Management Consulting Firms Get 67% More

How to Market a Management Consulting Firm to Attract 67% More Market Share, Regardless of the Competition

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Management consulting firms, does your marketing team seem demotivated? Are your salespeople stressed out?

I have an idea why that might be.

According to a recent study by Hinge Research, seven out of 10 management consulting firms struggle with lead generation. Increased competition has made the challenge of attracting new business more difficult across the entire industry regardless of company size.

While doing some research on why this may be the case, we noticed that within the marketing consulting industry there is one common denominator contributing to this dynamic: poor marketing.

Your management consulting firm might have a marketing problem. Fix that, and you’ll fix your sales problem.

Poor marketing leads to poor lead generation and poor lead generation leads to poor close ratios.

And guess what? This leads to stressed and demotivated salespeople.

Here’s what you need to do to take care of that lead generation problem. I’ll show you how to tap 67% more market share in five steps:

STEP 1: Create and distribute relevant, compelling content.

STEP 2: Engage your market.

STEP 3: Generate leads.

STEP 4: Excite your leads.

STEP 5: Present an irresistible offer.

I’ll get into more detail on these, but first, let’s start with a deep dive into Step 0: Identify where your missed opportunities are. We need to figure out what’s causing your marketing problem in the first place.

Generally, our Predictable Profits Selling System starts with a consultation to identify why your sales are lackluster. This is how we help our clients attract up to 67% more market share, double sales, and build a motivated sales and marketing team that delivers consistently.

But for the purposes of this post, the following story is a good example of what a consultation might uncover.

He thought SEO was the solution … but it wasn’t.

In my earlier marketing days as an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) expert, I was speaking to a client who wanted to hire us to do some SEO work for his business.

As a consultant, I explained that he should try Facebook ads for his market specifically.

His initial reaction was that he didn’t want Facebook ads. He wanted to do SEO.

Many companies would have taken his money and sold him SEO, but I knew it wasn’t going to work for his particular business. And I knew that with Facebook ads we could get him better and more immediate results (which he desperately needed) than with SEO.

Until I sat him down and explained why the solution he needed for his specific business was best achieved through Facebook ads, he was unaware of what he needed.

Now imagine your company sells Facebook ads. He would have ignored you, saying, “I’m not interested in that.” But he was. He just didn’t know it at the time.

His example represents a whopping 30% of market share: people who are unaware they need your services. As we’ll see below, that’s not even half of your untapped market potential.

67% of your market potential is untapped!

This can best be illustrated in the diagram below. It’s called the Purchasing Pyramid and it illustrates the breakdown of your buyers.

You can see right away three sections that are 30% each. This accounts for 90% of the marketplace potential.

Stated differently, this 90% is highly untapped market potential because no one, not even any of your competitors, is speaking to them. They don’t know you exist and don’t know they need your services.

Let’s break it down.

The bottom 30% is not interested for one reason or another. Perhaps they have already engaged the service. We can ignore this market segment for now.

But here is where it gets fun. We still have 70% market share left … 67% of which is primarily untapped.

The Middle 30%: Not Solution Aware

Those in this segment are unaware that they could use your solution.

As in my example above, they are aware of the problem they have, but they are not SOLUTION aware. So in this category, if you tried to present your services, they would most likely say, “No thanks, I’m not interested.”

This is because they are simply not aware of how your solution (at least as traditionally presented) is a good fit for their problem.

The key is to present your service as a solution to their problem. What most companies do is try to present their overall services. But they fail to speak directly to the needs of their potential clients and clearly show how their service or product can solve the client’s specific concerns.

But how do you reach this segment? Keep reading. We’ll get to that below.

The Upper 30%: Solution Aware But Not Top of Mind

This segment needs to know why this needs to be addressed NOW!

The market in this section is aware of the solution, they just have other priorities. You are not top of mind.

The way to address this segment of the market is to communicate the urgency of the problem.

  • If they are not thinking about it, why should they be thinking about it right now?
  • Which common problems do your potential clients ignore, thinking it’s not that big of a deal to address right now? What is it that they don’t know?
  • What benefits do you provide that your prospects may not be aware of that they actually want?

One of my favorite examples of addressing this segment is with free food samples and product demos.

In most cases, we are not thinking about the item even though we know that it exists. Product demos are a great way to increase awareness and uncover an unconscious desire.

But what is the equivalent of samples and demos for a management consulting business? Read on …

The Upper 7%: Buying in Near Future

This segment needs to know that you exist and why to buy from you!

We have here the 7% of the market that is open to purchasing. They know the problem, they know the solution and they are planning to engage soon, but perhaps not right now.

This market segment is actively researching, getting suggestions or referrals, or reading reviews to help make a decision.

Good examples of this are times when we want to make a significant or important purchase and want to take our time to make sure we make the best decision. Buying a car, choosing a gift for a loved one, planning a vacation, buying a home, shopping for a new baby (before arrival), etc.

The challenge with this segment of the market is different. They know the problems they want to solve, and they know what types of companies can fulfill their needs. This, however, does not mean they know that YOU exist as a possible provider.

You have to create more awareness and a compelling reason to go with you, especially if you are not a frontrunner.

Below, I’ll tell you how to deliver that compelling reason!

The Top 3%: Actively Buying Now

This segment is currently buying from you or a competitor!

And finally, we come to the tiny 3% at the tip of the pyramid. At this point, they are ready to buy now or within the next few days. They are either buying from you or they are buying from a competitor.

This portion is where all of the competition lies, and consequently, it’s also why it’s so hard to get attention. Everyone is fighting for this tiny segment, while 67% of the market is virtually being ignored.

Back to those 5 steps to reach the untapped 67% of your market …

So how do we reach this untapped 67% in 5 steps?

We turn the pyramid upside down and create a predictable sales customer value journey. All 67% need to know that you exist, why to buy from you, and why their needs should be addressed now.

That’s how we get them down into the coveted 3% segment of active buyers in 5 steps.

STEP 1: Create and distribute relevant, compelling content.

What are some of the biggest challenges your clients face? Address those. Answer the questions you know they’re asking. This can be in the form of videos, blog posts, articles, podcasts, etc. Create valuable content that compels your potential market to move to the next stage: Engagement.

STEP 2: Engage your market.

There are several ways to do this:

  • Encourage questions and comments to your content.
  • Respond to those who engage with your content.
  • Create more content to respond to the questions that arise from your original posts.
  • Invite your audience to move to the next level (become a lead).

STEP 3: Generate leads.

A certain segment of your engaged audience will want to engage further, so make it easy for them by providing something of value in exchange for contact information and permission to follow up.

We typically do this with name and email address, but you can also request phone numbers. When you do follow up it should be in a way that excites your leads to continue.

STEP 4: Excite your leads.

You’ve now been given permission to follow up, so the last thing you want to do is waste your lead’s time. Make sure whatever you promised to deliver compels them to take the next step.

STEP 5: Present an irresistible offer.

You’ve now earned the right to ask them for money once you’ve consistently delivered at each stage of the process. And because of this, a generous percentage will be happy to buy your products and services.

Of course, the service doesn’t stop here. You continue to deliver and excite long after they have become a customer. Now we can enter a new cycle of customer ascension, where they become repeat customers and eventually promoters of your brand.

We call this the Predictable Profits Sales System.

What makes this system work so well is the predictably profitable process of reverse engineering the entire sales process.

It’s predictable because we know what will happen ahead of time.

It’s profitable because we factor in ways to minimize or eliminate lead generation costs, while simultaneously offering solutions to maximize profits in one automated process.

Here’s how to get started.

To get you started, we’ve compiled a checklist of 73 Sales Doubling Opportunities to get your juices flowing.

Download your Sales Doubling Opportunities Checklist below.

The good thing about this list is that you don’t have to do all 73 to see results. Think of these as opportunities rather than requirements. Just implementing one or two will skyrocket your results!

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