Solomon Thimothy is the President of OneIMS, where he works with agencies and clients to develop predictable and scalable growth strategies.
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Most agency owners know how important it is to have a clearly outlined contract before going into business with a client. Details of this contract might include deliverables, expectations, availability and services to be rendered. However, sometimes the line between a hard deliverable and a consulting service gets blurred.
As clients look to your agency for specific marketing services, they may start to ask you for advice and additional information. As a service provider, you likely want to do your very best to overdeliver and give more than you take. However, if you feel your advice and “freebies” have started to become worth more than a pretty penny, consider adding consulting services to your packages.
Below are three types of major consulting services you might consider adding on a monthly, weekly or hourly basis. This will help you set boundaries with your clients and make sure that your years of experience and knowledge are not being taken advantage of.
Strategy Consulting
Strategy consultants are in demand because they help their clients step back and look at big-picture objectives. It can be challenging for company owners to work inside while maintaining that outside view. CEOs and founders are often willing to pay top dollar for consultants who can bring a new perspective.
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Strategy consultants might help their clients determine quarterly or yearly goals and then come up with the plan to achieve them. They pull in marketing information that includes where the industry is going, what their competitors are doing and how they can differentiate themselves to win more customers.
If you’re considering adding strategy consulting services to your portfolio, create a document and plan in which you can create financial and growth objectives with your client. Be ready to help them figure out why a customer would clearly choose them over competitors and be ready to think outside of the box. It will be your job to determine new ways that the business can pivot at all times.
Management Consulting
Management consultants similarly will work on a client’s strategy but be more inward-focused. Their job will be to ensure that the company is firing on all cylinders and that each component of the system is optimized.
As a management consultant, your job might be to ensure that processes are optimized — and that each role is expending each dollar it’s allotted. In addition, you should be able to identify bottlenecks or problems that exist within a company.
An example of this might be to examine your client’s sales process as a whole. What do their customers do when they first approach the business? Is their front-end advertising crushing it? What happens after new leads are drawn to their website? You might identify that the website user experience is not optimized for conversions. Similarly, how do your client’s customers take to the sales calls? As a management consultant, your job will be to ensure that salespeople are fully equipped and able to confidently sell a solution.
Marketing Consulting
While this may seem like it already goes hand in hand with your agency services, don’t undercut yourself by ignoring the value of marketing consultant deliverables. Most agencies will immediately give their customers free audits to determine whether their current marketing efforts (their website, audience targets, offer, data, metrics and other marketing tools) are optimized.
As an addition to your marketing services, your consulting services should include weekly or monthly consulting fees. Otherwise, your job is simply to deliver the results without interpreting them. The time it takes to comprehend and evaluate a client’s campaign is costly as a business owner.
It is often the case that marketers can create stunning graphics, write the most persuasive copy and even optimize a landing page, no problem. But the offering still may not be “cunning” enough to get your clients’ customers to convert. As a marketing consultant, you might strategize with your client on an offer that fits their budget while giving them an upper hand from a competitive standpoint. Beyond running their ads, your job will be to continually consult with them on how they can make the most out of their marketing budget, whether pertaining to their website, emails, ads or organic traffic.
A Note On Consultant Pricing And Value
The beauty of consulting is that you can price it like you do your other marketing deliverables or you can charge monthly. Either way, your job is to bring your client as much value as possible.
Consulting isn’t about having conversations to ponder things, but really putting deep thought into figuring out which solution will help your client meet their goals. They’ll see your passion and determination through conversations. When it comes to pricing, ask yourself how you’re changing the structure and outcome of your client’s business as a whole. That should help you determine your fees.
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Author: Solomon Thimothy, Forbes Councils Member
