I manage a Saas company that delivers help in the form of small business management and accounting software tools and education and support to thousands of startups and small businesses all over the world and whenever I explain to folks I meet what I do, I often get asked the same question “Given my working knowledge, how could I monetize it and make an income from small business consulting? I am always delighted to supply advice as I am privileged enough to spend at least 75% of my day communicating with small business owners and workforce always prepared to share their problems and needs.

Here is what I tell them which I hope you will find useful:

The internet is the ideal place for finding customers and it makes it straightforward to reach them and sell your expertise. A lot of small businesses turn to the internet to find knowledge or trusted advisors who can provide them with guidance and help them tackle key challenges.

Information marketing – repurpose and sell your expertise to small businesses everywhere via the net

Make no mistake this opportunity isn’t just to be found in small businesses it’s equally applicable to large businesses. You can repackage and sell your expertise in a electronic format such as video, audio or documents. The tools to create superb content are readily available on the Internet. Making a educational piece in easy to consume internet formats is now straight forward and doesn’t cost much to do. You just have to be prepared to dedicate a bit of time mastering the tools. material] that you can either sell or give away to get your target customer’s attention.

You have to decide what you want to achieve. Consultancy and Information marketing go hand in hand and if you do both can be very lucrative as the consultancy will provide you with the questions, the answers to which could be turned into content and sold over and over again.

If you are starting from scratch with no customers but have expertise you know would be in demand by others then make a no longer than 120 secs video to present yourself and your expertise to your prospect(s). Unless you know the market precise problem then make the video generic and usethe following format – S.T.A.R (Situation or Task, Action, Result). Be creative and concise. Now deploy the video to your website/blog or even YouTube if you don’t have the former and send the target(s) an invitation by e-mail containing a personal message and a link to the video. Always follow this up with a phone call. If you know the specific nature of the potential client(s)problem then don’t make the video public, just put it somewhere privateon the Web or even on a disk and post it, again follow up with a call.

This method is ideally suited to situations where you are individually targeting market. You should always focus on building a list you can interact with and make sales to. Consistent interaction with your list will uncover people’s needs that will help you define what to sell. The bigger your list the more opportunities for consulating and selling information products you will find. If you would like to know more about how to do this then click on any of the links in this article. I would be more than willing to help you.