Starting a consulting business, but unsure of what type of business. There are a few types of consulting businesses you can venture into. Let’s take a look.
When you go private or make your freelance services a registered business, you have to be aware that it is a challenge that may have many ups and downs. Being a business owner will now have different aspects to it, other than working for corporations.
You can look forward to being challenged in a rewarding way while experiencing the freedom of running your own enterprise. The learning curve might also be immense, but you will encounter people and tasks that you haven’t encountered before that will teach you valuable skills.
1. Leadership Consulting
Leadership consultancies exist to help guide leaders in businesses achieve their best in the C-suite. Individuals who enter this type of business usually have a reputation for improving how leadership functions. To be successful in such a consulting firm, you will need to be an expert in strategy, corporate communications, and developing high-growth teams.
2. Career Coaching Consultancy
Offering career guidance can be a lucrative consulting service because many people stagnate and wonder if they have chosen the right career. Your focus will be to help them identify their skills and passion while identifying the career where these will be used best.
More than this, you will also help clients with selecting tertiary education or training and development programmes, as well as teaching them how to approach the various phases of the interview process.
Individuals who are also wondering “what’s next” for a career that they are satisfied with can benefit from identifying their next step.
A background in human resources and communication will be beneficial for individuals who want to start this type of consulting business.
3. SEO Consulting
Throughout your career, you might have acquired special skills that are highly desirable, which you can turn into a consulting business. One example is to become an SEO consultant. With a high level of knowledge about such a valuable skill, you can help clients improve their website rankings.
In order to be considered an expert in this field, you need to have more than five years of experience and be up to date with all the latest search engine updates.
4. Product Development Consulting
Product development entails working with development departments, designers, marketers and leadership to ensure that a product is completed from research and development, all the way to the sales shelf.
Because of this, you will need to understand how to work with various stakeholders. Additionally, if it’s a physical product that needs to be manufactured, you will also need to have experience in sourcing materials, finding suppliers or manufacturers, packaging and distribution.
5. Event Consulting
An event consultant’s business ensures that an event is executed according to the client’s expectations. This entails keeping all the moving parts in motion and functioning efficiently and on time.
Experience and skills that you may need before venturing into this type of business are a project management background, organisational skills and excellent interpersonal relationship building.
6. Sales Consulting
Switching from working as a sales representative to a sales consultant means that you have to understand the sales process intimately. You must be able to guide sales teams in finding leads and converting them, while also being able to explain how the many parts of a business all work together.
Some of the elements that you may help clients with include incentivising teams, customer service, negotiation and sales strategies. You will need to have knowledge and skills about these elements, as well as be able to communicate this information eloquently and to various people with different learning styles.
7. Safety Consulting
Occupational health and safety is a non-negotiable in the work environment. A consultant can help you with the legal requirements for complying with health and safety regulations. This includes identifying the existing gaps, creating a plan to improve or fix these shortcomings, and improving what you might already have.
You will need to understand the different regulatory requirements for each industry, as mining, for instance, differs from an industry such as textile manufacturing. Furthermore, you will also need to communicate these protocols effectively.
You should be able to easily assess what kind of consultancy to start. But if you are still unsure, here are some other business ideas to choose from.
