak clients, the less money you’ll have. In contrary, the more energy and attention you give to successful clients, the more successful you’ll become as a consultant.
Don’t waste your time on people who are waiting for free tips, or on those that are not willing to pay your price. Start helping able folks, and you’ll be successful and at least start making money as a consultant.
And just a last thought on this one for anybody thinking I’m insensitive: I rather help able people to be more successful, and give part of my hard-earned money to charity, than wasting my time and energy on people who are never gonna make it, and staying poor and not helping anybody.
