Then look no further.

1. How to quit your job gracefully and professionally
2. Take advantage of available support.
3. Don’t work alone!
4. Your USP is …
5. Keep control of your website.
6. Decide what your legal status is going to be.
7. Choose the right name for your business.
8. Create a virtual business card.
9. Decide where your business with be based.
10. Don’t forget your insurance!
11. A new business and a new direction.
12. Starting a consulting business – learn on the job.
13. Use your time wisely.
14. Set limits to the hours you work.
15. Decide if you should you work when you’re ill.
16. Working efficiently damages business. Why not try a different approach?
17. Starting a consulting business – only you can do it!
18. The pros and cons of outsourcing
19. Decide if you’re going to become an employer.
20. You’re starting a consulting business – so tell the world.

One of the things that is really important is to decide on your legal status.  I wrote a post about this.

Decide what your legal status is going to be.

Should you set up a company, work as a sole trader and so on?

I then moved on to think about the business name you choose.   I set out options.

Choose the right name for your business.

The post on the choice of name has proven to be popular.

Then I moved on to writing about a virtual business card.  I have one and I find it very helpful.

Here’s  a view of my virtual business card.

Create a virtual business card.

The text on the right of the card says:

Our websites . . .

Our site for consultants and organisations delivering professional services is:
http://www.margaretadams.co.uk

1. How to quit your job gracefully and professionally
2. Take advantage of available support.
3. Don’t work alone!
4. Your USP is …
5. Keep control of your website.

The first tip is self-explanatory.  You need to leave your job in a professional manner. Close the doors behind you.  Don’t slam them.

The second tip is about being aware of the support that is out there to help people starting businesses.  Amazingly lots of people starting new businesses really do try to go it alone.

The third tip emphasises this point further.  The key elements of this post are:

• Find other businesses in the same position as yourself. Talk to their owners. Share knowledge and solutions to problems. You’ll make progress faster as a result.
• Join a networking group, or maybe more than one. This will help you to maintain contact with businesses at all stages of their development. It could also mean you have access to valuable training at minimal cost.
• Find a mastermind group. That is join forces with other people in business and discuss business issues with them.

The fourth tip is about your USP – and the fact that you probably haven’t worked out what yours is as yet.  This is not a problem because there are other ways of working on this issue.

The fifth tip is an exhortation to get things right about the web from the start by using a content management system such as WordPress to make sure that you can update your site when you want.

The next five tips will also be about those early days in consulting.

The first tip was called:

How to quit your job gracefully and professionally.

It’s important to part with your old life on good terms, so I wrote this post.

It’s become a popular post.

The second tip was:

Take advantage of available support.

Lots of people just don’t do this.  They try to go it alone.  Many fail as a result.

I recommend new consultants find out just what offers and initiatives are available.

The third tip was:

Don’t work alone!

I recommended people who are starting a consulting business to:

• find other businesses in the same position as themselves
• join relevant business networking groups
• find a mastermind group.

The fourth tip was:

Starting A Consulting Business – Your USP is . . .

I like talking about this because I argue that businesses don’t need USPs.  They need unique buying propositions.

So the series is taking shape.

It will carry on building over the coming weeks.

That means there will be one hundred and one in the end.

You can find tip zero here.

Starting a consulting business – Time to change career

Starting A Consulting Business

It isn’t holidays that have got in the way.

It’s the changes we are making to our business.

We now have a new blog up and running and, yes, the posts have restarted.

 Visit our new site  to carry on reading about being in business as a writer.

 The new site is:  www.margaretadams.co.uk

Watch out for the changes we’ll be making to our websites over the coming weeks, too.

If you’ve written them for other people, they don’t count.

When did you last write a press release for yourself, and about yourself?

It’s worth spending time thinking about what is newsworthy about what you do. It’s also worth thinking about who might be interested in reading about you.

You’ll find this task easier, if you think of yourself as something other than a writer.

• As well as being a writer, are you a female entrepreneur?
• As well as being a writer, are you a survivor of a serious illness?
• As well as being a writer, are you the only person to ……? (You fill in the gap.)

Think about what you do. Think about what could appear in the local paper about you. Think about what local people like to read about.

Bring all of these things together in an interesting way. Create a story about yourself.

It’s not an easy task, especially if you don’t see yourself as being famous or interesting. However, part of the process of promoting yourself, and your business, is building a public persona and to do that you will need to be reported on in the media.

So, now is the time to start to build a list of media contacts. Now is the time to start to think of yourself as somebody who will be in the news soon.

Now is the time to write that press release.

I wrote in lots of other contexts and produced training programmes, assessment frameworks, guides, handbooks, advertising copy . . . and so on.

I hesitated about publication because I had heard so much about the rejections that writers receive. The accepted wisdom seems to be that writers get rejected, and that rejection is just part of a writer’s life.

Some of the tales that writers tell about their struggles to get published are horror stories. They tell of years and years of trying to get published, plus rejection after rejection. Writers make approaches to agents, which are turned down. Publishers say no. It all sounds very depressing.

I chose not to put myself in this sort of situation because I really didn’t want those experiences.

However, when I finally decided to broaden my writing activities to include publication, I didn’t find myself facing rejection.

My first book proposal was accepted. The contract was with me three weeks after I had submitted my proposal.

My second book proposal was also accepted.

The first feature articles I submitted were published in magazines that can be found on news stands.

Yes, I have had a book proposal turned down. I have also been in a situation where an editor did not respond to my query.

However, the vast majority of proposals I have made to editors  have been accepted.  The material has been published and paid for.

So why is my experience different from that of many writers?

I’m convinced that my success in getting published – which must stand at over 90% of my proposals – is the result of my being a businessperson who writes rather than a writer.

I write for real audiences. I make sure I understand who the readers of a publication are before I think about what I might want to say to them. I find out what their issues and concerns are. I think about them as real people. I follow themes and trends in their magazines. I do all of this before I consider what, if anything, I might want to write.

When I contact the relevant editor the conversation is about the readership of the publication and its interests. I only offer what I think will be of interest to the readership once I am sure, as a result of speaking to the editor, I have judged the mood of the readership correctly.

I probably have at least half a dozen themes and treatments I could offer before the telephone conversation begins. I refine what I will offer as a result of the first part of the conversation with the editor.

What I’m doing here is what successful businesspeople do. I’m segmenting the market before I take action. I’m getting to understand my prospects. I’m doing my best to qualify the audience in terms of their characteristics, interests and concerns.

I’m also sounding out the editor of the relevant publication and discussing possibilities.

What I’m not doing is trying to find a market for an idea that I already have. I’m not trying to sell a commodity – an article or a feature that is already fully formed in my mind. I’m discussing what will be of interest to a readership. Then I make a proposal.

As a result, when I make an approach to an editor, I tend not to be rejected.