Marketing plan for project management consultant

Hello all,


I didn't know in which category to post, if I am wrong don't hesitate to tell me.

I am a consultant in project management with 7+ years of experience in international projects/environment (on site / remote, in economic development and civil works).
I work for a firm that invoice a lot for my work but pays me peanuts, as the current project is finishing, I want to say "goodbye" and to start my own business as a remote project manager.

I defined my targets:
- Companies which are growing from ~3-10 employees to a larger staff
- Companies which are moving from taking on a handful of large projects a year to several larger, more complex projects a year
- Companies which are looking to add or restructure services that they offer
- Companies which are starting a new project (new services, new product, to open a company abroad, to construct new head quarters, etc.)
- Companies which are struggled to find a process, system, and/or software that fit the company?s project needs

If I could define it in one sentence, my targets are companies that are expanding/evolving from "organized chaos" and are in need for a solid business process.

I will sell two services:

1. To manage projects from start to finish (or anywhere between)
2. To help company owners to create, solidify, or fix their internal project processes.

How I work:
As if I am onsite, the only difference is that I use skype for meetings, and online project management tools.

Marketing plan and questions:

1. I never did offline marketing, so I think that it would be a good idea to hire a good salesman to help me for offline marketing.
2. I will open a linkedin page in order to promote my services and to identify/contact key persons directly.
3. Do you think that it worth it to put a lot of money in a website in order to rank it in first page on google ?
4. Any ideas ?

Thanks for your help!

This is a great idea/model. You seem well organized, and have thought out the basic consultant/(project manager) model pretty well. One thing about this niche is that if you are a serious player with the kinds of experience you are describing you have a tremendous opportunity to vastly increase your earnings capacity, but you must be willing to travel.

As a sales manager, trainer, and project manager myself having worked for years in direct response call centers as well as call centers for several large US banks - I can tell you that process improvement is something every well-established company wants. While targeting these smaller growth companies you could be leaving a ton of money on the table if you fail to grow with your business.

Initially being a remote company may not turn off many prospects, but if you want to achieve big things - you will need to show up at people's place of business to conduct trainings, audits, etc... Being a physical presence in someone's place of business makes you a much more valuable contributor to their success. But, you can definitely build up to that, and it seems you have the right skill set to do so.

Relative to your questions:

1. Unless you have a lead generation mechanism, or buy information you won't really be doing OFFLINE marketing anyway. I think most guys trying to do this kind of stuff would be identifying/generating/scraping their own leads from various online sources - although buying them is definitely an option if you have disposable initial investment funds.

As for hiring someone to help with this - it's your project so you would know best if you have or can acquire the appropriate skills to do the marketing yourself or if your time is better spent somewhere else, i.e. focusing on the actual consulting. In my opinion sales and project management are so tightly interwoven that if you have the organizational skills to manage a project you should have the right skills to sell it as well. Additionally you will have a passion that "sales people" can't emulate since you will selling your own products/services.

So the answer is dependent on your overall sales skills and how you want to best utilize your time within your own business.

If money is no object - definitely hire someone, but be diligent about researching their qualifications/experience.

2. That's fine, but don't mistake having a linkedin page with actual marketing. It serves a purpose, but someone still has to drum up the REAL person that is even going to your linkedin page to view your company profile. So someone has to create the initial buzz, or cold call people, or whatever it is you are doing to generate and work with your leads.

3. Unless you have done a competitive niche analysis and know your exact roadmap to SERP success this money would be better spent on prospecting efforts. That said ... with the right keywords SEO can be and may become your greatest lead generator in time. So, you need a website no matter what in my opinion, but you don't need to put that much money into it UNLESS you know that money is going to generate SERP results.

Build a site, but don't waste money on SEO efforts unless you know who are buying from and what you are getting. Remember SEO is nice, but ranking a website is only as valuable as the keywords it ranks for, and the REAL customers it can possibly generate.

4. My idea is for you to move forward and keep developing your plan, but start taking steps today to make your independent consultation firm a reality. Get motivated, take some steps, and start moving towards being your own boss. If you were a good project manager - you will be a great consultant and entrepreneur.

I love how you have defined your prospective clients, which leads me to think that you would be a great representative for your brand, instead of hiring a salesman.

As for the IM couldn't have said it better than davers.

As for ideas if you ever looking to expanding outside of the states shoot me a PM

For your type of job google ranking is not the thing in my opinion. At least at the starting phase
You need to create perfect looking site and promote it through Linkedin to find your first clients