Making use of your expertise to start a business consulting service

If you are an expert in some particular field, you like working with new people, love challenges, and you are keen on starting and running your own business (in other (and more appealing) words “be your own boss”), then working as an independent consultant is the perfect business for you, which accommodates all of the above mentioned features. Do you think your expertise is sellable in today’s business world? Well, what are you waiting for? Get your skates on and go, sell it.

These days, consultancy businesses are growing like mushrooms. Businesses may use their advice or services in many scenarios, for example to spot the fault, training the staff or helping the business coming to grips with a new market or technology.

Different types of business consultants include:
Management Consultant: Helps with issues related to management such as business planning, implementing new strategies, brainstorming, etc.

Marketing Consultant: Helps you in getting started with marketing campaigns, identifying the niche, making market penetration plans, writing marketing copies or creating the buzz for your business.

Human Resource Consultant: Deals in recruiting and training the staff, also helps when the business has to go through some downsizing.

Financial consultant: Financial consultant can help you in financial planning, budgeting or making some crucial decisions of financial nature.

IT consultant: Many types of consultancy services may fall under this category like networking consultant, Microsoft consultant or SEO consultant.

Legal Consultant: You may seek their advice on all of the laws and policies related to your business.

These are just few of the promising consultancy services, but of course, these are not the only options, the fact is that you can offer just about any kind of consultancy service that maybe helpful to some businesses. You may or may not need to obtain relevant degree or certification, depending upon the competition, but for the sake of outshining your competitors, it is always recommended to have sufficient educational background along with your experience.

Starting and advertising a consultation business:
If you have got the knowledge and expertise, starting a consultancy business is not much of a fuss. You can start from your home, and you don’t really need any staff in the beginning (though having an assistant or secretary can be helpful). Real challenge is to reach your potential clients and establish yourself as an expert, in your respective field. There are various methods of advertising, such as brochures, newspaper’s classified section or public speaking, etc. Then we have a relatively new but mighty effective method known as "Blogging", use the ever growing internet to start a Blog and write regularly on your specific topic.

Keeping an eye on your advertising effectiveness

Slowly but surely, majority of businesses now understand the importance of marketing. Even the businesses with minimum resources are aware of the concept and significance of marketing. But there’s one thing that still goes without being noticed by many of them, that is advertising effectiveness. Many businesses have no idea on how to measure the success of their marketing campaigns. As a result, they keep running advertisements and marketing campaigns without really knowing if it is effectively working or not. Keeping a check on your advertising effectiveness is very important, or you may be wasting your resources on something useless, without even knowing it. On the other hand, measuring the accomplishment of your advertisement or marketing initiative is not as simple as measuring the increase in sales or inquiries.

How do we know if a commercial is effective or not?
A commercial that turns out to be extremely popular, doesn’t guarantee to be effective. For the reason, that the effectiveness of a commercial can be judged by evaluating its achievements and not by the hilarity in it. Therefore, if a commercial or any other marketing material that was meant to bring in more customers or to build a strong brand image is not effective unless there’s a positive change in the number of enquiries or the brand awareness. In fact, sometimes the storyline gets so interesting that it overrides the intended message in customer’s minds.

Setting objectives:
It is very important to jot down goals or objectives before initiating a marketing campaign. Most of the time, advertisement is targeted at generating sales but other equally important targets could be customer loyalty, product awareness, persuading customers or brand recognition. When setting objectives, make sure these are unambiguous and measurable, especially if you are delegating the project to some outside company.


Evaluating effectiveness:
Many companies test their ads or infomercials on a sample group of targeted customers to see the reaction. For small businesses that may not be possible but you can get the help from your family members or friends and ask for their opinion, the earlier you spot an ineffective medium, the better. If, after spending plenty of time and resources the end result is not impressive, don't waste more resources in distributing, publishing or making it public. Getting the accurate feedback is the key to constructive evaluation. Also, if you are trying to asses on the basis of increase in sales or revenue, don't rush into the process as soon as the commercial goes on air; you need to give it some time to develop.

International payments - Some commonly used methods for International Export

When trying to setup an export business (especially one that's intended to be operating at small scale), one has to make some vital decisions. One of them is deciding on a method for collecting payments from an overseas party. Ideally, as an exporter you'd like to collect payment in advance, but advance payments are hard to obtain in international market (in fact it's the same with local markets as well). Unless you have some large, internationally reputable business, you can't expect your seller to trust you with advance payment. But you don't need to worry; there are some other alternatives, though not as secure as advance payments, still reasonably safe. Let's take into account some regularly used ones.

Letter of Credit (LOC):
This is the most widely used and the most recommended method for international export. The biggest advantage of choosing "letter of credit" as your payment method is that it provides security to both buyer and seller; therefore it is equally acceptable for both parties. When all details are finalized between the buyer and seller; the buyer contacts his/her bank and asks for the issuance of "letter of credit". The buyer's bank sends out the LOC to seller's bank. Once the seller is notified, he/she will dispatch the items to the address provided by the buyer. The shipping documents are sent to the buyer's bank via seller's bank. Buyer then make payment to his/her bank, which is transferred to the seller's bank in due time.

Open Account:
Completely opposite to "advance payments" and advisable only if the buyer is extremely trustworthy, open account method allows buyer to pay after he/she has received the products. While at first it may sound like "a risk too big to take", the method is quite common when you are dealing with large established businesses as your buyers, because of their trustworthiness and business history. Still, the method is risky and not practical for exporters who are just starting, for example if the buyer defaults with the payment, you are left in dire straits, especially if you fail to provide sufficient documented proofs in the foreign court.

Document against Payment:
Safer than "open account" but still reasonably risky mode of payment, in this method the goods are shipped by seller, but the buyer can only take the possession when he/she has agreed to the obligation of paying the seller. Two types of collecting documents are normally used, known as "document on payment" and "document on acceptance".

There are some other mediums as well, like credit cards or online payments but those are normally used to make small payments.

International Export Packaging – A checklist

In international export, it may take several days, even weeks before the products reach to the customer, after being dispatched by exporters. Being an exporter, it's your responsibility to package all exporting items in a way that your customers will acquire them in excellent condition. Apart from protection; packaging is also used for marketing (labels & logos) or information (guidelines for consumers) purposes. Exporting products are vulnerable against physical shocks, crushing, climate change, mishandling, etc and the packaging should be able to safeguard them against all these hazards. Though the packaging standards differ with the countries and products, there are some minimum requirements that you need to take care of.

Packaging Box and Tapes:
Usually cardboard boxes are used when packaging for shipment. Always use firm boxes with proper flaps; extra padding (or cushioning) is compulsory for breakable items. Size of the box should be according to the product size, not too small (that you have to forcefully stuff all items inside) and not too large (that the goods can move around and clash with each other). Use separate wrapping for each item. If the products are of fragile nature, you can use wooden box for extra protection. Use standard tapes instead of normal household tapes, special tapes for packaging purpose are easily available. Extra safety measures are needed when you are exporting "food" items.

Addressing & Labeling:
Recipient address should be clearly mentioned, also the sender address where the products will return in case they don't reach the addressee. Also, mention the recipient contact number to ensure the delivery. Your business or brand logos on the package can be used for marketing and promotional objectives. Sometimes attractive packaging is used as a competitor advantage. You can also use the packaging to communicate with the customers about the other products or services you are offering. If the products are fragile or breakable, you can state these characteristics outside the box and give instructions for careful handling.

When exporting to developed countries, be sure to obtain knowledge about the acceptable packaging standards in that country. You can also refer to ISO standards in these cases. It's better to have a clear idea of all the possible hazards that the products can face before they will reach their destination. Remember the main motives of packaging that includes physical protection, quality preservation, storage convenience, marketing and product information. Adopting world-class standards is vital when doing international export, not only your product but your packaging should be of export quality in order to stand out.