For consultants, coaches and trainers who want to attract corporate clients…
How would you like to run your very own corporate-client attracting Virtual Summit or event?
For many of us consultants, coaches and trainers, the current economic climate is a challenge. While big corporations spend billions on goods and services, it can be very difficult for independent professionals to get noticed, let alone gain business. With more and more people taking redundancy and joining the ranks of consultants, there are more and more of us competing for attention. Even once we have their attention, companies have reduced their spending on training and consultancy to the bare bones.
How can we possibly gain attention and compete with the big consultancies with their international offices, carefully honed networks and huge marketing budgets? Not to mention all the other people out there. Sometimes it seem just too difficult.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
My name is Penny Pullan and I consult to international companies. My client base include international banks, insurance companies, pharmaceutical multinationals, utility companies, the UK Government and even one of the biggest management consultancies in the world! I’m the director and sole employee of Making Projects Work Ltd. Since founding my business nearly five years ago, more than five thousand people have asked me to send them my tips and updates. I’ve been invited to give keynote talks overseas and I’ve worked as far away as New Zealand and Qatar. In fact, I’m writing this in Zurich, Switzerland.
All of this is despite the fact that my business is run from my attic office in my home, which is not in a world city, such as London or New York, but in the small market town of Loughborough in the middle of England. I’m our family’s breadwinner and hardly work during school holidays.
When I took redundancy from Mars Inc. nearly five years ago, I knew very little about sales and marketing, so it wasn’t easy to build a business. In fact, I’d spent my career developing my skills in my chosen field: working as a facilitator for projects and programmes of change. The first year was a bit of a steep learning curve, to say the least! The reality of gaining new business from a standing start was much tougher than I had imagined. On top of that, the credit crunch was beginning to reveal itself. However, by doing a lot of speaking, I gradually built up my business, serving corporate clients. But it was slow, hard work.
What I needed was a way that I could reach a bigger audience, and quickly, so that they could experience me and my ideas and hear my client’s success stories. Speaking was adding small numbers to my followers, but sometimes as few as seven for a whole evening’s work. How could I ramp this up?
Virtual Events could and did and still do. Taking the idea from the business-to-consumer market, I hosted my own virtual event in June 2010. Hundreds of people from all around the world signed up to hear me interview experts on Virtual Working. More than that, the people who registered for the Summit were from many of the biggest companies in the world – my dream clients!
In just two weeks, I had become recognised as a thought leader in the field and gained enough material to form an e-book and an audio CD set. As an added bonus, I’ve built strong relationships with excellent, leading business people, many of whom have become my strategic alliance partners. The entire event paid for itself through the sale of the summit recordings and, since then, I’ve had multinational companies ask me to consult with them on virtual working. Since then I have run two more summits and now have thousands of new contacts on my lists, as well as many new consultancy clients.
Then something happened that I wasn’t expecting. Other small businesses targeting corporates saw this success and asked me to mentor them with their own summits. I’m delighted to report that my success has been replicated and my clients too are finding that their lists grow rapidly, they get noticed and they really enjoy building relationships with experts. Some turn their recordings into books, some have used their summit to gain great publicity as a result, all gained new leads while building their recognition as thought leaders.
What they all appreciated was the support to make their summit happen with minimum effort and maximum results. With my first summit, I found out just how easy it was to waste days (if not weeks) with the wrong choices of technology and missing out vital steps. I made sure that I learnt lessons on how to get a summit right first time. My second summit was quick and easy in comparison. My clients now have a range of simple maps showing them exactly what to do when and which technology to use and which questions they need to ask and when.
It could work for you too!
There is just one problem. I only have the time to support a very small number of people with their summits.
After all, my main work is with corporates. However, to keep at the top of my game with my own summits and to meet the needs of those who would like to do the same, I do have a couple of options for those who need support:
Would you like to engage people in corporates and build your own reputation as a thought leader? Would you like to gain press coverage and build relationships with leading people in your own field? Would you like to write or even launch a book with a summit? Would you like to build up your contact lists full of people who know, like and trust you from your ideal corporate clients?
If the answer to any of these is ‘Yes’, then type in your name and e-mail address in the box below. and you’ll receive answers to your questions. I’ll also let you know how you can get support run your own summit.
As a special bonus, those who sign up now will receive the transcript of my interview in Bernadette Doyle’s recent “Selling to Corporates Telesummit’ as soon as it is done. You’ll be able to flick through the pages and run through my seven step process at a time to suit you.
Yes, please Penny, let me know more:
All the best,
Penny
Penny Pullan
Director, Making Projects Work Ltd
+44 (0)1509 821691