7 Step Consulting

Update your bar stools while you are at it

Well, if you’re going to spend your hard earned money on wall paper and a new dining room suite, you might as well look at new bar stools as well. Leather bar stools seem to be popular in some parts of the country. I’d love to have something soft under my rear when I sat at someone’s bar rather than the usual hard wood or plastic (or worse yet, cold metal).

Another Service Idea

I am imagining a large number of busy people. They ride to work every day in their cars or on the bus or on the subway. They have iPods or stereos around them.

Perhaps they receive magazines at home, but can never find time to read them. What if you could take magazine articles and turn them into a podcast or radio show specifically for those folks? The entire magazine would be turned into audio — which granted, takes away from the visuals — but then I could get the core data I wanted.

Thinking…

Update your old dining room

We’ve talked about changing up the wall paper in your home. We’ve talked about making more money by consulting.

Now, look in your dining room. Do you have that same old ratty dining room table from your college years? The one you used to stack beer bottles on in a pyramid?

Come on now, take a look at some new Dining suite furniture.

Do you have time for magazines?

What magazines are consultants in your industry reading? Inc. Magazine? CFO? Fast Company?

What if they held critical information — a new tip on how to run your business — that you would miss out on. How do you avoid missing all of that?

I wonder if there could be a service that would figure out what the most important articles out of all the different magazines were… and send them to you. Kind of like the reports that end up on the President’s desk every morning with his briefings. Interesting concept…

More New Wallpaper for Your Consultant Home

If I remember correctly, we’ve talked about wallpaper in the past. It can be an easy way to have a dramatic effect upon any room of your house. You’re a consultant. You’ve got the money. Hire a team of quality professionals to come in and wallpaper your rooms as you want.

You’d better want to stay there a while, as wallpaper can be a pain to get off. But if you can get past that, move ahead. You need to get a high quality wallpaper as well (so that it doesn’t wrinkle or tear easily). Try out Graham and Brown drama wallpaper.

What does Independence Day mean for you?

Do you care that it’s the 4th of July? Are you still proud of America?

America has its problems, no doubt about that. But if you’ll notice… people are dying to get here. The influx of H-1 candidates for China, India, and other countries proves that. People are (unfortunately) falling for scams that guarantee a visa for someone overseas even though that’s not possible.

Yet still they come.

We must not be that bad…

Personal Finance is Awesome

I love personal finance and have written a personal finance blog in the past. If I had to give one piece of advice to everyone out there: spend less than you earn. You’re guaranteed never to go broke if you consistently do that.

On top of that, you may need some additional professional financial advice. I’ve helped my parents in the past with some easier topics, but there are some things that you really need to get a professional for. I don’t know enough about the tax code or estate planning to give solid advice… and in a situation like that you definitely don’t want to just guess. So, consider contacting a financial advisor alexandria virginia.

Know any business card designers?

Speaking of business cards, does anyone know of any relatively inexpensive card designers?

I know, I know. You get what you pay for. But I’m not making millions of dollars just yet. I need something in the budget range that will look sharp and professional.

Please leave a comment if you know a designer I could talk with.

Thanks!

Promote Yourself, Do It Inexpensively

We’ve talked about promoting your consulting a little bit in the past. Business cards are an obvious start. Where do you get your cards from? There are several options to consider. You can get card paper at an office supply store like Staples or Office Depot and print them yourself. Usually these are not going to look very professional … but it is better than nothing.

A better option is to get them professionally designed and printed for you. As with anything, the more cards you buy the cheaper they get per card.

But that’s business cards. Everyone has business cards, right? So you’ve got to step up your game.

As I’m doing with this blog, you can start a website or blog to promote yourself. You will need quality website hosting. A blog or website is starting to pretty much be standard in the consulting industry. You want your potential clients to be able to find you, don’t you?

Other services you might look into — and something I am considering — is to have vinyl or magnetic car signs printed. I wouldn’t put these on my car during normal work hours as I don’t want to upset my employer. But out on the weekend I could pop the trunk and stick them on the side and rear of the car. Every little bit of publicity helps, right? I would need those to be professionally designed as well.

Holiday Slow Down?

Who out there is still working today?

I am.

Is it slow? Tomorrow is July 4th. We are incredibly slow and everyone is kind of curious as to why we are here.

…grinding away.

Cheers to everyone out there. Enjoy your 4th!