Marketing Your Consulting Services.pdf - epiheirimatikotita.gr

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professions it is appropriate to pay a referral fee. Consult with your professional
association to determine the etiquette in your field.
Considerations:
• Be sure to ask whether you can use the individual’s name. This quadruples the
value of the referral.
• Always, always, always follow up the referral immediately with a thank-you note;
later let the person know what happened.
• There is minimal work and no expense to set a meeting with a potential client.
• Early on this may be a quick survival technique to get business started.
Obtain Endorsements and Testimonials Asking current and past clients for endorsements
and testimonials should be a regular part of your marketing plan. This
powerful tool can be sprinkled in catalogs, brochures, or other written marketing
materials, as references in proposals, or to vouch for your skills and abilities as a
speaker for a conference. They might appear on the outside of a direct mail envelope
or on your website.
Considerations:
• Immediate thank-you notes are a requirement.
• Get over the tendency to avoid doing this because you don’t want to “bother”
someone.
• Keep a file and update it regularly. Store the original letters in plastic sleeves in
a binder.
• Collect both endorsement letters as well as short quotes to use in a variety of
situations.
Luick tip . . .
There are four types of testimonials: customer, expert, celebrity, and
groups of experts. The fourth group gets the best results.
Respond to Requests for Proposals Requests for proposals (RFPs) or quotes
(RFQs) are offered as a way for consultants to bid on a project. The RFP is the formal
written description of a project’s scope. An RFQ provides the same statement
Marketing Your Consulting Services