Ask HN: Lead generation? (consulting)

[goofygrin]

I'm recently on my own consulting wise (to pay for the startup(s)) and I'm wondering how most people get their consulting gigs?

So far I've relied on my network and former clients, but there is decent money in the consulting side and if I could get some other people working "for" me then I could focus less on the consulting work and more on my other projects.

How are you finding your consulting gigs?

[melvinram]

* Blog

* Speak

* Ask for referrals

* Pay Per Click Ads on Google

* Read "Never Eat Alone" by Keith Ferrazzi

* Host a dinner party at your place, invite a few well connected friends and ask them to bring a friend or two.

* Write thank you notes to people who make a difference in your life (such as refer to you.)

* Get business cards that help you communicate what you bring to the table

* Understand they don't care about hiring a consultant. There's always a reason behind the reason.

* If your prospect is a growing company, look at your local business magazines. They are probably featuring companies doing well in your area. Call them.

* Put together Worksheets that your clients can forward to their friends (i.e. your future clients)

Here are a few sources for good sales & marketing info:

* http://www.volcanicmarketing.com/blog

* http://www.ducttapemarketing.com

* http://www.marketingsherpa.com

[subwindow]

By far the best source I've had is to build real-life applications.

Two applications that I built in about a weekend each have netted me around 5 gigs around release time, plus about one per month.

People are much more likely to want to hire you based on seeing your work in action than anything else.

[goofygrin → subwindow]

This is definitely something that I'm working on, it's just one of those "long time to get there" type things and I need to have a bit of patience (or code faster!)

[davidw → subwindow]

Good idea. Open source work is a great way of getting involved and showing off, and you meet lots of people through it too.

[goofygrin → davidw]

The open source projects I've contributed to have not really helped me in real life (other than helping what I use to be better :))

Maybe it's because they are niche applications (mythtv & xbmc) that don't lend themselves well to what I specialize in...

[shimon]

Get involved in organizing some geek events (dinners, hackathons, BarCamps, small conferences on specific technologies or industries) in your city. Figure out who you'd like to work with and make events that will interest them. Develop the ability to learn about someone's project and offer a constructive suggestion within 5 minutes, and you'll quickly earn a reputation as someone who can listen and respond constructively. People hire consultants who make them feel awesome, and you should be able to do this at a personal as well as an organizational level.

Find some other consultants in related areas and meet them for lunch so you can learn from them. Established consultants have a lot of extra leads and will often be happy to help you get started.

Finally, if you're the kind of person who doesn't already have a great answer for how to do lead generation, you probably won't do a great job of reselling consulting hours. A good referring consultant has one or more of (1) an incredibly network for lead generation and (2) enough of a bureaucracy to eliminate some of the paperwork hassle of dealing directly with clients. If you don't have either of these, the sort of consultants who will cost you <10h/week to manage will probably prefer to work on their own rather than cut you a percentage.

[goofygrin → shimon]

-- Find some other consultants in related areas and meet -- them for lunch so you can learn from them

Already in progress with some consultants that I've worked with in the past :)

-- Finally, if you're the kind of person who doesn't already have a great answer for how to do lead generation (etc.)

I think that you are spot on here and this is why I feel a bit "touchy" on the subject. I have enough sales prowess and skill to keep myself with work, but I'm not sure if I'm "there" yet enough to keep other people busy with work.

[admoin]

I can't imagine a better way to promote your services than through word of mouth. Might be worth it to offer discounts/rebates if your customers recommend new leads.

[lux → admoin]

Honestly, if you do a good job, a customer is likely to recommend you anyway. They don't need a monetary incentive to, and I know a few customers of mine that feel that this would cheapen their word of mouth. But if you want to increase the word of mouth going around, then go ahead and ask them directly. Give them a handful of cards and say that if they liked your work you're trying to grow your client base so if they can refer anyone they know please do.

As for other things, hard to say. My business operates on people finding us online and by word of mouth. I tried Adwords and other things like that, but it's been a long time since I've bothered with showing up at conventions to hand out business cards or had my sales guy cold call anyone. I never really got the hang of those anyway...

I would also say to be careful though. If you're looking to increase your clientele on the consulting side, that can quickly turn into a full-time thing you're left managing, with little time to pursue your startup. And there is a big difference between a consulting business and a startup - one has its revenue directly tied to someone's billable hours and the other creates some sort of recurring revenue stream with the goal of exponential growth.

[goofygrin → lux]

-- I would also say to be careful though. If you're looking to increase your clientele on the consulting side, that can quickly turn into a full-time thing you're left managing, with little time to pursue your startup. And there is a big difference between a consulting business and a startup - one has its revenue directly tied to someone's billable hours and the other creates some sort of recurring revenue stream with the goal of exponential growth.

This is definitely something that I'm worried about. On the other hand, a decent consulting business (that would be a full time job) gives me enough money to live really comfortably, which has it's benefits!

I had a couple interviews a year or so ago at a consulting shop that used to make people "bench" for a couple weeks between clients and work on internal projects for the company. These were either used for sales to clients or spun off into their own company. I kind of liked this model since many times when I go to a company I build the exact same application (there are a couple applications that I've built no less than 3 times -- all basically the same).

What's funny is the consulting shop I used to do some work for a couple years ago sold for a valuation that was 2-3x multiple. The startup that I last worked for got a round 1 (were self funded up to there) got a much higher valuation because their dollar cost for each dollar of revenue was much higher and they could lock clients into 2 year contracts. In either case, the owners of each company were all doing quite well financially!

[admoin → lux]

I'd do it on a case by case basis. I think you can probably get a good idea in a lot of cases whether people will recommend you without any incentive.

[bayareaguy]

My current employer has been on a pretty tight budget so I haven't done this in a bit but back in 2006 at my previous venture-funded company I made a point of going to local interest group meetings that had something to do with the technologies our company used. Whenever I found someone presenting something that could be helpful to my company I would ask for their info and pass it along to my boss.

So I would say get out there, let people know what you're doing and have plenty of business cards on hand.

[randomhack]

aah for a second there i thought you were talking about consulting in lead generation in pharma.