| Not OP, but I’ve been consulting for ~10 years across operations, sales and marketing for a wide variety of businesses at different stages and scales. I have one key piece of advice: ask many questions. Be genuinely curious and friendly, and opportunities will continuously emerge. I’ve landed high-value clients at coffee shops, hotel bars, music venues, or even through random emails. I was not prospecting. I was curious. Questions are so useful at every layer of abstraction; whether you’re speaking with a server at a restaurant who’s having trouble with their POS, the general manager who’s wasted $10k on Yelp, or the real estate developer who happens to own a restaurant chain. As a consultant your value is measured by your observations and imagination. Rich, open-ended questions allow you to absorb a vast repository of context and experience from operators. Use your skillset to imagine how things could be better if you were to apply effort. I’ve had people quite frequently make declarations such as “you’re brilliant” or “you clearly have a lot of experience in this field” without knowing me or without me ever making a statement - only questions. It feels like a cheat code. The only downside to this technique is you’ll be flooded with opportunities and your time won’t scale. I’ve dropped the ball on a number of awesome and profitable things because I was trying to pursue too many things at once. I’m trying to improve my consistency so I can hire more effectively, but it’s challenging. Aside, I’ve been working on a crowdsourcing app to help solve this dilemma, as I’ve noted many others share my struggles. Best of luck :) |