With the online business landscape becoming a increasingly dynamic and Millennials are in business, the consulting industry previously dominated by Generation X and Boomers has turned around almost entirely. One-off jobs and short-term involvements are becoming more in demand compared to classic consulting models.
A story from 2015
Before getting into details about our new on-demand services, I would like to share a story from 2015. When I started my consulting business “dCommerce”, the idea was to create a modern, low-cost, truly helpful and scalable alternative for the then-available hotel consulting solutions.
At that time, most other consultants could be categorized into two distinct groups.
Old fashioned consultants posing in suits and ties, acting real uptight – selling information and status quo. They were marketing themselves online by showing off various badges of excellence, qualifications and titles in organizations I probably never heard of before. It seemed that they were more busy portraying themselves as experts than working for the success of their clients.
A new generation of consultants were hosting webinars from their bedroom with their headset on – talking about how to set up a Facebook dropshipping campaign.
When positioning my business, I wanted to differentiate myself from both. I wanted people to know me and my business because of the value and level of support we bring to companies. In order to have a competitive advantage, I kept my retainer fees low and focused on increasing my profits by substituting repeating procedures with software and automation.
The market proved me right, I could win a decent number of clients without any excess efforts. This was almost 5 years ago and a lot have changed since then.
Why do we offer on-demand services?
Our core values did not change since 2015. The goal of our work is to make our clients successful, and we continue to seek new and better ways to make it happen. Considering that knowledge and information is widely available online, our clients do not need us to provide generic digital marketing information for a retainer fee.
We also understand that companies with strong in-house skillset might only require occasional support, so a 12-month contract will not be attractive.
To offer occasional support efficiently, we created around a dozen frequently requested offers related to digital marketing and online business development – all with fixed price and fixed project scope.
This eliminates the need of negotiation and lengthy discussions before preparing a proposal. Easier to buy and easier to deliver – making life a whole lot easier for our clients.
How about performance based partnerships?
Those who prefer a long term business development partnership can have the option to agree on a monty retainer or on a revenue-sharing basis. Depending on the growth potential and risk tolerance of the company, they can decide which they prefer.
In case our KPIs are not revenue related, we can agree on a performance or target based compensation.
We think that offering multiple value exchange options is necessary to start a positive, mutually beneficial partnership. As said, our goal is to make our clients successful and we don’t really care about how they prefer to pay us for the value we bring in.