Are you a marketing consultant who gets real results for yourself and for your clients? This can be a lucrative source of income if you know what you’re doing. I’ve been consulting in the areas of marketing, social media, content creation, and online visibility for individual entrepreneurs, small businesses, and corporations for several years now and can tell you that being a marketing consultant requires more knowledge and intuition than you might think.

If you’re an entrepreneur, small business owner, or decision maker for a corporation, here’s why you probably shouldn’t hire a marketing consultant until you do more research because:

Contrary to popular belief, marketing consultants are not magicians.

Many entrepreneurs and small businesses hire consultants because they are looking for miracles to change what they have already created. The truth is that no consultant is going to take a business that is doing very poorly in revenue and quickly turn it around.

You see, consultants tend to specialize in one aspect of business, such as content creation, driving traffic, or paid advertising. But if you have a bad or low quality product, a low converting site, or an offer that just doesn’t make sense, driving thousands of visitors to your website or creating massive content won’t fix your business.

In other words, you will need to figure out how to create a sustainable business on your own. That’s what being an entrepreneur is all about. If it were easy, everyone would do it instead of working at 9 to 5 jobs.

You must lay the foundation before you build further.

Creating a business is like building a very tall skyscraper. If you tried to erect an seventy story building without laying a solid foundation, you’d create an unstable structure that would collapse very soon after being completed.

The same goes for your business. Without a good product or service offering, your business is bound to fail after a short time. To prevent that from happening, you need to figure out how to create a business model that allows you to get paid for solving other people’s problems.

Remember, your business does not have to be unique. It just has to be slightly different from what else is currently available. For example, when I began consulting with corporations, I was far from being the first in this space. The difference was that I only took on a handful of clients so I could offer more personalized services, while my competitors focused on taking on as many clients as possible, offering cookie-cutter services.

Once you figure out a business model that works for you, marketing your business will become much easier. Even the best marketers can’t turn around a poorly thought out business, which is why you will need to focus on creating a great product or service before you talk to a marketing consultant.

Start off slowly and then escalate over time.

Consultants are quite expensive, and you don’t want to pay them to sit around and ponder. You want to be able to move extremely fast when you bring them on as you are either paying them by the hour or have them on a monthly retainer.

In order to ensure that a consultant can help you grow your business at a faster pace, you need to be prepared. Handle all of the basics and test the waters.

What I am saying here is that you have to try to market your own business first. From optimizing your pages for the search engines to building your social media profiles and implementing your content marketing, you need to test out these pieces on your own.

Here’s what I recommend you do to get started:

• Optimize your pages for the search engines
• Speed up your site
• Start blogging
• Get involved with social media

If you aren’t able to do all of the things I’ve listed above, you can always hire an intern or someone still in school to help you out. Again, you are not looking for a consultant, but instead for someone who is:

1. Technical – able to make changes to your website.
2. Good at reading – able to follow the guides I linked to above.
3. Good at following instructions – able to implement the steps outlined in the guides.
4. Fast at executing what should be done – able to work efficiently.

How to know when it’s time to hire consultants:

Once you test the waters and try to grow your business on your own, you can consider hiring a consultant. Make sure you hire him or her for specific tasks instead of all your marketing needs.

If you are looking to accelerate your growth and you know where you can use help, you can always consider reaching out to a consultant. But if you are looking for someone to solve all of your problems and turn your business around, a consultant won’t be able to do much for you.

Carrie Wilkerson is a force to be reckoned with. The daughter of a career military father who later became a preacher, this Texan is truly a ‘people person’. The picture on the left is from the NAMS event last year where we were both speaking. I’ve been following Carrie for seven years now and was thrilled when she agreed to join me for a podcast interview. Whenever our busy paths cross and I see her in person at an event, she is the first one to call my name and rush over to give me a big hug. I love that about her and know that you will learn a lot about growing your business from this interview.

We discussed how much we have in common, having both been classroom teachers before coming online and both feeling overwhelmed at times when surrounded by too many people at a live event. But Carrie handles her life in a professional way that I aspire to emulate more and more as time goes on.

We talked about many things, including how she became known as The Barefoot Executive. Carrie is the foremost expert in the area of list building, and I recently went through her course not once, but twice on this topic. Building a list is crucial to your success with any business.

Also, be sure to check out Carrie’s bestselling book, The Barefoot Executive: The Ultimate Guide for Being Your Own Boss and Achieving Financial Freedom. I’ve read this book twice and learn something new with every chapter.

What will you learn from Carrie? That depends entirely on you, but once you find out she preserves and ‘puts up’ her own preserves from her garden and local produce co-ops you’ll realize the possibilities are endless.

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Getting Started Online: Online Marketing Tips Podcast

Getting Started Online is a wonderful way to build your business for now and the future. Are you focused on building your business on the Internet as an online entrepreneur? People around the world have discovered that starting an Internet business is the fastest way to achieve both time and financial freedom, as well as to great success in your life, and you need help to get there quickly. That’s why I started this online marketing tips podcast for my community.

Getting started as an online entrepreneur can be confusing and overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be that way. In this episode of the Online Marketing Tips Podcast With Connie Ragen Green, my newest marketing training podcast series, I discuss in great detail how I was able to get started back in 2006. I share exactly what I was thinking and doing that allowed me to move forward so quickly. I also discuss the importance of growing a list and increasing your visibility to build your business as an online entrepreneur.

I take questions from those who attended the live recording, including why coaching and mentoring is so important, my 10K Laser Coaching program, and how to decide just how much personal information to share when you become a public figure online. Also, when I am asked how to start earning right away I share the details of what I did that very first year.

I also discuss how I have created a lucrative business online without having a business background or any previous experience in this area. Someone asks me what to do with the ‘hundreds of ideas flying around in their head’ and I address the importance of focus and clarity as you grow. We also discuss my next live event in Las Vegas (The Weekend Marketer: Affiliate Marketing) and why I’d like for you to be there.

The program I discuss is one that offers a monthly package that can quickly and easily be turned into an information products to sell online. I do this regularly and the sales are a part of my income as an online entrepreneur. Getting started online has never been easier. Just two or three sales and you have recouped your expenses and you’ll be earning income for months and years to come.

This online marketing tips podcast, as well as all of the calls in my podcast series is intended to teach you and other new online entrepreneurs how to take your business to the next level quickly and effectively, and as a way for me to share my exact Case Studies, secrets, and advice on creating a profitable and lucrative online business using the ‘multiple income streams’ approach. You will see that each session is first recorded live as a teleseminar, and then repurposed into a podcast to extend my reach to the world. Please join my list to be included on these calls, and be sure to introduce yourself and share your site for optimal exposure for years to come!

Also, you can now pick up my popular training on winning affiliate contests and other online marketing tips for only seven dollars at Affiliate Contest Secrets. Use the discount code CONTEST to bring the price down to $7. This training has been completely updated for with the latest information, strategies, and Case Studies for you to use in your own business.

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Marketing lessons for online entrepreneurs can come from most anywhere. During a recent Retreat I hosted in Santa Barbara our group made keen observations related to many businesses, including the Farmer’s Market, a weekend holiday festival, and even the hotel where we were staying. It turns out that marketing is the one aspect of business that can make a huge difference in your bottom line.

We visited the Farmer’s Market on a Saturday morning to get our in the fresh air and purchase some flowers and vegetables. Over the course of two hours we met many small business owners and entrepreneurs who depend upon this venue for their livelihood. It was interesting to observe their unique approaches to marketing their goods and selling them to others.

Some vendors offer a free sample of what they are selling and we sampled strawberries, peaches, and cheese, whereas others had no such offer. One man talked our ears off about himself and the book he was writing, and never took the time to tell us more about what he had for sale!  

It was the weekend of Summer Solstice (June 20-21) and the city of Santa Barbara sanctions a Solstice Parade through downtown and a two day long fair in a park at the end of the parade route. Our group attended the parade and then had a meaningful discussion about how the city gets the word out to others, both locally and to those living out of the area. They depend on local magazine and newspaper marketing, and do very little to entice those from other cities.

The hotel where I was hosting the Retreat, the Hotel Santa Barbara, does an excellent job of marketing themselves to the world. You can read about this establishment far and wide, and that is why they are always sold out or filled close to capacity.

What about your business? Are you marketing and selling in a way that will increase your bottom line steadily over time?