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There are several hoops to jump through in becoming a marketing consultant. One ever-expanding hoop is of course is how to set your rates? This can be tricky, so use guidelines because with rates too expensive, you may price yourself out of the market and with no packaged rates at all, good luck trying to “reel in” sales.

Truth be told, this was one of our largest hurdles to jump over when setting out on our journey as being a professional online marketing consulting firm. In fact, how to set your rates as a marketing consultant should be the very last thing you actually solidify in your marketing plan before you set out to prospect customers.

The reason why is because without experience, you just don’t know how good what you have to offer really is until you give it a shot! Sometimes you’ll be successful and sometimes you won’t – isn’t that what being an entrepreneur is all about?

If I was to provide you with a blanket answer that would not be fair because what you charge clients for services really depends. We were throwing out quotes to prospective clients that were front-end loaded into the thousands in the beginning and getting totally frustrated at all of the NO’S we were getting.

This is when we realized the power of providing an a la carte menu of services, as well as a packaged rate for our services. When designing your sales and marketing funnel, I would suggest starting at the end first.

Beginning with the end in mind allows you to best know EXACTLY what your clients will be receiving from you. Once you know what you’ll be supplying them, it’s easy to be more revealing and honest on the front-end of your exchanges.

On the a la carte menu, have some ballpark numbers to work with so that you provide both you and your clients the flexibility to create a nice mixture of back and forth correspondence until you agree to the most ideal arrangement.

Most offline business owners know two things about online marketing. First, most are happy to admit know nothing about websites, HTML coding, auto-responder email marketing, QR codes, Facebook, Twitter and who knows what else. All they really want is to be more findable online and make more money.

They are also not very shy about letting you know their prior experience with other online consultants or online marketing services; most services haven’t provided favorable results in the past and they can’t express candidly enough that you’ll be swimming up-stream just to get the chance to prove to them that you can help improve and better their bottom line. They’ll open up if you stay with it.

So my best answer in helping you understand how to set your rates as a marketing consultant is to work off a baseline grid and attempt to package your suite of services into one, all-inclusive monthly cost.

One final tip is that many times, a client is much more receptive to rolling their set-up costs into their monthly cost if you are willing to amortize it over the course of the year agreement you make.

If they have the cash and are willing to pay, don’t offer them the option to pay it throughout the year and put them on a month-to-month, client at will basis.

Are you perplexed by the difficulty of Sharepoint features? Do you find issues while trying to solve an essential file sharing process? Searching for an expert guidance in web publishing and collaboration strategies? Then you need proven Sharepoint Consulting services. There are many service providers who interact with you via web session or online teleconference to simply simplify and clarify your doubts, make Sharepoint features and architecture simpler and help in solving the frustrating problems with your collaboration system. They also guide you in brainstorming and strategizing plans to get the most out of the web investment.

Service providers should have good experience and expertise on various products and technologies of Microsoft. Focusing on the systems and strategies developed by Microsoft, the service providers should work on real world design and deployment projects for clients round the globe. Apart from industrial business companies, government agencies and big academic institutions also need consulting services from the expertise hands. Professionals conduct interactive conferring engagements for ventures irrespective of their size and type. You can find many case studies on the websites of these service providers that are prepared from their client engagements.

You can also check with the blue-chip list of companies that have worked with the provider and received quality of services from the consultants. These practices will help you find out the best consulting service provider in the industry. Each organization may differ in the needs and objectives of conferring services and would be at different stages during the time of service adoption. So, people are advised to select consultants who have designed wide range of conferring strategies to best address the specific situations and requirements of different clients. The professionals should have the flexibility to determine the nature of the business and strategize conferring engagements as per the unique requirements of clients.

Ensure that you will receive fast, cost effective and focused services from the experts. Get close-up and personal services to get your business best in its field. The consultant should help you to optimize your site’s navigation and taxonomy. They should provide you with the most out of workflows, alerts, search and Outlook integration. You will be reported with the right information in the right way at the right time. Established consultants will help you to plan deployment, estimate the current system configuration, troubleshoot issues, automation, leverage reporting, integration features and address all other specific needs that you may have.

All of us at one time or another have experienced the loss of a job, being in transition or just plain don’t like the job we have. It’s a tough situation to be in but it also gives us the opportunity to reflect on what we can do differently in getting what we want from our next venture.

If you happen to be floating along in one of these less than desirable situations, let me challenge you to do some radical thinking – have you thought about ditching a job search altogether and creating your own job? Self-employment is the hottest trend according to U.S. Labor Statistics and nonprofit grant writing consulting lends itself beautifully to working from home, making money and contributing to society’s improvement.

I started my own grant writing consulting business as a desire and need to be a stay-at-home working mom. There were just a few things that I needed to happen. One, I needed to make money. That was a given. Second, I wanted flexibility to work my job from home. And, three, I still wanted to contribute to the good of society by continuing my work in nonprofit.

In order to be a successful grant writing consultant, I realized quickly that I was going to have to get five tools working for me. These are very important and they’ll work for you too. Think of yourself as the mechanic of your career. And what does every mechanic need? Tools! Get these tools into your toolbox and see the success that follows.

1. Have confidence in stepping outside of your comfort zone. No luck securing the job of your dreams? Try something new and different by working for you. Thousands of others (including yours truly) have taken the leap and never looked back. Everything and everyone has a starting point. If it’s something you’ve been wanting to try, don’t waste any more time. You don’t ever want to look back and say “I wish I would have…”

2. In becoming a grant writing consultant, first learn correct grant writing techniques that will win grants. Well, duh, you might say. All I’m advising is that you pay attention to who you place your trust in in learning the cornerstone of your new business. Remember that guy with the question mark suit that promised a bunch of free money from the government? He’s an example of who to avoid. Also, read and learn everything you can about this skill. There are many reputable folks that you can learn from. And, practice makes perfect like with anything else in life. Remember the first day on your current or last job and everything just seemed so new and strange? You get over that. For those of you with experience in grant writing, yay!, you get to skip this step and move on.

3. Build and sustain meaningful relationships. This holds true for just about everyone you come into contact with in your business. Get to personally know the folks at the offices of the grant funders that you’re making application to. Like you, they put their pants on one leg at the time and they’re there to help. Take an interest also in really getting to know the nonprofits you serve. Don’t just tell them what you can do for them – actively engage yourself in finding out what matters most to them. Not only is this a polite way to do business – it consistently attracts clients that pay you.

4. Effectively market yourself to attract clients. There are two ways to market yourself as a grant writing consultant – locally and virtually. And, no, you don’t have to be an aggressive marketer to attract potential customers. As a matter of fact, my personality just lends itself to a more soft-sale approach. I advise my clients to hang out where the business is. In this case, it will be where nonprofits gather. If you’re interested in working locally, check out your local chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals ( http://www.afpnet.org ) and attend some meetings. All potential clients! Marketing virtually, of course, means establishing a website and connecting via social media for more clients. There are nonprofit groups on LinkedIn to engage in discussion and Twitter and Facebook are also good starting places.

5. Become known as the go-to person. You want to become known as the balm that will soothe your client’s pain. In time, you’ll learn to use speaking and other communication means to your advantage to establish this reputation and become a respected fixture in the grant writing world.

So, there you have it. If you’d like to learn more about the first steps in beginning your own career, be sure to visit my website and download a FREE copy of “You Can Become a Grant Writing Consultant.” You might also be interested in my step-by-step instructional program GRANTcoach – taking you from a grant writing novice into a successful consultant.

What is SEO?

Search engine optimization or SEO is a great way to generate traffic in your website. Whether the website is of a small or large business, search engine consulting services can be a big help. Google can generate traffic by making your website appear on top of their results in case someone does search for information that is somehow related to your business. There are several ways upon which SEO experts can make your website stand out and be noticed. One of the methods they use is the use of keywords that will eventually attract customers to buy or avail of your products and services.

The SEO Mission

It is the mission of all search engine optimization companies to work directly with their clients and their clients’ business to be able to create the best, if not perfect, search engine optimization package for their clients. Search engine consulting services can help you from starting with creating and developing the initial website all the way to the reaching your goal to make your business successful. These SEO companies work with their clients in all their marketing efforts to increasing traffic and recognition in the World Wide Web.

Ranking and Pricing

A team of SEO consultants would be able to help your website move up at top rankings with regards to any search engines online, thus, boosting your business visibility and revenue as well. Small businesses need not worry about hiring SEO consultation services because they have affordable packages that are offered to small budget businesses specifically. Consultation may be done through chat, phone, or email and most websites need only around 2 to 3 hours to have most of the website problems fixed.

Custom Consulting Services

Consulting services start with basically presenting all SEO requirements. Website remodeling might also be an option if the SEO experts find the need to do so. The custom SEO packages consists of Keyword research, building of links, copywriting, article writing, press releases, directory submissions, website remodeling, campaigns that involve pay per click functions, and submission to Google. The SEO consultants would look over the source code and put it under optimization to make sure that it would be search engine friendly. While doing this, accessibility as well as the overall user experience is maintained. Most SEO consultation services are affordable so you are assured that you would be able to run your internet marketing campaign effectively and efficiently. Once the SEO services is completed, you can keep letting the SEO experts manage your website, or they can turn it over to you.

Search engine consulting companies guarantee that all their corporate methods have been proven to work effectively and efficiently. Their methods include planning, building, launching, optimizing, as well as managing the website to track its progress. SEO is the latest in online marketing strategies that have proven to work in making businesses and websites visible and outstanding in the busy world of the internet.

When you decide to use the services of an IT Consulting firm, you would get assistance with the identification of areas of opportunity which will improve your overall efficiency. In addition, it may also improve your costs. You will be provided with a road-map for change and have experienced help as you transition processes / technology projects. They will be able to act as an independent 3rd party engaged in strategic decision making and provide expertise to complement or enhance client resources.

IT Consulting is a domain that focuses on advising organisations on how to enhance the performance of their existing information technology assets to meet their business objectives.

There are a number of reasons for which you may require the help of an external IT Consulting Services firm, as the services provided cover a number of areas, such as:

Consulting for business change
Consulting for infrastructure management
Building competitive advantage through IT
Aligning the technology strategy to the business strategy
Capturing synergy benefits related to technology in a post-merger integration
Global delivery models – knowledge and transition management
Establishment of processes and methodology to transform captive units into external service providers
Reducing IT cost and needless complexity
Projects can be rather complex to design, deploy, secure and manage; therefore, a project requires a strong level of expertise to execute it proficiently. It is a big advantage if the supplier also has the capabilities to deliver IT project management services. A dedicated IT project management team can focus on delivering trouble-free implementation with minimal disruption to your business. They can deliver your requirements expediently, from commencement of your project, or at any stage in the project life cycle.

The advantages that you will gain whilst working with such a provider are as follows:

Aligning business and technology strategy
Reducing IT complexity
Improving overall efficiency and /or costs
Professional and cost effective transition programmes
Change management from experienced professionals
Independent 3rd party consulting will help non-emotional decision making
Expertise when none is available
These advantages will translate into the benefits of your ability to:

Evaluate and prepare a comprehensive IT plan to minimise wastage of labour and spend, if time or experience is an issue
Complement or enhance skills sets where deficiencies are apparent
Improve efficiencies of your work force, if forced upon the individual or department
One of the top 10 universities in the United Kingdom is an example of a client that required IT consulting assistance. The challenge they faced was that, changes in the university funding made it imperative to improve cost savings. Their IT consultants met with key members of their personnel and identified areas of improvement. Then, a technology audit was conducted, wherein the current delivery landscape was mapped to identify areas where the cost to profit initiatives could be exploited, with a view to further reducing IT costs for the University. This resulted in the University as a whole, experiencing reduced costs and improved efficiencies, which enabled it to take on significant projects, in addition to day to day tasks.