Do you effectively network? Are you able to direct yourself? Do you have a portfolio with many examples of your success? If you answered yes to these questions, you may be ready to become a consultant. Starting out can be difficult, but it is achievable.
What Is a Consultant?
A consultant is a person with professional expertise who provides advice to individuals and businesses, often on a short-term or contract basis, to meet a specific need.
Companies hire consultants to:
- Get an objective, outsider opinion on processes or systems
- Solve internal blindspots
- Receive expert guidance on solving a problem or implementing a solution
- Fill a temporary staffing gap in a scalable way
- Get access to expertise that is difficult to source and hire for (such as for a niche technology or other use case)
Consultant Qualifications
There is no set qualification to be a consultant, it only depends on what the organization needs and how well you can sell your offer.
This means that if you want to succeed as a consultant, you need to be able to provide expert-level advice.
Education
The education requirements for consultants are not set in stone and can vary depending on the person hiring them. Ultimately, it is up to the person hiring the consultant to decide how important education is.
Most consultants have a bachelor’s degree. A business degree is a broad field of study that covers many topics and is a good degree to consider.
Other popular degrees for consultants include:
- Accounting
- Finance
- Management
- Economics
- Marketing
- Public relations
- Law
Some consultants get a minor or double major to specialize in a particular industry. This can help improve your job prospects, whether you choose healthcare, education, or engineering.
It’s important to choose a degree that helps you learn core concepts in consulting like:
- Data analysis
- Strategy
- Project management
- Leadership
- Public speaking
- Reporting
- Ethics
You don’t need an advanced degree to pursue a career in consulting, but an MBA can be helpful for many consulting careers.
Certifications
Certifications are often not necessary to become a consultant, just like an education is not always necessary. However, certification programs can provide helpful hard and soft skills that degree programs might not cover. In addition, certifications make it simple for future employers to gauge your dedication, professional knowledge, and commitment.
If you’re thinking about completing a certification, these two are good places to start your research:
- CMC (Certified Management Consultant)
- PMP (Project Management Professional)
There are many industry-specific certifications that you can get. Getting a certification is a growing trend in consulting. If you’re an experienced consultant, you may want to consider getting a certification.
An MBA can help consultants to enhance their abilities in leadership, management, and economics which can help to fast-track their career progression in consulting.
Networking
If you want either to find a job in consulting or to begin offering services independently, you need to start making relationships.
The people in your network can provide referrals that may turn into clients, mentors, partners, and friends.
A good way to start networking is to attend events and join relevant organizations. This way you can build an organized list of contacts. It’s also a good idea to be prepared for unplanned meetings and interviews. And don’t forget to use resources like LinkedIn to build your network.
Work Experience
A consultant is someone who is an expert in a particular field and typically has a lot of experience in the area they want to work in.
If you have worked with clients before and can show concrete results, it will be easier to gain new consulting contracts. Having a proven track record that potential clients can trust is essential for success.
The most common way to gain practical experience is through employment. Many consultants who are just starting out aim to get a job with one of the “Big Four” companies. However, this is not the only way to get the experience you need.
If you can’t start a consulting job right away, you could also look into jobs in accounting, management, or business.
What Does a Consultant Do?
Consultants can help improve your business by conducting research, offering solutions, and sharing their experience. They act as problem-solvers, going into your business to provide objective insights and help implement suggested strategies.
This means that the consultant’s role may vary depending on the client’s needs, from simply providing knowledge and advice, to playing a more active role in guiding and implementing changes within the organization.
A consultant may be responsible for some or all aspects of implementation, including developing new processes and training team members. The extent of the consultant’s involvement depends on the needs of the organization.
Regardless of the niche the consultant works in or the specific arrangement they’ve made with the client, there are a few things a consultant must do well:
- Work with stakeholders to set goals for the relationship.
- Learn the existing processes and systems in an organization.
- Perform analysis and diagnose issues.
- Translate data into concrete action items.
- Communicate effectively to multiple stakeholders.
- Oversee and track results.
- Be able to convey impact.
Consultant Skills
There are many skillsets that one needs to develop in order to become a consultant. These skillsets include the ability to solve problems for businesses, change management, creative thinking, and the ability to work with numbers. These skills are some of the most important skills that a consultant needs to have.
Verbal and Written Communication
Your analytical skills won’t help your clients unless you can communicate effectively. Developing your writing and speaking skills is the best way to build trust and authority.
If you want to improve your writing, you need to practice regularly. This means writing reports and analyses. You also need to practice speaking and active listening. This can be done by making presentations, talking to clients, and following up with them.
Featured resources:
- Guide to communication
- Inclusive language
- Non-verbal communication
- Leadership
As a consultant, you are often called upon to play the role of team leader, mentor, and peer all at the same time. Because of this, you must be constantly practicing your leadership skills.
If you’re struggling to communicate with a client or get them to see your perspective, you may need to start being more transparent with them. This means being honest about what you’re doing and why, and sharing any relevant information that may help them understand your side of things. Additionally, team building exercises can help break the ice and build trust, which may make it easier to communicate with each other moving forward.
You will need to show that you can be trusted to handle tough situations in a thoughtful way.
Check out these resources for more:
- Developing leadership skills
- Leadership training skills
Critical and Analytical Thinking
Consulting is often associated with critical thinking because consultants are expected to analyze businesses and offer feedback based on their observations.
As a consultant, your ability to think analytically and solve problems is crucial. This includes being able to review processes, ask questions, and offer guidance from a unique perspective.
How to Launch a Social Media Consultant Business
Assuming that you are qualified for the job and are committing enough time and resources to make your social media consulting business a success, the most important steps in how to start social media consulting are as follows.
Research and Choose Your Niche
Doing it all is not a good tagline for working parents because it is detrimental to marketing, management, and consulting.
Why?
Each company has a different mission statement, brand, and set of practices. Something that works for one company, say a sports company, will not work for a company that sells sugary confections. While not all companies across different markets are this different, there are specific markets for specific products and services. Knowing which market your company falls into can make it easier to market your services and help your clients.
You will have the most success finding a job if you look in the field that you have the most experience in.
Take Online Courses
Everyone has to start somewhere.
Before starting your consulting business, it is recommended that you take some online courses about the industry, and practice your craft. You can do this by offering your services for free, or by simply practicing on your own time. Find a smaller, local brand, and see how you can apply what you’ve learned in your online courses to that company or brand. Taking courses and applying what you’ve learned in hands-on practice will prepare you for the challenges you’ll face as a consultant, and give you a backlog of ideas for potential clients.
Begin by Establishing Credibility
This is an obvious point. If you don’t have credibility, no one will want to hire you. It’s a separate discussion entirely to figure out how to establish credibility as a social media consultant, but you need to think carefully and imagine the perspective of the person you’re trying to sell to. Why would they trust you with their business? Why should they?
If you don’t have any previous experience consulting with clients, you can still gain some credibility by showcasing your online brand and social media presence. A website and blog are essential, and you can build trust with potential clients by writing ebooks or hosting webinars that showcase your knowledge and successful social network strategy.
Gain Experience in Social Media Consulting
You need to show that you have experience in social media in order to get clients for your social media consulting business. Start by working on your own social media presence, and then offer your services for free to people you know, so that you can build up a portfolio of work.
If you’re looking to gain some experience in the field, you could try offering your services at a low price on sites like Fiverr or Upwork. Alternatively, there are lots of non-profit organizations that would be grateful for your contributions.
It is important to have a portfolio of case studies that you can display on your website and talk about on social media when you have gained some experience. Businesses that have a visible body of work are preferred, even if the work was done mostly as a volunteer effort.
Show Up on Social Media
It’s important for businesses to have a strong online presence across all platforms in order to build trust with potential customers. This means having a cohesive online branding strategy that is consistent across all social media networks and the company website. If you are suggesting that your clients use Snapchat, for example, but you don’t have an account there yet, it creates a disconnect and undermines your online branding. Make sure you are active on all the platforms where your target audience is spending time.
Become a Content Creator
Re-tweeting other people’s content on Twitter is something anyone can do. But what do you think about using online social networks for business purposes?
The reason someone would visit your website should be because you offer something unique that they can’t find anywhere else. If you aren’t providing original content, why would they want to come to your website over any other?
If you don’t have a strong online presence, how can you show potential clients that you’re an expert who can help them with their specific situation?
There are different ways in which the content could be presented. Using stories and videos is an effective way of demonstrating one’s abilities and expertise.
Make Connections, Both Online and Offline
People are more likely to buy from people they know and trust. The recommendations of friends are also very important. Although social media is relatively new, the old rules of business still apply. Consultants should work hard to engage with others on any given platform to build a large network. It is also important to take relationships offline and expand upon them.
It’s likely that your first deals will come from people near you, so I would focus on networking with people in your area before trying to connect with people all over the country or the world. As you keep using social media, you’ll start to get leads from it.