7 steps to make money as online consultant

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7 steps to make money as online consultant
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OVERVIEW ABOUT ONLINE CONSULTANT
If you have trained hard for years to gain a career in an esteemed profession, you will
want to use your skills as much as possible as well as wanting to earn a good salary.
Some people are very lucky to walk into full time work and are very happy in their
role and with their salary. others however, may feel that they are not fulfilling their
potential and could be using their skills in better ways, not to mention earning more
cash.
If this is you, you may want to consider online consultancy, which is a great way
forward for many skilled professionals these days.

CONTENT TABLE:
I. HOW TO BECOME A COACH AND CONSULTANT
II. CONSULTING IDEAS TO MARKET IN LESS THAN 4 WEEKS:
III. TOP-PAYING ONLINE CONSULTING SITES
IV. THINGS TO CONSIDER BEFORE YOU BECOME A CONSULTANT
V. Top 20 Consulting Businesses Thriving Today

USEFUL MATERIALS:
1 TOP ONLINE CONSULTING COURSES
http://www.businesstips247.com/2016/04/top-online-consulting-
courses.html

I. HOW TO BECOME A COACH AND CONSULTANT
1. Start Putting Yourself Out There With High Quality Content To Get Found.
The first step is really just putting yourself out there with a blog, videos or a podcast
so that you can get found. Publish high quality content and give it away for free. This
will help you attract visitors and a following. If your stuff is good, people will
WANT to work with you and hire you as their coach. You can also do this through
publishing Kindle books or selling your own information products, as people will see
you as an authority and expert and will be more likely to hire you.
If you just had a website up with your picture that says “I’m a coach, hire me!”,
people will say “Who cares?” People are much more likely to hire and work with
someone if they’ve already provided value to them in advance (through your content)
and they’ve established a relationship with you (through your content). If you just
have a coaching website that offers coaching – nobody cares because nobody knows
anything about you, haven’t received any value from you, nor do they have any
relationship with you whatsoever.
2. Begin Offering Coaching And Consulting Once The Demand Is There.
You really only want to start offering coaching and consulting once the demand is
there. The demand is there when you have a certain number of visitors coming to
your blog per day or you have people contacting you asking for your help and advice.

Once you have people contacting you and asking for your help, this is a good sign
that they trust you and see you as an expert. They now WANT your help and advice.
All you have to do now is put together a coaching page or website that makes
yourself available to them as a coach.
3. Consider Coaching People For Free At The Beginning To Gain Experience.
When I first wanted to become a coach, I offered myself to people for free. I just
wanted to gain experience and get a few testimonials to help build my business. After
I became more confident with the coaching process, I began charging a bit of money
for my time. At first, it was around $40/hour. As I gained more experience, helped
people get more results and became in even more demand, I was able to raise the rates
to over $100/hour and beyond.
4. Find Out Exactly What Your Followers Want And Give It To Them.
With my blog, I realized that the #1 thing that people were coming to me for was how
to make money online. 80% of my coaching requests are for that and so that’s why I
decided to create a coaching program specifically for working with me to make
money online. This way it’s targeted and geared towards what people are looking for
from me.
I also realized that there’s many people that can’t afford to work with me 1-on-1, but
still want to receive value from me, get their questions answered and receive feedback
and advice. That’s why I decided to create a Group Coaching Mastermind. This has
allowed me to take on a group of people and coach them every two weeks in a
webinar session where they can ask me questions and receive feedback. This was
another way of leveraging myself while giving people something that they wanted and
was valuable.
5. Qualify And Screen People To Weed Out The Tire-kickers And Those That
Aren’t Committed.
The truth is, in order to be successful at anything you have to be COMMITTED.
Most people simply aren’t committed enough to be successful and therefor they never
will. They aren’t willing to do whatever it takes. They “want” success, but aren’t
“committed” to it. They basically only way to be successful if it’s convenient and
falls in their lap. Most aren’t willing to invest money or commit themselves fully and
I’m not willing to work with those people, as it’s often a waste of time.
6. Be willing to partner with others.
Although working with another human being might be the last thing you want to do
after escaping the meeting hell of the modern corporation, you need to be open to the
prospect. Maintain a friendly network of people with skills complementary to, but
different than, yours. “Research shows that businesses that have one person at the

helm do not fare as well as businesses that have more than one,” said Shannon Polly.
Being flexible to work with others when the need arises will “give you more reach.” I
like the idea of a "virtual firm," a network of interconnected people who can build a
team based upon the demands of each project. As the late Chris Peterson always said,
"other people matter."
7. Think like the CEO of the client.
“If you can’t imagine how your project is going to help the bottom line of the
company, then it will not be of sustainable value to the company,” said Pam
Teagarden. Think like the client. “Be able to explain how your project outcomes are
going to help the business in tangible ways.” Even if you see the wisdom of your
bright idea, if the client can’t, forget it.

II. CONSULTING IDEAS TO MARKET IN LESS THAN
4 WEEKS:
1. Brainstormed and eventually registered virtualstafffinder.com domain name.
2. Plotted out how the process of the service would work, fine-tuning it to death
to make it as simple as possible for both the entrepreneurs using the service,
and us, too!
3. Sat with my web developer (who works for me full-time, in-house) to come up
with a concept for the website, and a minimum of 3 different designs. I also
decided that I didn’t want the site to be a blog style, but rather a static website
which didn’t very little attention, to save my time.
4. Put together the written content, and shot the ‘welcome’ video clip.
5. Set-up several different avenues, locally, within the Philippines to be able to
find the talent needed from the virtual staff side of things (which is actually still
on-going all the time, although is now done by my VSF Project Manager).
6. Got going with an e-Junkie account, and linked it up via Paypal to be able to
accept online payments.
7. Tweaked and tweaked the website, until we were happy with it (we will,
however, be making some changes soon).

8. Went Live!
III. TOP-PAYING ONLINE CONSULTING SITES
The following online consulting sites, which are listed below, range widely in how
much consultants can charge. Some online consultants charge a reasonable $20-$25
per hour for their advice. Meanwhile, big names such as Mark Cuban (owner of the
NBA Dallas Mavericks) charge as much as $166 per minute! The sites also vary
widely in how they take their own cut, with some sites asking for a substantial up-
front fee from either the client or the consultant and others focusing more on
providing services like advertising.
1. Clarity
This newer site, launched publicly just one year ago, is geared more towards start-up
and budding entrepreneurs in need of mentorship from experts who have “been there
and done that”. The mentors set up their profiles on the site and state their hourly rate.
With the minimum hourly rate being $60, Clarity is geared more towards higher-end,
seasoned experts like angel investor Dave McClure or billionaire businessman Mark
Cuban. Clarity charges the expert a 15% fee for each completed consultation call.
Experts can also set their rate to $0/hour if they are looking to donate
2. Maven Research, Inc.

Calling itself the “Global Knowledge Marketplace,” Maven has a variety of industry
and subject matter experts on hand including venture capitalists, lawyers, business
coaches and even surgeons. The absolute lowest hourly rate for a “Maven” (i.e.,
expert) is $25/hour.
One can also earn 10% on all referral earnings. Consultations are usually done over
the phone using Maven’s “integrated scheduling system and automated conferencing
system,” but can also include electronic surveys as well as extended consulting
engagements that may include face-to-face time (i.e., actual employment) and are not
strictly limited to phone calls. Extended consultations do require some pre-screening
and written interviewing.
3. Zintro
Much like Maven, Zintro also connects knowledge seekers (i.e., customers) with
experts via its site and software platform and charges those seekers the hourly or by-
the-minute fee of the expert. Knowledge requests come in through a site inbox, which
needs to be checked almost daily for possible leads.
A basic membership is free on the site but comes with a $99.95 initial connect fee that
must be paid by either the customer or the expert. Zintro also offers premium
membership packages for experts who want to be better advertised on the site and not
worry about that $99.95 initial connect fee. A 1 month premium membership fee is
priced at $149.95, a 6-month fee is $239.70, and a yearly membership is $359.40.
Paying the membership fee might be worthwhile if you’re getting a bunch of clients
and don’t want to be paying a hundred bucks each time you take a call.

IV. THINGS TO CONSIDER BEFORE YOU BECOME
A CONSULTANT
1. What certifications and special licensing will I need?
Depending upon your profession, you may need special certification or a special
license before you can begin operating as a consultant. For example, fund-raising
consultants don't need special certification, although you can become certified through
the National Society of Fund Raising Executives. And in some states, you may need
to register as a professional fund-raising consultant before starting your business.
2. Am I qualified to become a consultant?
Before you hang out your shingle and hope that clients begin beating your door down
to hire you, make sure you have the qualifications necessary to get the job done. If you
want to be a computer consultant, for example, make sure you are up to date in the
knowledge department with all the trends and changes in the computer industry.
3. Am I organized enough to become a consultant?
Do I like to plan my day? Am I an expert when it comes to time management? You
should have answered "yes" to all three of those questions!
4. Do I like to network?
Networking is critical to the success of any type of consultant today. Begin building
your network of contacts immediately.
5. Have I set long-term and short-term goals?
And do they allow for me to become a consultant? If your goals do not match up with
the time and energy it takes to open and successfully build a consulting business, then
reconsider before making any move in this direction!

V. Top 20 Consulting Businesses Thriving Today
Although you can be a consultant in just about any field these days, the current top 20
consulting businesses include:
1. Accounting: Accounting is something that every business needs, no matter how
large or small. Accounting consultants can help a business with all of its financial
needs.
2. Advertising: This type of consultant is normally hired by a business to develop a
good strategic advertising campaign.
3. Auditing: From consultants who audit utility bills for small businesses to
consultants who handle major work for telecommunications firms, auditing
consultants are enjoying the fruits of their labor.
4. Business: Know how to help a business turn a profit? If you have a good business
sense, then you'll do well as a business consultant. After computer consulting, people
in this field are the next most sought after.
5. Business writing: Everyone knows that most businesspeople have trouble when it
comes to writing a report--or even a simple memo. Enter the business writing
consultant, and everyone is happy!
6. Career counseling: With more and more people finding themselves victims of a
corporate downsizing, career counselors will always be in demand. Career counselors
guide their clients into a profession or job that will help them be both happy and
productive as an employee.
7. Communications: Communications consultants specialize in helping employees in
both large and small businesses better communicate with each other, which ultimately
makes the business more efficient and operate smoothly.
8. Computer consulting: From software to hardware, and everything in between, if
you know computers, your biggest problem will be not having enough hours in the
day to meet your clients' demands!
9. Editorial services: From producing newsletters to corporate annual reports,
consultants who are experts in the editorial field will always be appreciated.
10. Executive search/headhunter firms: While this is not for everyone, there are
people who enjoy finding talent for employers.

11. Gardening: In the past decade the demand for gardening consultants has
blossomed (pun intended) into a $1 million-a-year business. Not only are businesses
hiring gardening consultants; so are people who are too busy to take care of their
gardens at home.
12. Grantsmanship: Once you learn how to write a grant proposal, you can name
your price.
13. Human resources: As long as businesses have people problems (and they always
will), consultants in this field will enjoy a never-ending supply of corporate clients,
both large and small. (People-problem prevention programs could include teaching
employees to get along with others, respect and even violence prevention in the
workplace.)
14. Insurance: Everyone needs insurance, and everyone needs an insurance
consultant to help them find the best plan and pricing for them.
15. Marketing: Can you help a business write a marketing plan? Or do you have
ideas that you feel will help promote a business? If so, why not try your hand as a
marketing consultant?
16. Payroll management: Everyone needs to get paid. By using your knowledge and
expertise in payroll management, you can provide this service to many businesses,
both large and small.
17. Public relations: Getting good press coverage for any organization is a real art.
When an organization finds a good PR consultant, they hang on to them for life!
18. Publishing: If you're interested in the publishing field, then learn everything you
can and you, too, can be a publishing consultant. A publishing consultant usually
helps new ventures when they are ready to launch a new newspaper, magazine,
newsletter--and even websites and electronic newsletters.
19. Taxes: With the right marketing and business plan (and a sincere interest in taxes),
your career as a tax consultant can be very lucrative. A tax consultant advises
businesses on the legal methods to pay the least amount of tax possible.
20. Writing services: Anything related to the written word will always be in demand.
Find your specialty in the writing field, and the sky will be the limit!

7 steps to make money as online consultant

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7 steps to make money as online consultant