Here are some tips to make sure that your off-site employees, consultants or partners or on track:

Make sure you have a good team

Not everyone is cut out for the off-site working life. Make sure you choose employees who have key strengths such as time management, discipline, initiative, strong communication skills and whom are self starters. It’s easy for people to lose sight of how much interaction they require until they’ve experienced an independent working environment. Workers who aren’t new to this field, such as freelancers, are usually great picks for independent positions.

Make time for face-to-face interaction

Organize time for meeting with employees, consultants, or partners in order to minimize misunderstandings. Whether it’s in person or through video-conferencing, personal meetings are crucial. Emotion and tone are so easily tangled and lost in the masses of emails and voice mails don’t do justice to “conversations.”

Keep the lines of communication open

Although emails serve as quick communicators and good reminders, make sure, as well, that you have other methods of communication for relaying information to your workers or clients. Have an open line of communication so that everyone involved feels comfortable constantly speaking about expectations and duties.  Weekly meetings are a great way of keeping everyone on the same page.

Cultivate relationships

Develop relationships with your employees or partners, so that they feel connected to you. Off-site workers are not around in person to easily build relationships, so make an effort to mentor and nourish bonds for your workers. They will work harder if they feel more invested in the company or their boss.

Having a virtual team is a step above the old telecommuting paradigm and is becoming more accepted in our new working society.  The recession went a long way towards this acceptance and companies and individuals alike have bought in because they can see the benefits on both sides.  As long as management of offsite teams continue remain front of mind, this upward trend will continue.

Lauren Webster is our guest blogger of the week.  She is a recent graduate of Loyola University in Maryland.

Put together a strategy to assist your expansion efforts

Take the time to figure out the people with whom to align.  Identify the complementary product or service you need.  If you are a graphic designer who does only logos, is there another graphic designer who does websites?  If you provide service to specific industries, can another industry use your service?  Identify those industries.

Approach your potential partners

After you have your list, you will need to approach those potential partners to understand if they would like to partner.  Some people might not see it as a partnership but as a move to take a piece of their business.  I suggest laying out your current services, in writing.  List the specific services or products that they offer on which you would like to partner.  Make a formal presentation to them and be professional in your presentation.

Put it in writing

Put a contract in place on which specific services or products on which you are partnering.  A contract always alleviates potential future disagreements.  What will you do to promote it vs. what your partner will do?  Be clear on the agreement’s duration and what happens after that – to whom does the client belong?  How do you terminate this partnership if it doesn’t work?

Do a test run

Before fully rolling this out, have a test period of about ninety days to see how the contract works and if there is an audience for your joint services.  If you get good results, then move forward.

Announce it to your clients

If you feel this partnership is sustainable, let your clients know that you have a new suite of services to offer.  Ensure you are able to articulate those services as well as your new business partner.  If not, it might be best to bring your partner in to sell-in those products and services.

Building your team of partners is a delicate undertaking.  It is as strategic as launching a new product or service.  From time to time, you need to analyze what is working and change the things that are not.

Happy partnering.

Business Goals Must Be Valuable

It’s easy for business owners to get caught up in creating business goals that don’t contribute to their overall success. The problem usually lies in the development of small marketing tactics that aren’t aimed to produce profit. Ask yourself, “What is this goal worth?” Not all business ambitions have to come with a dollar sign at the end but the best goals are designed with an end result in mind. That end result has to either encourage revenue, or generate a clear advantage or benefit.

Business Goals Must Be Actionable

Words without action are just ideas.  Instead of making empty statements for your business, your business should be making the statement.  Every company objective that you create should have an action plan behind it.  Testimonials of where you want your company to be are a good starting point, but are often too vague to truly push change for your business.  Change is founded on ideas but often requires a specific plan that is followed through and that can be evaluated.

Business Goals Must Be Realistic

Small business owners have big dreams and it’s easy and common to reach for objectives that are unattainable at the moment. Set goals that can be realistically achieved. It’s good to create short-term and long-term in order to help define which goals can be currently accomplished. By setting goals that are too far-fetched, you set yourself up for failure and setbacks, which often bring about discouragement. On the opposite side of the spectrum, goals that are easily attainable don’t give much satisfaction. The point of setting the right goals is the satisfaction you hope to achieve when reaching them.

Setting the right business goals gives you a clear outline of what you want to happen and what you need to do to attain them. Well-defined business goals ensure that your thoughts are thorough and complete. By focusing on these three major points when setting your goals, you’ll be steered in the right direction. Goals that have value, are powered by action, and are realistically achievable will always be a backbone to success.

This blog was written by our guest blogger, Lauren Webster, a recent graduate of Loyola University and a past intern with Consultants 2 Go.

But this is a business.  You have to make a profit.  Breakeven is not good enough.  You cannot pay yourself on breakeven.  You cannot invest in the future of your business with breakeven.  So, why do so many of your clients want free advice or products?

Of course, you have to give them enough information to make them interested.  If they ask you for a proposal for a marketing plan, know that they need to get enough information to give you the sale; however, they don’t need to get so much information that there is no need to write a plan.  Or worse yet, say no to your proposal but use it to shop for a lower rate!

So, how do you hook a client without giving away too much for free?  Here are three tips:

Rehearse Your Pitch

It seems silly, especially if you are the business owner and you know your elevator speech better than anyone else.  But when it is time to give a sales pitch, you might become so eager and nervous that you start to babble.  Before you know it, you have not only told them what you will do, but how you will do it.  You should be able to speak at a high level about your deliverables without giving all the detail. Practicing your pitch gives you control over what you will say.

Maintain Integrity

A potential client always wants to know about what you did for their competitor, because if you did it successfully for their competitor, they want you to do it for them.  However, adhere to the nondisclosure agreement you have with the competitor.  This question is inevitably asked:  “Can you please give me an example of the work you have done for a company similar to ours?”  My answer is usually, “we are under nondisclosure agreement to give you details, but at a high level, here is what we did.”  And because I followed the advice in Rehearse Your Pitch, I usually have my answer written out so as to not cause any violations, but at the same time give them enough to whet the appetite.

Underpromise and Overdeliver

It’s very tempting to make your proposal promise a lot of things; however, if they accept it, you will have to deliver what you promised.  A small mistake in calculation can make you take a loss on a project.  Better to give them more than to what you agreed.  This strategy also leaves you room to negotiate – if they want more, you can still add information.

Of course, there is no guarantee that you will close the sale, but there is a guarantee that you know you delivered a good proposal without giving away your shirt.

Where do you look for clients in 2011?

• Social media is the poor man’s equalizer.  You can easily get access to many corporations without having to pay thousands of dollars for lists.  Not to mention that all your colleagues from your past corporate lives are on this medium.  And they are now in other companies who are potential clients.

1. LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) – this is the first place that all small business owners start to look.  We have said it before and we will say it again.  If you do not have a LinkedIn account, you should get one immediately.  Because it is more utilized by corporations, you must have a profile.
2. Facebook (www.facebook.com) – start to build your following now.  It’s never too late.  A Facebook page is a great way of getting in front of your client – you can feature weekly sales, speak directly to your client and your customers.

• Get Referrals.  Ask current clients for someone they think can use your service.  Ask friends, family and the mailman (hey, they deliver mail to a lot of companies and are in the know!).  The point is if you don’t ask, you won’t get.
• Board Meetings.  Who knows how good you are better than your board?   They also know that you are trying to be better.  Can their companies use your service?  It’s a demonstration of good faith and their belief in you.
• Hire a salesperson.  The screening will be hard, but some salespeople come with their own Rolodex – that’s what you want.
• Job boards.  Monster.com, Recruiter.com, CareerBuilder.com are traditionally where you look to hire people.  But for me, companies who need consulting will be there.  They are usually trying to hire someone.  I watch and if takes them a long time to find the right skill set, they are usually amenable to being approached regarding using a consultant until that person is hired.  Think out of the box.
• Cold Call.  Make a list of the names who you will be calling.  Understand the client’s background, what they like/dislike, etc.  But nothing beats picking up that telephone to make a call
• Compile and Purchase a list of names.  You can put together your own list.  Have an intern take this as a project.  Have them:

1. Identify the top companies in your industry
2. Research managers who work for your target companies at high levels – just Google them or look on LinkedIn!
3. You can also purchase a list from a database marketing company

These are just a few ideas of how you can get new clients in the door.  Share any others that you think of.

1. Toothpaste anyone?  Well, there is Crest, Colgate, Sensodyne and a million others.  If your teeth are sensitive, you might choose Sensodyne.  If you need whitening or just cavity-fighting abilities, you’ll choose one of the others.
2. Rice?  Long-grained, brown rice, flavored?  If you are a gourmet chef with a top restaurant, you might only want Basmati.  If you are a single mom just trying to feed your kids, white rice or the cheapest price point is what you need.
3. Phone services?  They are no longer as prevalent as toothpaste or rice but why would you select AT&T vs. Verizon vs. Vonage?  Let’s use phone services as our example today.  Drill down even further.

• Residential or business?  Let’s choose business.
• Are you a solo entrepreneur, small business owner with 5 people, or more than 10 people on your team?  The phone service you need is different.

My company has just reached the level where we have the good problem of evaluating telephone services for our business with a team of about 8 people but want to make sure that I can grow with your service.  We had telephone services, of course, but we can no longer afford to have the single line telephone sitting in the office when we have a growing team.  When a potential client calls into the office, that person cannot select to whom they want to direct their call.

If you are the phone company marketing to me, you want to get me at the right time when I have grown my organization.  Sending me messages for multi-line phone services when I’m a one-man shop is not going to get your service sold to me regardless of how fantastic it is.

On my side, our needs have changed.  We are still small so we have to look at price, number of phone lines, ability to route calls, etc.  We are extremely cost-conscious.

What is your messaging and positioning to me, Mr. Phone Company?

• Are you the lowest cost provider?
• Am I able to add phone lines without tremendous cost to me?
• Are you hoping that I will select you because I know your name?
• Can your customer service representatives answer a small business owner’s questions when I call to ask about your service?
• Can I easily find this information on your website? I won’t take more than a few minutes to look for it!

I hope you can see how important it is to understand your audience, whether they are your current client or prospects.  Think about this if you are a small business owner trying to get new clients, the behemoth who is trying to get the small business owner to buy, or a consultant trying to figure out where you should play.  Segmenting your audience can only help.

I’m sure everyone has heard of The Four Hour Work Week by now.  It’s a wildly popular book at the moment, selling the premise that with the right mobile tools, solid planning and aggressive delegation to staff or virtual assistants a business owner can create serious revenue with a seriously limited time commitment.

It sounds a little like a get-rich-quick scheme, frankly.  And I think that’s why so many people are buying it.

In discussing this book, and others like the “For An Hour A Day” series of business guides, I’ve found people tend to confuse working on something consistently in short, focused bursts with a) thinking they can set something up once and it will “run itself,” b) intermittently dabbling in something without any plan, or c) not working at all.

They seem to be missing the part about a four-hour work week or an hour a day project is that…you have to put in the time every week, or every day, for a long, long time.  The book is not called The Four Hour Career.

Social media campaigns are especially prone to approaches A, B and C, I think because the low cost of getting started fool people into thinking it requires little investment overall.

I also believe that you can build a substantial, active social community around your brand in just a few hours a week.  But you do have to do it every day, and know what you’re doing.

Here’s how:

Know Your Goals

It is true that social media can be a humongous personal and professional time waster, but so can almost any activity you get into without a clear purpose.  Social media is a marketing discipline, and should be treated just like any other.  Name your goals, write your strategy and define your process clearly enough that someone else could take it over tomorrow.

This allows you to prioritize effectively, and will also make your hour of reporting at the end of the month faster because you’ll go straight to the numbers that matter.  Most importantly, planning everything out will make it much simpler to find efficiencies, and take the other steps on this list.

Automate

There are a number of tools, HootSuite included, that will allow you to simultaneously post the same message to your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, and other social media accounts.  Most of the same programs will also allow you to schedule your tweets and Facebook posts in advance.  For example, if your restaurant has $4 mimosa specials at brunch from 11am-12:30pm every Sunday, you can schedule that announcement to go out at 10:30am each Sunday morning while you’re still in bed (or more likely, behind the bar squeezing oranges.)

Other programs will allow you to automatically follow people who follow or @reply you, Direct Mail followers with additional information or a link, and even automatically find, follow and unfollow people according to all sorts of specifications.

A few words of caution: Think carefully about any automation services that could seem robot-like to users; it’s extremely annoying and somewhat unethical.  Some people consider auto follow programs “black hat,” which is jargon for underhanded or, more bluntly, cheating.  Using them can sometimes do more harm than good.

Use the Right Tools

There are a number of programs that will help you manage your community outreach and development.  I love Hootsuite for its power to look at all of my Facebook and Twitter accounts for all of my clients all at once, sorted however I choose. For example, I have lists of personal friends, media bloggers and craft brewers in different lists. For a client, I have their most active customers in one column and relevant trade organizations in another. Depending on what I need to do, I can check one without having to sort through all the others and save a ton of time.

All of these steps will help you save tons of time on the boring stuff so you can spend your hour a day on the reason you’re using social media – connecting with your community and building your brand.

So to further confuse you, the same Bureau gave these projections for the Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services sector for 2010. “This industry is projected to be the fastest growing, with employment increasing 83 percent over the 2008–18 period, and is one of the highest paying.” If you stay the course as a consultant, there will be work for you.  But will it be enough to sustain you?

Here are some reasons for getting a job:

• You have a family and want the benefits – medical, vacation, you get your taxes taken out of your paycheck, 401K, travel expenses and job training are a few.
• Companies consider an employee an asset who can use their knowledge in other parts of the company to enhance it, while a consultant walks out the door at the end of the day with that knowledge.
• There is no “beach” time – you get a salary whether there is work for you or not.
• Employee status gets respect from your family and friends and that’s important to you vs. being perceived as a hired gun.

Here are some reasons to stay being a consultant:

• You get paid for every hour you work.  Management gets a flat salary for 90-hour weeks.  Even after paying your benefits, you make more money as a consultant.
• Employees are really people who have not realized that there is no such thing as a “permanent” job.  The question is how long they can keep the job.  Many assignments last over a year and since job training is cut from many employers’ budgets, you would still have to pay for your own training.
• You get to try different job functions at the end of each assignment and broaden your resume.  You can get assignments in different industries and across several skill sets.
• You have the freedom and flexibility to create your own work/life balance.
• If you are a great consultant, your client will usually want to become your employer if you decide to go that route!

Only you can decide to change your status in the workforce.  There is no right or wrong decision.  In the past few years, I’ve seen long-term consultants who succumbed to the great salary offer for a job that lasted six months, while there have been some consultants who found a great job and are now our clients.  Be happy and enjoy your choice.

So, who are the people you should have around you?

Celebrities have their entourage who surrounds them and takes care of all their needs; they make the life of the celebrity easier.  Why not you?  Don’t you deserve to have an easier life?

Here are the people I consider “must haves” in my entourage:

1. Business Partner – yes, this goes against all the small business owner’s rules.  Everyone tells you to go it alone because you’re asking for trouble with a partner; however, I have had the best experience with my business partner.  I now know that if I didn’t have her, I would seek someone to take the place of a trusted colleague, advisor and friend.  You must have one person to whom you can tell the truth, vent about anyone or anything and still not feel that you are judged in a negative manner.  It can be lonely at the top.
2. CFO – what would we have done without our CFO?  He is worth more than money can buy.  He is worse than a poor mother who has to feed twelve children with half a loaf of bread.  Having someone watch our expenses, besides us, is a lifesaver.  He doesn’t overlook things that we take for granted and constantly pushes for efficiency and save, save, save.
3. Accountant – this invaluable person knows all the tax loopholes, keep us abreast of quarterly estimated taxes, and helping us to plan for the next quarter.  An accountant has a very different function than a CFO.  He questions everything
4. Salesperson who is a closer – this salesperson knows our business as well as, or better than, we do and is able to close deals very quickly without upsetting the client.
5.  Lawyer – they don’t come cheap!  But, we look at it this way.  Better to break a fingernail up front than to cut off the entire arm.  Get the contracts and the verbiage correct the first time.  Get the advice, even if it’s just an email.  We don’t cut costs on this service.
6. Cleaning Service – take care of your personal space as well as the office.  Sometimes I cannot find five minutes to wash a dish or mop a floor.  And I perform better when my environment is clean.  I used to think this is a luxury item; however, I’ve learned to let the professionals do what they do so I can do what I do best.  I don’t have to use a service every week, or every month, but it need to know they are available when the dust bunnies start to roll.

There are more people in my entourage but they come and go.  The people in this list are fairly static and consistent.  Your list might differ from might, and that is OK.  What is critical to me might be a “nice-to-have” to you.  But put your list together so that you know and appreciate the people who make you and your business tick.

1. To whom are you selling yourself?  Landing consulting assignments is a competitive game.  The result of all consulting objectives is to win the proposal or assignment for the next gig.   Are you promoting yourself to Fortune 500 companies?  To mid-size and small business owners?  These are very different pitches.
2. Marketing objectives for existing clients.  How will you get more business from your current assignments or clients who utilized your services in the past?  Not all your current customers are going to buy from you so you need a backup plan.  What percentage will you retain?  If you are on a current assignment, getting an extension is the ultimate referral as well as an easy way to continue working.  It’s much easier to identify new ways of adding value for your client than to have them bring in someone else.
3. Marketing objectives for new clients.
   • Will you go it alone and find your own opportunities?
   • Do you want a strategic relationship with a company that can help you land assignments?
4.  How many simultaneous assignments can you handle?  Don’t oversell yourself.  Know if you can only manage one long-term assignment or several short-term, simultaneous ones.
5.  Did you check with the people whose names you are giving as references?  It is such a simple assumption but do not assume that they will give you a good reference if your client calls.  Speak to them first and let them know that someone will be calling.  Ask specifically what they will say.
6. Market your business as well as your individual skills.  You should have a business name, business identification number and business banking so that you can market your business.  If you only market yourself, then if you want to expand later, it will be difficult.  Having an entity to market also gives you some legal protection.

 Be serious about defining your objectives and understanding how you will meet them.  Put some metrics in place to ensure you are meeting your targets.