Thread: How do you market a consulting business?

I have a good sized marketing budget, I have the necessary experience/expertise, an I am starting a consulting business. I have everything except the marketing part figured out.

Primary Goal- Help American companies to outsource selected product/operation or IT services to China in order to significantly reduce cost. For example, it is true that you can find a supplier on Alibaba or tradekey, but despite their best efforts, you will sometimes end up with less than satisfactory results due to mis-communication, cultural differences and sometimes pure fraud. And if there is a major problem, realistcally, there is very little you can do about it. We basically eliminate all that, we will locate/verify the supplier, relay the order correctly, inspect before shipping and handle custom clearances.

This works for entreprenuers who are interested in starting a new product line too. If you can give all the essenital information for your product, we can locate someone to do it in China in 2 days. (95% of the time)

My Expertise- I used to work for a regional company developing their China market. I have been to China many times and traveled extensively there for business. I am also Chinese-American and speak fluent Mandarin.

So far,its a 3 person business, I have 2 good partners on the ground in China. I plan to do this nice and slow, I am not in any rush.

So what are some of the ways that I can market my business. I live in a mid-sized city in the U.S.

Obstacles-
I am terrible on the phone. I am not sure why but I stutter and even confuse myself sometimes on the phone, so I guess cold-calling is out of the question. I am totally fine when I am not on the phone.



Any Other Marketing Ideas would be greatly apperciated. Like I said, I do have some limited funds reserved for a marketing campaign.

THANKS

Welcome to the fastlane. It would probably help us give you a relevant answer if you would give us some info on your background. Where have you been? What have you done before? What worked and didn't work? Good luck.

Background-

I used to work for a regional real estate company and at the "height" of my career, I rose to the level of VP. My past role included assessments of real estate projects in China and market research in that market. As a result, I have traveled to China and spent some quality time there. I have been to over 30 different cities total there and logged thousands of miles in traveling in China. I have also had the opportunity to get to know a lot of solid Chinese business contacts.

What I have tried -

So far, nothing. My website is stillbeingdeveloped and obviously I want to wait for that to come out. I am also having someone designing a direct mailing promotion package, complete with brochures, flyers, etc.

Please do let me know if you have any additional thoughts as to how I can effectively allocate my funds and market my business. Like I said before, I am not exactly articulate on the phone, so I guess cold-calling is out of the question.

THANKS

Thanks for the background info. Since you seem to be emphasizing that you are not good at talking on the phone why not get someone to help coach you in that area. You can make a lot of practice calls and record them for critiquing. You could eventually develop a script and "what if" scenarios.