How to Become a Well-Paid Digital Consultant (4 Actionable Tips)
Do you feel like you should be making more money with your consulting work?
Do you often quote your age-old beginner rates because you’re afraid to ask for more?
Are you ambitious enough to become a well-paid consultant?
Well, then you have landed on the right article. We’ll discuss what exactly top consultants do to make more than average money, and with the right actions and mindset, how you can do it, too.
1. Make Your Niche Very Clear
So, you’re a digital expert? But what do you specialize in? Facebook advertisement, SEO , blog , or something else? When it comes to positioning yourself in the industry, mastering a specific niche (and their cousins) will help you become the go-to person for that specific problem.
For example, if your previous client urgently needs a Google Ads expert, they’re not going to search for ‘digital consultants’ online. They’d rather use the term ‘Google Ads expert’. However, if you have already produced results for them in the past, they would most likely call you again when they’re facing a similar problem in the same niche. This does not mean that you should not try your hands on a different digital consulting discipline. But as the authors in the book 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing said, “Two companies cannot own the same word in the prospect’s mind.”
Even if you are a freelancer, not a company, this still applies to you. So, we can change this to: “Two consultants cannot own the same word in the prospect’s mind.” If your name is registered as the ‘copywriter’ guy or the ‘content marketing’ girl in your client’s brain, then your chances of getting hired again will be significantly higher.
2. Publish Informative Content Online
All highly paid digital experts have one thing in common: They give a lot of free value to everyone through their blogs, videos, books, or any other medium. First, let’s assume that you have an incredible, easy-to-navigate website. If not, create it first, then work on your blog or podcast. And remember, it’s not always about driving traffic and having thousands of monthly readers. It’s more about having some articles or videos on your site that demonstrate your expertise to future clients. Almost every client will go through your website before hiring you. Although, if traffic and recognition is your goal, it’s great, too. Brand awareness is always good for business.
This doesn’t mean that you should only blog on your website. Whenever possible, collaborate with big publications, and get your work published there. Remember, the digital consultants who are not very ‘digital’ themselves, as in, the ones who don’t have a well-maintained website and online presence, might find it really hard to close big clients.
3. Understand the Pain Points of Your Potential Clients
Do you know why clients want to hire digital consultants? And do companies even need digital experts? For example, if a medium-sized e-commerce business wants to drive more traffic to their store, the owner could sit down on the weekend and take a course to learn Google Ads and SEO.
But maybe they’re so busy that they have to work even on the weekend, or maybe, they want to spend time with their family. In this case, their pain points are: Not having the expected traffic on their website, not having the expertise to drive more traffic, and not having the time to learn how to drive traffic.
The potential solution to this problem is hiring a digital consultant. Other solutions include hiring an in-house SEO team or learning it on their own and applying it. If you want to be ‘the solution’, you will have to win their trust and convince them that hiring a consultant is as good of an option as the other two.
4. Find Clients Who Will Pay Top Dollar
Yes, there are companies who pay a lot of money to digital experts happily. No, it’s not because they have a special thing for digital consultants. It’s because a lot of digital experts actually help clients achieve their business goals.
There are several ways to find high-paying clients. You could build an insane network of people who could help you reach the decision-makers of Fortune 500 companies. You could post long-form blogs or videos that drive traffic to your site and attract clients naturally. But these methods take some time, which is fair, otherwise, everyone would do it. So, what’s the fastest way to find top clients who will pay you big bucks with a smile on their face and be grateful that you exist? It’s simple, approach a freelance platform and send your portfolio to them.
These online consulting platforms are regularly visited by clients who need consultants. So you don’t have to argue whether hiring a consultant is better than DIY or not. They already know they want a consultant, and that makes closing the sale a heck of a lot easier. If you’re taking your freelance consulting career seriously, you should undoubtedly sign up with one of these freelance platforms online.
Conclusion
Digital consulting is a very broad term. There are several types of digital experts, and for this reason, being an expert in a specific niche, for example, social media advertising or content marketing, helps you position yourself as the go-to person for a particular problem. Giving free value online through blogs and tutorials helps a lot; so does having an in-depth understanding of your potential client’s business problems.
Remember, your clients might have several solutions to their problems, hiring a consultant to fix a business-related issue might be one of them. But if you are in touch with a freelance consulting platform, they could introduce you to companies who already believe that hiring a digital consultant is a very good (or the only) solution. This means you could decrease the length of your sales pitch and straightaway discuss your game plan with them.
