The 5 Things Consultants Can Do Today To Land More Corporate Clients

Welcome to this week's edition of the Seven Figure Consultant LinkedIn Newsletter. Don't forget that you can get daily updates from Jessica in your LinkedIn news feed by accessing her LinkedIn profile and hitting Follow. She will be sharing insights and discussions through the week that she would love to hear your views on.

Last month I sat down with Dylis Guyan, an international B2B sales and marketing leader, mentor, speaker and podcast host with more than 30 years experience in the sales and marketing environment. 

As we discussed landing and working corporate contracts, these 5 steps emerged which will be useful to you whether you’re yet to land your first consulting contract, or you’re experienced at working with corporates.

Write down who your ideal clients are - it could be midsize SMEs, large SMEs, it could be small corporates, blue chips - the principles are exactly the same. Create your list of target companies. Then list out any existing relationships you have with these companies. Then highlight the people on the list who can and will pay - the people who are decision-makers with access to budget. Then pick up the phone.

You don’t need to be targeting hundreds of people. You might only need four big contracts to reach a £100k income. It can be a lot less work to land a few corporate contracts, than when you’re trying to sell a product or service to hundreds (or thousands) of people.

But you need to work harder on the individual relationships to make that happen.

Instead of putting some content out there and waiting to see what happens, you need to proactively approach the people on your target list. 

Do you already know someone in the company? Or do you know someone that can give you an introduction?

With corporate sales it's a lot more relationship based. We don’t need email marketing software or automated sequences. It’s about building a genuine relationship, through phone conversations and real-life meet-ups. 

It’s not what you’re good at that matters - it’s how this is relevant to your customers. It can be tempting to pitch the million things you’re really good at. Bang, bang, bang. But they don't care what you can do, or what experience you have. They care what it means to them - how you can help them meet their objectives and their goals, that they're under pressure from their bosses to deliver.

And you can discover what these objectives are even before you make first contact. Look at the business, their website, Google their name, look for news alerts. Understand the world in which they operate.

Understand the financial impact the problem they’ve got is having on them. Then you can demonstrate the ROI and the benefits that you can bring in, the problems that you can solve and all of the ripple effect problems that you can solve. 

When you position your solution correctly, you make it much easier for the decision maker to say ‘yes’ because it's not coming out of their bottom line profit - it’s contributing to it.

It can be daunting approaching big businesses, especially when you’re a solo operator. But they will love you because you are light, agile and bring a different perspective. There isn't all of the bureaucracy and red tape of a large corporate going into another big business. You will have your own passion around what you do, and insights to bring from your previous career and consulting contracts. 

Sometimes larger consulting firms don’t bring the same enthusiasm. Someone higher up will do all of the initial meetings, and then they put a team in. You will be doing the whole thing from top to bottom and therefore your insights will be far greater than someone coming as an employee from a consulting firm. 

When you work with corporate clients, you don’t always need to be finding fresh leads.

You've got the opportunity for additional business with your existing clients. 

You can use your existing contacts to identify other problems within the business that you can solve, and introduce you to the decision-maker responsible for that area. 

List out the problems they are facing (that you can help with). 

Then take that further and explore the impact of those problems. What does that mean to them? And the ripple effect of that. And, if you can, put a financial cost against that impact. 

And what would be the benefits of change? Why now? And the financial impact of that.

It’s easier to come up with these value propositions for a corporation you already know, than pitch to a business you’re completely unfamiliar with.

New On The Seven Figure Consultant Podcast This Week 🎧

You’re a self-employed consultant.

You’re the boss.

Surely if you want to reduce your working hours, it’s easy – just work fewer hours.

Job done.

If only it were that simple.

I know this is one of those areas where we may have the intention of carrying it out, but it just feels impossible.

But I also know that to transition from six to seven figures you need to be working LESS not more.

In this week's episode of the Seven Figure Consultant podcast we explore:

> Why we get sucked into overworking.

> How to identify if you’re working too much

> 3 steps you can take to work less SO THAT your business can make more money.

Head here to listen ==> Listen to Episode 013 of the Seven Figure Consultant Podcast

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To find out more about the work I do, visit jessicafearnley.com or message me here on LinkedIn if you'd like to hear more about private coaching and how I can help you transition your business from six to seven figures.