3 Steps for a Seamless Transition to Consulting from Agency Services
As a busy agency owner, chances are you're always on the move. Whether you're a copywriter, an ads manager, a content marketing agency, from pitches to meetings and from launches to partnerships, it's pretty busy! If you’ve never thought about how your business could grow if you shifted your approach to include advisory services, like consultancy, you might be surprised at the benefits. Consulting can offer you a higher profit margin that requires less of you and allows you to focus on your area of expertise? It sounds awesome, right?
In this post, I’ll be sharing ways in which you can make your company even more successful by making the transition to consulting from agency services, or adding consulting services to your existing business.
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Why Add Consulting Services Into Your Existing Agency Business
As a visionary in your business, maybe you’ve considered more of an advisory role before. After all, many of the team members and contractors through your agency already handle a lot of the day-to-day services. However, stepping into a consulting role isn’t always as simple or as straightforward as it might initially appear.
I know from my own experience, I spent 15 years in brick and mortar as an entrepreneur and then started getting into consulting. And when I first entered into the consulting world, I was a brand strategist providing support with messaging, brand positioning, running workshops for some pretty well known brands in the country. I loved the work I was doing and really enjoyed the creative challenge as well as the intellectual work of looking at the numbers and data.
Over time I found I was in this cycle of feast and famine mode; there was either a big multi five figure brand project or I had nothing. For that reason, I started to specialize in growth strategy and growth consulting in addition to brand strategy. My company transformed, and I began having amazing months every single time.
You might have experienced this if you're a copywriter, if you're a content marketer, if you're an ads manager or any type of done for you service. It's really easy for your clients to come and go because they will go from one done for you service provider to the next.
Making the shift to running your agency offering as a consultant can be so rewarding.
Know Your Role As a Consultant
It's really important to understand that your role as a consultant is so different from your role as an agency owner. This is a little bit of a mind twist for people in our consulting certification program. When you switch from a mindset of supplying a service or a product as a vendor versus being a thought partner, you're no longer just simply providing them with something they need, which can be kind of transactional, but you're rather partnering up with them and developing creative ideas and strategies that they couldn't have come up with on their own.
You’ll come to measure success through long-term, meaningful relationships and mutually beneficial outcomes. Ultimately, taking this approach successfully will really help you establish yourself as a thought partner to your clients. As a consultant, you’ll become somebody who adds value far beyond just simply delivering deliverables or solutions. Making the transition to consulting from agency services is no small feat, especially when it comes to structuring your virtual delivery, which many of you might be doing.
Know Your Deliverables
As a done-for-you service provider or agency owner, it’s common to crank out chunks of tangible products or deliverables. On the other hand, consultants offer strategizing and influence, and that doesn't necessarily have a physical output.
This is another mindset shift which can be really challenging for people who are agency owners. For this reason, it's so necessary to gain clarity on what frameworks you'll use to provide value for your clients. Using a framework to scale , provides the structure to assess the real value for their business within consulting offerings. Within my own agency, our signature framework, called the LEAP framework, gives a tangible outcome rather than delivering services as the outcome.
To be a successful consultant, you really need a consistent framework that you use every single time with your clients again and again. This not only enables you to provide value, but it makes your consulting business scalable.
Know Your Skill Sets
Making the transition from agency owner to consultant can be kind of overwhelming because of the new role and the shifts in mindset it requires. Another important step in this transition to consulting from agency services is to think about any skill sets that you just need to round out in order to be able to provide consulting services.
For example, if you've been running paid traffic or you are a paid traffic expert for Facebook or TikTok, but you don't know that much about SEO, you might consider increasing your knowledge or expertise in some of those other areas.
Taking the time to focus on building up your skill set before transitioning to being a consultant is such a great strategy because it ensures that you're well equipped to deliver whatever comes your way as a consultant. If you choose not to do this and want to jump right into consulting, you can just assess each client opportunity from the standpoint of whether or not you have the knowledge in that area of business.
Another option is to take a certification program, such as Fractional Freedom, as a quick and effective way to build your skillset as a consultant. As you go through the program, you’ll have access to building your framework, creating your packages, and securing your initial clients so you can go in confident when you're providing those types of services. .
Ready to Transition to Consulting from Agency Services?
As a successful agency owner, you probably already have the skills needed to make money as a consultant such as being able to understand your clients’ needs and communicating your value to clients, not to mention client management, new client acquisition, and ROI. With the right tools and the right frameworks, agency owners make a pretty seamless transition to consulting because you've done a lot of the hard work in being a business owner; adding on advisory services is simpler than most agency owners tend to think that it will be.
If you're just feeling a little bit done with the done for you, or you're feeling a little bit burned out with agency services, you may be ready to expand your horizons, challenge yourself a little bit further, can honestly maybe make a little bit more and work a little bit less. I offer a free guide about how to churn your expertise into a money-making consulting offer [link for opt-in] and you can also sign up for the waitlist of my Fractional Freedom certification program.
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