Avoid These 3 Mistakes When Starting A Small Business

I had the pleasure today of interviewing Jennifer Leake, the founder of Consultants Gold, a new online community committed to helping start and grow successful consulting practices. Jennifer offered examples of 3 critical mistakes she learned the hard way along her 20-year consulting journey.  She also shared why she believes dozens of other highly intelligent and skilled experts fail in their attempt to start their own small consulting business.

The three most important mistakes to avoid:

1. Starting your business without a business plan. The plan doesn’t have to be the size of War and Peace.  Consultants Gold offers an action study group on writing a one-page business plan.

2. Not preparing an elevator pitch.  Consultants tend to be too technical, too long-winded, and too boring when explaining to others what they do.  Prepare a 10-second and 30-second pitch that gets prospects to say: “Tell me more!”

3. Expecting customers to come knocking at your door.  A consulting practice is a business. Businesses need customers. Consultants need to sell, market and brand themselves  constantly. You can’t expect to sit at your desk and wait for the phone to ring.  Write articles, respond to questions on LinkedIn, join a leads and/or networking group. 

Jennifer offers this warning to consultants: “every day you sit around waiting for a new client to call is one day closer to being out of business.”

Listen to the full interview below – it’s great advice for anyone who plans to start their own business, whether your a consultant, a retailer, a web designer, or an author:

Listen to the full interview here.