
Ask HN: How do I land my first small-business client? - eatonphil
A few months ago I decided to begin moonlighting as a consultant. I put up a website (https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.parkandeaton.com), started a twitter&#x2F;facebook account, started a high-level technical blog, started a Meetup, started attending Meetups, and handing out my business cards to business owners who will take them.<p>I am interested in two things typically: security and usability auditing for smaller companies who don&#x27;t have the staff or knowledge to do this themselves. I am also interested in optimizing the run-way for small companies who have no technical run-way (using docker, vagrant, etc.)<p>So, to appeal to small companies, I keep a high-level blog and post links to the stuff on twitter and facebook. This generates little to no attention.<p>In my experience, there are tons of companies who &#x2F;need&#x2F; security&#x2F;usability auditing but I don&#x27;t know how to reach them. There are also tons of small companies who could use run-way optimization but I don&#x27;t know how to reach them. Letting them know they need something has just resulted in defensive attitudes. So I can&#x27;t figure out how to show my usefulness without forcing someone into (what they feel is) a corner.<p>If you&#x27;ve ever tried marketing your services to small businesses who tend not to even be aware they &#x2F;need&#x2F; your services, what have you done? How can I get my blog (which is geared toward very high-level technical tips) more traction among a crowd who isn&#x27;t necessarily looking for technical information? And ultimately, how do I get my first clients (who are not looking for a new Wordpress site)?
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brudgers
1\. What you are interested in is only tangentially relevant at best.
Consultants are hired based on their clients' interests.

2\. You have discovered the difference between pretend work and real work.
SEO, blogging, branding, tweeting, etc. are pretend work. Real work is
identifying leads, qualifying prospects, and closing deals...then doing the
work and actually getting paid. Pretend work is easier because you can control
it and nobody slams the door in your face when you tweet or goes with someone
else because they were $5 cheaper or closes down with your invoices unpaid.

For all the things you've mentioned, I don't see a value proposition. How does
Docker make someone money? More importantly how does Docker make any specific
business money? It's a long road to develop a consultancy with a backlog.

Good luck.

~~~
zhte415
Disagree: Blogging, branding, including creation of whitepapers, creates
credibility and shows what's behind a value proposition. Knock on a door
without a brochure, and the customer has no idea of the service.

Agree: Need to knock the door in the end.

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taprun
I would suggest picking _one_ field - either security or usability. While you
may actually be an expert in both, it will be easier to position yourself as
an expert in one. This will make your marketing more straightforward.

Then, you'll have to figure out how to educate your potential customers. If
they don't know they have a problem, you'll have to teach them. Where do they
hang out (online and in person)? Can you teach them why they would need your
services and how _you_ can help? Perhaps with a presentation or a whitepaper?

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workerdee
How would you sell Park & Eaton's services to yourself? I sometimes get most
creative when thinking about myself as the customer, particularly because I
personally do not like buying things.

It takes time to generate attention on social media without controversy or
craziness. Hang in there.

You have a great logo (hooray for spaceships!). Your website is also clean
(not too overwhelming) and easy to navigate. I would recommend first selecting
a few small businesses that you would like to have as clients. Can they
understand your website - your message? I ask this because there are some
areas where the wording can be rephrased. Especially with small businesses,
you won't just be selling to technical people, but you will be selling to busy
people.

Examples are powerful. These don't needed to be displayed publicly, but have
something ready (and interesting!) to show potential clients what you can do.
I don't see a problem with your two interests: security and usability
auditing. Some people may advise you to focus on one or the other, but this is
IMHO.

If you are willing to write blog articles, would you consider writing and
submitting articles to other sites, like the huffingtonpost.com or medium.com?
You want to make it as easy as possible for people to find you online; it
doesn't take much for a website to get lost.

Ultimately, to get your first clients, I'd recommend treating each one with a
lot of personal attention, and showing them that you truly care about them and
their businesses. When you initiate contact with them (try to get a meeting,
invite them to lunch or coffee, offer a contest, etc.), present your services
as accessible, valuable, and profitable - a direct way to help their bottom
line (with metrics to back you up). Even without client history, you can do
this by doing old-school research and by being as prepared as possible for
misinterpretations and specific concerns. Good luck!

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onion2k
Pick up the phone and start calling people. Sell them your service. You get a
lot of rejections to start with, but that's how you learn what to say to get
further. Eventually you'll start to get positives.

There is literally no other way to build a consultancy business.

~~~
mooreds
I'd also suggest picking one (security auditing or usability auditing or
runway analysis). It's hard (trust me, I know, I haven't been super focused in
my consulting) but a clearer message if you stick with one area rather than
three.

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tedyoung
It's all about fixing their problems and/or filling a need or desire. In other
words, start with the "why": why does a company need your services? What
problems do they have and how would you solve them?

When I go to your web page, it looks nice, but put yourself in my shoes, I'm a
small company. Why would I care about "sustainable software development"? I'm
a small biz, and when I hear "software development", I think of a barrel of
cash being thrown out the window.

Consulting is really no different from product development: you have to be
finding the pain, talking to people about their pain, and then you can mention
how you might be able to solve that pain. As an example: "Has your company's
systems been hacked? If you think the answer is no, think again. 83% [made up]
of all companies have been hacked and don't even know it. We can do a basic
security audit for you for [free/fixed-price] and if we can help you fix it,
there's no charge."

Good luck and if you'd like to chat about Docker, let me know -- I'm working
on a Docker sideline, but I try to focus on the pains it solves, e.g., the "it
works on my machine" problem rather than, "hey, Docker here!" ;).

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akg_67
_security and usability auditing_

Do you know who your prospective customers are? Can you profile them to a very
narrow group? Small companies as a group is a big segment. You need to narrow
your prospective customer base to a very small group and then reach out to
them.

 _Letting them know they need something has just resulted in defensive
attitudes. So I can 't figure out how to show my usefulness without forcing
someone into (what they feel is) a corner._

Smaller the business more focused they are on either increasing the revenue or
decreasing the cost. If you can't show how your service immediately impacts
revenue or cost, you are not going to get much traction with them.

 _If you 've ever tried marketing your services to small businesses who tend
not to even be aware they /need/ your services, what have you done?_

Tough proposition if you have to educate the market that they need something,
you are going to need lot of money and resources for educating the market. You
need to offer something that businesses already know they need. You may need
to look at service providers who already providing complementary services to
small businesses and target and consider them as customers.

Personally, I can't figure out what are you offering and why should I buy.

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dsacco
I used to be where you were - I wanted to be an independent consultant, I
wanted to find clients and I wanted to grow my business. Now I operate as a
high-end consultant for application security. I can tell you what I did, and
hopefully it will help you as well.

I offer web and mobile penetration tests, source code analysis and best
practices workshops for companies between the seed and Series A stage (I have
also worked with recognizable enterprises you'd know of). Through September
I'm fully booked at 100% capacity, mostly with Y Combinator companies. I
charge a static rate of $10,000/week, though I discount this for certain
circumstances (good referral, long term contract, etc).

So, that's me. How did I get to this place? How can _you_ get to this place?

1\. I network a lot. I don't go to meetups. I don't have a blog. I don't hand
out business cards. I network with people in 1x1 ways that show my value. My
best referrals have come from people who I helped pro bono for something
seemingly insignificant who turned out to be _very well connected._ I don't
network in a way characteristic of a salesman, I do so in a way that starts by
genuinely listening to someone talk about a problem. If I can help, I frame
myself as a person who can solve a business problem that happens to be related
to security, not as a fly-by-night freelancer. I talk to people because I
genuinely like talking to people - I will often just welcome people to email
me to chat - not for a consultation, literally just to chat. It opens doors.
The best way to start this is to literally reach out to people who are in
influential groups - _not influential people themselves_ \- and help them in
an honest manner. They will naturally refer you to people who have both
problems and excess money, who are your qualified leads.

2\. I have a strong value proposition. My work involves a lot of technical
proficiency - I'm not just using a vulnerability scanner - and I deliver very
solid results every time. I don't give canned reports and I can communicate
effectively with both developers and managers. I am consistently well referred
to others and over time this has led me to a place where I have excellent
clients more often than not and I have to say no more than I can say yes.

3\. I have read probably every comment by patio11 (Patrick McKenzie) and
tptacek (Thomas Ptacek) on consulting. I have probably read all of them
several times, in fact. They are both very good people (talk to them sometime)
and they both have excellent advice. Those comments give you literally
everything you need to know to run a consultancy on your own. They will give
you all the non-technical savvy you need to run a technical business.

4\. I am confident in my rates and don't back down from them. I will change on
scope, but not my rates. I charge weekly and if I am not a good financial fit
for someone I make a good faith effort to redirect them somewhere else.

5\. I'm honest. I used to work at a security firm, one of the largest in fact.
A lot of firms do things I don't agree with, like writing "has autocomplete
enabled" on a security report. This doesn't mean that they are bad people, but
it is tonedeaf to what your client really wants most of the time. I don't
exaggerate findings and I do present my work in a very honest light. I also
strive to be honest in business dealings as well. There is a lot of snake oil
in this industry and I don't rip off my clients - I will not work with someone
if something feels "off" or I don't feel I'm legitimately contributing value.

You can do it. It took me a long time, but you can do it. I would advise you
start out by subcontracting another firm that needs work. Dirty secret - many
security firms will subcontract to you, and you can build a client base that
way.

Let me know if I can help you in any way, my email is in my profile. I agree
with what others have said here that you should focus on either security or
usability. Do one thing, and one thing well (or at least one domain well). I
also don't think you should be putting so much effort into marketing. A blog
is helpful for long term leads, but it won't help you in < 6 months usually.
Ads are impersonal and probably won't get you what you're looking for either.
Find influential groups and mingle with them in an honest way.

Also, if you're going to work in security, I advise you to work at a security
firm before striking out on your own. If nothing else, it will show you the
entire process the "real players" use.

I think you need to figure yourself out a bit more, because you're not
achieving what you want to yet. Sit down, and write answers to the following:

1\. Who are you? What is your value proposition? Why should I hire you?

2\. Look at your answer above. If you're dispassionate about it, does it
_really_ solve a business need? Ask a few uninvested friends in the field.

3\. Do you have a network? If not, why do you have a blog or Twitter? That's
not how you build a network. That's how you _maintain_ a network and _grow_ a
network. It isn't a seed, it's water.

4\. Who can you immediately identify who needs your services? How can you put
yourself in front of them in a way that is more organic than forced?

Good luck.

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davismwfl
So as someone who has a consultancy where we have focused quite a bit on the
SMB market I can speak with experience when I say that it is a tougher market
at times. Our enterprise clients are harder to get usually but much easier to
sell to in a lot of ways. You are doing a lot of the right first steps IMO,
many of which I personally did too when I started out. Some suggestions after
reading your site quickly and reading your questions.

1\. Your site doesn't communicate to the small business owner. You need to
tell/teach them what you can do for them, not use "jargon" or terms they can
care less about. In the end they are wanting to know what problems you can
solve or how you can help them make more money. So for example, instead of
just saying security and usability on the site. Frame it in the terms of "did
you know", and mention some specific statistics on SMB's where you have
relevant knowledge which you can use to improve upon their issues for them.
This is helping them understand what you offer versus just stating terms they
may not be 100% familiar with.

2\. In general SMB's don't care about you making their team slightly more
efficient, they care how you can save them $10k/yr, or better yet, how you can
make them an extra $10k or whatever the magic number is. Many times it is
about how you market yourself and what you say more then what you are offering
that helps them buy.

3\. SMB's get defensive typically when you approach them too fast or too hard
about what they are doing wrong. They all know they are doing things that
aren't necessarily correct but they have "made it this far". So generally it
is not about telling them they are wrong and need to change, its about framing
the conversation to say, hey did you know that you have done amazing so far
and I am impressed, but it got me thinking that if you did XYZ, you could
actually make more money every month or save 1 FTE's time per year making you
more net income etc. That is how you spin a conversation and avoid the
defensive response. Of course you have to find your own valid position but
that is how I do it. But this opens the door for them to say, oh yea? Tell me
more. Even if they say your full of shit tell me more, it is opening the
conversation and they aren't defensive.

What I think you are finding is that while you have the skills to fix issues,
you don't yet know how to present and discuss those skills with people to
convince them to hire you. You probably have had some luck but I would bet it
was with people that were either introduced to you by someone they trust or
you had a prior/current relationship with somehow. That isn't a knock, it is
how we all start. The great news is at least IMO everyone can learn the
sales/marketing skills, they aren't secret or all that hard, its just how you
frame conversations with prospects. And you have to expect it will take
building up a little bit of a relationship with them.

Feel free to reach out to me via email, I am pretty happy to share my
experiences good and bad. And good luck, it is fun figuring it all out, at
least I think it is.

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marvel_boy
Have you tried freelance networks like TopTal?

