Jim Horan: Consulting is easy; Selling is Hard

Productizing your Consulting

Practice...Profitably

Jim Horan, President

The One Page Business

Plan Company

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Plan Company

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Consulting is easy…

Selling is hard!

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Plan Company

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Consultants want…

• Opportunity to work

• Be in the game of business

• Interact with business people

• Earn a livelihood

• Grow professionally

• Be a part of the community

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Let’s make selling stress-free

• Freely share information everywhere

• Capture intellectual property in writing

• Speak anywhere…everywhere

• Become known as business resource

• Create products

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Why Consulting Products?

• Easy & effective way to sample services

• Creates opportunity for others to sell you

• Build creditability

• Reduces sales cycle

• Leverage time – more income, less work

• Larger, more profitable engagements

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Many Consultants have Products…

• Assessments

• Book(s)

• Booklets

• Audiotape

• Software

• Games

• CD Rom

• Workshops

• Web Products

• and at higher

rates.

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It all

started

with a

simple

mockup

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I started

speaking

at small

events

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Audiences

asked if I

had a

book...

~

2+ years

later I did

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Everyone said…

The One Page Business Plan

would make a great

software product!

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Then I visualized an Organization

Chart – on the Web

Every

manager

has a plan

~

it’s just a

click

away

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Each

Objective

has a

Scorecard

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Every

Action

Plan

has a

Progress

Report

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11/30/2000

10/28/2000

12/29/2000

2/5/2001

2/15/2001

Tell the

status

of

every

plan at

a

glance

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It’s working…our results

• Best-selling business planning book on

Amazon.com most days

• National consulting firm w/ 70+ consultants

• 100+ companies using web system

• Many colleges using book as text

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What’s your product?

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Plan Company

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Lessons Learned…

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Products Create Credibility!

• Tangible…not just verbal

• Authors are given special

credence

• Products make companies look

bigger

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Give others a way

to give you money!

Products provide a business

model for others to pay you

a royalty for the use of your

processes.

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Marketing 101a

The market expects successful

consultants to have products

and will actually tell you which

ones to create and what

features they want! Listen!

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Plan Company

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Learn from others…

Selling products can be very

profitable. You can also lose

money and waste a lot of

billable time. Be mindful.

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Plan Company

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Listen for the WOWs!

• Experiment

• Ask for feedback.

• Listen for the WOW’s

• Act on the WOWs!

• Clients will tell you when they are

excited about a product or

service

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Plan Company

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Go for the basehits!

•Limit your investment!

•Print in small quantities.

•Almost nobody hits homeruns.

• However lots hit singles

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Plan Company

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Business Development

Key Question: Who can you

partner with that already has

customers that need your

product?

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Plan Company

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Trademarks, Patents, Copyrights

Protect your investment get

a good intellectual property

rights attorney

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Plan Company

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Be Smart…Learn from others!

•Don’t try to do it all yourself.

•Find the specialists who can

help you create your books,

tapes, & software.

•Benefit from their mistakes!

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Create revenue models where

others make so much money

from selling your product that

they won’t build their own.

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Plan Company

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Consultants can create a

great job selling services…but

building a company with a

future resell value requires

products.

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Plan Company

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Final thoughts…

•Enjoy the journey…

•Build on your successes

•Have fun!

•Be patient…products take

time

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