Yesterday, Michael McLaughlin, the co-author of Guerilla Marketing for Consultants, outlined the 4 questions every consultant should ask about their practice as the New Year starts: 

• Did This Past Year Turn Out for Your Practice Like You Thought It Would?
• Who Do You Want to Work With?
• Is Your Marketing Program Serving You?
• How Compelling is Your Service? 

All are good questions, but in the third question, he makes a great point about the importance of a consultant’s website:

“The problem may well be the lack of a focused message.

That lack of focus often cascades into every part of a practice. But it shows up most distinctly on a consultant’s website. Some sites offer such diluted messages that you can’t tell what the consultants actually do.”

I’ve seen a lot of consultants’ websites, and unfortunately, the majority of them don’t make me think “I really have to talk to this person!”

For marketing consultants, the bar is higher. Before I interview a marketing consultant, I check out their website and decide whether the person/firm

CAN sell;
Might be able to sell; or
CAN’T sell.

I don’t hire consultants in the third category, and need a STRONG personal recommendation to interview consultants in the second category. Right or wrong, my judgment is based on the difference between a good website, a mediocre website and a poor website. In fact, I wonder how marketing consultants with outdated website design, unfocused messages and a lack of persuasion can even stay in business?

I realize budget can be an issue: Approximately 84% of marketing consulting firms in the U.S. last year (Bizminer.com) had 4 or fewer employees. But if you’re a marketing consultant, that’s no excuse. Does your website influence a client’s buying decision? Absolutely. After your reputation, your website is the most important marketing tool. 

It takes years to build a strong reputation. A poor website can neutralize it in 10 seconds. The good news is that you can build a quality site today for under $2,000 (even under $1,000 if you do some of the work yourself). It doesn’t have to be flashy: It has to be effective.

Check out some great free web management platforms (Drupal, Joomla and WordPress) and tips on developing content for your website and revamping your website content.

2009 is here, and if you haven’t finished your annual revenue projections, I know you’ll be focusing on them this week. 

Revenue forecasting is tricky: It’s easy to record numbers in a spreadsheet, but challenging to determine, with confidence, the concrete details of how to achieve them. It’s even more challenging to know what to change if you get off track during the year. 

My experience has taught me that the best way to forecast revenue with a high degree of certainty is this: tie revenue forecasts to marketing activities and unit sales projections.  This helps eliminate guesswork and gives me comfort that my forecasts are achievable. 

I prefer the “bottom up” forecasting method–starting with units sold—to the “top down” method, which assumes a percentage rate of growth or market share captured. Check out the fundamentals of revenue forecasting (courtesy of Pragmatic Marketing) for a deeper discussion about the top-line forecast. 

Why do I prefer this approach? It 

• Forces me to have a deeper understanding of my markets;
• Produces measurable milestones;
• Allows me to correct the course sooner when things change;
• Gives me a stronger understanding of what’s working; and
• Makes it easier to calculate marketing ROI.

Most small to midsize companies operate with a revenue forecast and a loose marketing budget, but they’re rarely tied together and/or supported with a marketing plan. 

“I want to grow revenue 25% this year” 

How do you respond when your CEO asks for a plan to go from $ 24 MM to $30 MM in revenue by the end of 2009? Here’s how I’d approach it, with an explanation of how to tie your revenue forecast to your marketing plan and unit sales forecast. (Note that this is geared toward B2B companies.) 

Start with units sold 

Using the bottom up method, break down your 2008 units sold by product/service per month. Then, ramp up unit sales for the products which you’re projecting growth for in 2009 (and decrease others in decline). To determine which products to ramp up, think about where you’re going to spend your marketing budget. I use an Excel model that allows me to easily change unit projections that flow through to the total revenue number. Keep adjusting your unit sales numbers until they hit the $30 MM target. 

Focus on the high-level marketing plan 

After you have a model that shows the unit sales required to hit your target, focus on the marketing activities required to generate those new sales. Consider general campaign costs and your budget and match those to the number of new customers you need. Review your historical metrics and customer acquisition costs to see if you’re in the ballpark. Are they in sync and realistic? If they are, then move to the next step. If not, then move back to step one and keep adjusting your unit sales projections. Repeat until you have a plausible projection. 

Create detailed marketing campaign goals 

Once you’ve synched your marketing budget to the new activity required to support the growth, sharpen your pencil and define the details. What marketing campaign goals should you set? Don’t worry about the campaign creative part. Just focus on the metrics per medium. Example mediums could be direct mail, email, search engine marketing (organic or PPC), partnerships, telemarketing, publicity, trade shows or traditional media like print and radio.

Then, project the number of impressions from each campaign, your lead conversion rate, your sales cycle and the number of customers that come out of the sales funnel. Use your historical metrics for each different medium, or if you’re using the medium for the first time, use standard projections. If you’re using multiple mediums in a single campaign, combine the costs and project the unit sales that they’ll produce. 

Then, determine the costs you’ll incur to acquire your target number of leads for each medium. Do you have enough budget to generate the number of leads you’ll need? 

Analyze & refine 

If you don’t have enough budget, then try moving it to the mediums with the lowest acquisition cost per customer. If that doesn’t work, then you’re stuck: Either you need to lower your revenue target, or increase your marketing budget. And if you find that your marketing budget might be cut, make sure not to cut the wrong part of the marketing budget.

After you settle on the right mix, make sure to record the key metrics you need to hit to achieve your revenue target. Measure your actual metrics as the year progresses, and make any “in flight” adjustments (shifting budget to better performing campaigns). 

Share your plan with confidence, execute daily and measure carefully. 

The results 

By this time next year, you’ll be able to show exactly how you achieved the 25% top-line revenue growth goal: by medium, campaign, number of impressions, number of leads, and units sold. And if you don’t hit the goal, you’ll be able to show exactly where the projections didn’t meet reality, and adjust for the future. 

This level of detail should impress any SMB business leader.

The holidays are a great time to take inventory of the past year, think about your plans for 2009 and catch up on your reading. 

Before you update your reading list, check out these 10 books that every marketing, sales and business growth consultant should know. Each is a must-read, but if you don’t have time for all of them, read the online summaries and understand the impact that each can have on your clients’ businesses and on your practice. 

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath.

This transformational guide delivers detailed explanations and case study examples about how to effectively communicate ideas to the masses. 

Apply their SUCCES principles to your clients’ messages and campaigns. 

Why Most Things Fail: Evolution, Extinction & Economics by Paul Ormerod. 

An intellectual (and dense) read by British economist Paul Ormerod, this book studies 100 years of data to determine why products and companies fail. You’ll be surprised at the results! 

Use to shape your CEO clients’ long-term perspective about their products and company.

 
Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind by Al Ries and Jack Trout.

It’s a classic with principles still relevant 20 years after initial publication. 

Review the concepts each year with each of your clients to refine their company or product strategy.

The New Rules of Marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott.

A “new” classic, Mr. Scott delivers a step-by-step guide of how to transition from traditional interruption-based advertising to inbound marketing to reach buyers directly. 

Use this indispensible guide to plan your clients’ 2009 marketing campaigns

Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin.

A quick read, Mr. Godin outlines how to leverage the internet to organize and lead people with a common interest. 

Understand the concepts and reconsider all of your clients’ customer retention programs and social media visibility.

Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne.

A best-seller from Harvard Business School Press, authors Kim and Mauborgne outline how to create a new market space to make competition irrelevant.

Apply their concepts and formulas during strategy sessions with your clients.

Marketing Champions by Roy Young, Allen Weiss and David Stewart 

This in-depth study illuminates what’s broken with the marketing function and corporate marketing department, and outlines the steps businesses can take to fix them. 

Use with your bigger clients to understand how to integrate the marketing and sales departments, and how to incorporate an effective marketing process into your smaller clients’ companies.

A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink.

This ground-breaking book predicts the new aptitudes that will be in the greatest demand in the U.S. after the transition from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age.

Apply the aptitudes to your clients’ teams to determine who should be involved in future product development and campaign creative design.

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell 

Best-seller illuminates how ideas and trends gain popularity.  

Consider the case studies while designing product launches, defining target markets and creating new campaign concepts.

Mavericks at Work by William Taylor and Polly LaBarre.  
 

Review detailed case studies about innovators that went against conventional thinking to achieve phenomenal success. 

Consider each concept during any strategy or marketing campaign planning session.

And finally, the most important of all:

You, Inc.: The Art of Selling Yourself by Harry Beckwith and Christine Clifford Beckwith.

Stories, tips and examples of how to effectively sell yourself in any situation. 

If you can’t sell yourself, how can you be a successful consultant? 

Happy holidays!