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When a business is just starting up or in the midst of significant change, one of the best ways address new challenges is by hiring a consultant. Consultants are brought into companies that are in need of a helping hand during times of trouble or opportunity. The growing business of consulting is used by thousands of companies a year, and independent consulting is the fastest growing business in the United States. Consultants are experts at pin-pointing their client’s problem and solving it in a timely manner. Charging by hour, day or year depending on contract, these business savvy experts can set a company up for success.

Before hiring a consultant, it is important to make sure the consultant is knowledgeable in the business for which they are being hired. After this, a company should ask a consultant to construct a plan for solving that business’s current issue. Usually a veteran in management, consultants will work with the management of a company in order to asses and solve the current problem. Most consultants come with strategies to improve company communication, increase efficiency, and acquire and retain customers. These strategies may have come from the consultants themselves or from other companies with which they have worked. Also consultants may offer new business management systems to maximize the assets of the company. Another important aspects brought by consultants is the ability to act as a mediator between any conflicting parts in a company. By increasing communication, a consultant can help to minimize conflict and therefore maximize productivity.
Consultants are ideal for entrepreneurs who are interested in started a business in which they have little experience. In this case a consultant could help guide the entrepreneur and show them the best business plan, yet still allows the entrepreneur to be in control of the business. Also, companies that do not know how to put new ideas into action or are having trouble coming up with ideas of their own could hire a consultant to help in both instances. The outsider perspective a consultant offers is highly beneficial to a company and its employees. Finally, a business that is having leadership issues would benefit greatly from hiring a consultant. Leadership is an area in which consultants are highly specialized and experienced, allowing for quick, thorough solutions.

Staff can be freed from time consuming tasks by adding a consultant to a company, allowing staff members to focus on their own area of expertise and other projects. Time is also saved with consultants because they work on problem solving so other staff members do not have to do so. Time spent on updating to current technology is cut down with consultants because technology is kept up to date by consultants themselves, eliminating the need to search out updates.

Hiring a consultant may be just the thing that a business needs to start up or re-vamp. Consultants can be brought in for the long term or short term, depending on what the company needs. Also, consultants are usually available to work the hours set by the company that hires them, allowing for a high level of flexibility. Lists of consultants in your area can be found at sites like SearchConsultants,Accenture,and Thomson Gale’s Goliath or by searching consultants and your city in any popular search engine.

About the Author
Sarah Deak is a contributing business writer for http://goliath.ecnext.com. Goliath is one of the Internet’s largest collections of business research, news and information.

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Consultants What Can They Do For Your Business

In more than 20 years of copywriting for both business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) clients, I have found mid-size and large B2B clients to be generally easier to work with, and more professional than B2C. (I do not recommend working for small business in either B2B or B2C.)

In my experience, B2B companies tend be more “corporate” and less entrepreneurial in their thinking and procedures than B2C companies. For instance, B2B clients are more likely to use creative briefs, meet deadlines, and pay on time.

The marketing departments of B2B clients also tend to be more sophisticated in their approach to marketing; this is nice for the copywriter who wants to have more say in testing, offers, and other elements of a response campaign.

The more process-driven a marketing department is, the easier it is to get winning promotions, as well as information on the results of promotions, work samples, and other data that helps a copywriter build his business.

Winning a B2B Client

Because B2B clients are by nature more oriented to “professional” processes and thinking, the copywriter who wants to win their business must also appear professional. Here’s what you’ll need in order to successfully approach a mid-size, large, or enterprise-level B2B client:

� Professional-quality letterhead, envelopes, and business cards are a must. You don’t have to be exotic or fancy; graphic designers need flash and dazzle but copywriters don’t. Don’t fret about design…but do make sure your most basic business tools look professional. If you can’t afford a designer’s help, opt for simple and straightforward.

� Know what you stand for. It pays to create your own unique selling proposition (USP). These days both B2C and B2B clients want to know why you are the best copywriter for them. Once you determine what sets you apart, you should create a tag line that appears on your business cards and letterhead.

For instance, the tagline I helped one of my coaching students create is “Helping your build and maintain profitable long-term customers.”

� Go to a niche market. Related to the advice above, you will do well to go to a niche market for which you have a connection…a point of differentiation that sets you apart. Many experts will tell you that you can find your point of differentiation in your work history. But this is only partly true.

With my coaching students I regularly help them discover what makes them unique and special not only in their work history, but in their passions, and their talents.

For instance, one of my students wanted to use her literary talent to sell her copywriting; so we carved out a unique copywriting market that would appreciate – and benefit from – the power of her written talent for story telling.

� You must have a Web site. And it had better be professional. A professional Web site for the corporate market must exhibit obvious elements of good lead-generation.

The elements of a good lead-generating Web site are many; however, for the purposes of this primer, I will touch on the most important four elements:

1. Your Web site must have “you” orientation. It’s not about you, it’s about them. Your Home Page headline must acknowledge a pain of your audience, and offer a solution. One example from one of my coaching students: “Are you a software marketer looking for a steadier stream of qualified software leads?”

Contrast this with this “me oriented” Home Page headline of another copywriter: “Bill S., Freelance Advertising Copywriter.” Even the lead-in sentence was me oriented: “I’m an advertising copywriter, which is why my website utterly lacks graphics.”

2. Your Web site must have an offer. Direct marketing without an offer is not direct marketing. If you are a copywriter who wants to make a great income, then you must let your potential clients know that you will bring in more than you cost.

You offer should in some way convey that. In lead-generation, which is what your freelance business depends on, one of the best offers you can advance is free information in the form of a report, or other valuable information product.

3. Your Web site must have either a very clean, orderly, and simple but sophisticated design…or it must be designed by a graphic designer.

If designed by a direct response designer, your Web site will exhibit signs of high level branding and direct response design “magic”…all of which will impress a B2B audience.

An aside: In my experience, Webmasters are excellent at what they do, but they do not have direct marketing graphic design skills – even though they usually think they do!

If you’re going to build your Web site yourself, take the time to learn about direct response design; otherwise, invest a small sum in having a direct response designer create a design template that you can follow…or have her design the full site herself.

4. Post samples. Samples are the equivalent of showing a portfolio. For new copywriters, this is a tough one. But there are lots of ways to work this to your advantage.

First, understand that no potential client wants to see more than three samples; then understand that you can post a “spec” sample that never mailed; and third, know that you can even post a sample that was never entirely finished…

If, for instance, you did a critique of a potential client’s campaign, you can post that critique on your Web site – as long as you gained permission to do so.

A note on testimonials:

Yes, they’re important. But I was lazy in this department. Instead, I concentrated on getting response rates and writing case studies of my winners. Not having testimonials on my Web site never hurt me. However, one day I wanted to diversify into coaching and other copywriting related pursuits…and then I became concerned.

So my advice to you is to be vigilant about collecting testimonials. The moment your client says something positive about your work is the moment to say “can I quote that?”

� You must have business processes. Once again, because of their professional nature, B2B companies work best with copywriters who use fee agreements, creative briefs, meet deadlines, and nail down exactly what it is they’re expected to do (right down to the size and fold of the brochure), put it in writing, and then do it.

Many copywriters work without fee agreements, “set in stone” timelines, and like the “handshake” approach to doing business.

But not only is this a sure path to disappointment, it’s also a red flag to corporate clients that the copywriter is insecure, a poor business person, or both. Having a clear process for how you do business will not only make your business more profitable, but it will make the B2B client more confident in your abilities.

� Be a salesman. Whether their marketing is lead-generating or order-generating, B2B clients are very efficient at salesmanship and closing. Don’t shy away from mailing sales letters to them and then following up. They do it, and understand that it’s “just business” to be on the receiving end.

In fact, I’ve found it much easier to market to B2B companies than B2C. If you’ve done a good job of targeting – you’ve created a niche or USP that matches you with your target – then you should enjoy at least a 1% conversion rate to your marketing efforts. B2B companies are generally accepting and interested in your call, as long as you’ve done your homework to determine why you’re the best copywriter for them.

About the Author
Master copywriter and coach Chris Marlow publishes a free ezine for copywriters who want to quickly build a profitable business. Visit:

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How to Get B2B Clients A Primer for Copywriters

Virtually everything ever written about freelance writing and getting published says that you need to write query letters. Yet in the Internet Age, the truth of the matter is that query letters are almost always a huge waste of time.

Certainly some people do get work by writing query letters. But the query process soon turns into a numbers game, almost like a direct mail campaign. You have to send out so many queries to get meaningful responses that you won’t have much time left to do any actual work. A good query letter must be carefully crafted and painstakingly personalized. To compose one that doesn’t sound cutesy or contrived is difficult and time-consuming.

The reality is that you must think of editors as your potential customers. They control the budget and whether or not to buy from you. It is NEVER a good idea to harass or inconvenience a customer. For many busy editors, query letters are annoying. Often they are just another form of junk mail.

Now you’re probably thinking, “If editors don’t read query letters, how does anyone ever get published?” What the writing books don’t tell you is that article topics are often defined far in advance. At many magazines, editors figure out a monthly or yearly plan. Barring some earth-shattering catastrophe, the editors stick to that plan. The standard query letter is usually a waste of time because with the calendar of topics decided well in advance, off-topic queries are ignored. In other words, your carefully crafted query letter gets round-filed, not because it’s bad, but because it had no hope of being used.

The fact that query letters are often thrown away doesn’t mean editors don’t use freelance writers; they do. But the reality is that editors tend to rely on a stable of writers who have proven themselves experts on the magazine’s chosen topics. So if you want to be published, your task is to discover those topics and become one of those experts.

From an editor’s point of view, few decent writers actually exist out there in the big world. Editors have simple needs: they want articles that are original, easy to read, accurate, and on time.

Flakey writers that don’t meet deadlines are the bane of every editor and publisher in the industry. If you meet your deadlines, every time with no excuses, you will stand out from the pack. If you consistently send articles that are:

* precisely focused on a topic the magazine wants to run;
* written in the magazine’s chosen style and tone;
* 100% accurate and error free;
* formatted the way the magazine wants them;
* and arrive BEFORE the deadline

an editor will notice you!

Okay, so what if you’ve never written for that magazine before? Instead of querying, do some research on the magazine. After you have read the magazine and any available writer’s guidelines, write a polite letter to the editor to ask for an editorial calendar and explain your expertise.

This method is far preferable to any query letter, no matter how clever or well-written.
Why? With some concise information about you, often an editor can tell whether or not your writing will be a good fit for my publication.

For example, if you say that you have written articles for managers about “enterprise computing” and the editor works for a “how to use Microsoft Word step by step” magazine, it’s likely that you won’t be the right writer for that magazine.

However, if you explain that you spent two years teaching “introduction to word processing” classes at your local YMCA, and that you wrote handouts for your students about how to get started using Microsoft Word, that same editor might just encourage you to submit a few articles! At the very least, the editor might send you the editorial calendar.

Don’t forget the basics! Simple little things often make you stand out from the crowd and help your chances of getting published. For example, when writing an e-mail or letter to an editor, always remember that you are writing to someone who spends a lot of time with words and probably has a degree in English or Journalism. Double-check your spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Format properly. If you don’t compose your e-mail competently and professionally, editors won’t believe that you can write a good article.

And finally, be truthful. Don’t inflate your credentials. Don’t fib about how much you know about a topic. Don’t gush, and don’t sell. Just state your credentials concisely, clearly, and correctly. Editors don’t need to be sold and they have no tolerance for hype. They’re just too busy to put up with it.

About the Author
Susan Daffron is the President of Logical Expressions, Inc. (http://www.logicalexpressions.com) and has written more than 300 newspaper and national magazine articles. She regularly publishes ezines on computers (http://www.LogicalTips.com), pet care (http://www.Pet-Tails.com), and other topics.

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Freelance Writers: Don’t Waste Your Time with Query Letters

Where The Money Is:

For freelancers who are primarily interested in earning a very high income, it’s smart to look to industries that mail very large quantities. Industries that mail very large quantities can do so only if they have a very large pool of buyers.

And consumers are a very large market, especially when it comes to certain widely used products such as face cream, vitamins, and publications. If a company drops a million pieces whenever they mail, and they’re selling the product in a one-step (mail order), then they would place a very high value on the copywriter who can get results, even if incremental.

This is the arena where you’ll find your most lucrative opportunities…work that can often command mailing royalties in addition to a hefty up-front flat rate. Imagine writing a mail order package for $15,000 and then making $20,000 every time it rolls out to 1 million names!

Of course, like practically everything else in life, the big mailers are fewer in number, representing the top of the pyramid; many smaller B2C companies occupy the middle and bottom portions of the pyramid.

Companies in the middle group (mid-size companies) are also great sources of business, paying well if not astronomically so. Small businesses, however, often do not have the funds to pay for professional copywriting, and often don’t understand direct marketing or the value of copywriting, and must be educated. A common phrase uttered by the experienced copywriter is “I don’t take clients I have to educate.”

The Business-to-Business Market:

Unlike the B2C market, the consumer and prospect universes of businesses are usually much smaller, often occupying niches that can be miniscule indeed. In such cases, all marketing costs are scrutinized with the utmost detail, with each campaign targeting a certain ROI. It’s not uncommon for a large, well-known brand to consider a campaign a success if it brings in 15 or 30 high quality leads. (Sometimes these leads have buying power that reaches into the millions of dollars.)

According to Direct Marketing Association statistics, about two-thirds of the B2B space is lead-generating in nature, with the remaining one-third order-generating. A review of my own copywriting samples bears this out.

For the copywriter, the difference between a lead-generation job and a mail order job comes down to money. Since it usually takes more “real estate” (space) to convince someone to “write a check now” than it does to convince someone to “raise her hand” (lead-generation), an order-generating job should pay more than a lead-generation job, and sometimes much more.

In terms of pay structure, most B2B companies work on flat rates and would find the idea of “bonuses” and “royalties” foreign. However, I have successfully negotiated pay structures that offer extra pay for goals met.

Dangerous? Absolutely.

But once you have the utmost confidence in your knowledge and talents, and if you trust the company implicitly (a nailed down contract is essential for any job, no matter who they are or what they pay)…then you can do a little “gambling” and increase your potential for income, to say nothing of “upping the excitement.”

About the Author
Award-winning copywriter Chris Marlow publishes a free newsletter for freelancers who want to build a successful business. Visit:FreelancersBusinessBulletin

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Find Out Where The High-Paying Freelance Copywriting Jobs Are