Today we are going to talk about three ways to make your WordPress consulting business easier. Notice I didn’t say easy. There is a difference.
It isn’t easy to run a WordPress consulting business, but we can do some things that it more manageable.
The next time you are feeling frustrated with your business, remember we aren’t in this alone. We all walk the same journey.
Getting clients
You might put getting clients squarely in the “have to have” camp, and you would be right. Your ability to run your business is pretty much dependent on getting clients.
There are some tried and true methods that many businesses have used over the years.
There is the usual list of things people do, such as networking, pitching to potential customers, advertising, referrals, and social media marketing.
There are so many ways you can find customers as Content Snare’s James Rose wrote in this monster post. Internet marketer Ramit Sethi recently wrote an article on getting freelance work. In this article, he lists six ways to get clients.
Then, there are the more unusual ways to find clients. For example, have you bought a product or service so that you could get your foot in the door to work with someone?
Sometimes, getting clients is just using a bit of creativity.
What about inbound marketing? The same services and methods we consult others to use can actually be used by us as well. Setting up a basic lead generation funnel and following up with those who come via our website can be a very effective way.
Finally, there is the Authority Marketing method. In this scenario, you make yourself an authority in your target market by selling a product, speaking, hosting webinars, etc.
Once you have made an impact, you begin to attract people who want to work with you.
Avoid the feast or famine cycle by creating a product or recurring service
One of the assurances of running a freelance business is feast and famine cycle.
One day, you get a client, and you spent the next month working on finishing the project. If you are lucky, maybe you have more than one lined up.
Once you finished, you realize you have no more clients, and you have to hustle again.
Some consultants have helped mitigate this by creating a product or service that can be sold with a repeatable process that helps deliver easier.
One thing that many WordPress consultants use is a site care service. This is fairly easy to execute with tools such as MainWP. In this case, it takes the same amount of time to update one as it takes to update 50 websites. You can scale WordPress site care without adding more time. It’s a win/ win.
What about products?
Some WordPress consultants have created courses, tutorials, sites, and books. Other things you might sell are website audits, consulting sessions, paid discovery (or roadmapping) or paid coaching sessions.
What can you sell to clients that is repeatable? If you are going to sell services that have repeatable tasks, then you are going to need to create processes.
Creating a process is essential
It doesn’t take long to be in business before you realize you need some processes. You learn that the second time you ever have to submit a proposal.
Remember the first time you created a proposal? You looked for what was supposed to be in a proposal. You searched for ways to create a proposal.
You might have tried out Google Docs or MS Word. Maybe you tried a proposal software program before you settled on something you were comfortable with using.
Other things you might need a process for is how you handle onboarding your client and how you handle your sales process. Additionally, you will need a method for acquisition, how you project manage, and your process for launching a website.
If you are doing site care, you likely will have a different way you do some of those tasks.
If you can create your process and document this, it will help you in the future. Documenting your process can also help you if you begin to outsource different workers or hire a team.
Wrapping it up
Creating a process, developing a recurring service or product Iand getting clients to go a long way to helping your WordPress consulting business run a little easier.
When doing these things, it is important to remember that we work with people. It is easy to forget that when we are working with code, software, and various digital products.
Each business represents a human, and it is important to remember. Remembering that we are in business with humans will also help make running a consulting business easier.
What do you do that makes running your business easier?
Drop them in the comments!
