Getting Started in Consulting, Third Edition

Chapter 5. Advanced Marketing: Creating a Brand

After discussing the fundamental spokes of the marketing gravity chart in the prior chapter, we now examine those aspects of marketing gravity that will tend to create a brand about you and your work. (See Figure 5.1.) By this I mean quite simply that a certain repute and distinction is attached to you by dint of what people read, hear, and experience about you. Branding can be done quite elegantly with minimal investment if you are clearly focused, disciplined, and relentless about it.

For me, branding in the consulting business, is the uniform and consistent expression of your quality and value.

Starting Point

The ultimate brand is your name. "Get me a great strategist," which includes you for consideration, is never as powerful as "Get me Clare Perkins for the strategy work."

Establishing a Web Site

You will need a web site sooner or later, and my rule is to establish one as soon as you can afford to do a quality job. Bear in mind that good web sites are organic—they grow and evolve. So your initial effort will never represent your final look or, for that matter, your look even next year.

Figure 5.1. Aspects of marketing gravity that tend to create a brand about you and your work.

Your web site is a credibility site, not a sales site. Executive buyers do not troll the Internet to find consultants; they and others might go to your site, ...