You will be selling qualified advice to those who can profit from it. To develop good advice, you will need to keep up on the latest information within your chosen fields. This means buying books, subscribing to magazines, and interviewing experts.

Of course, this book can't advise you on all of the primary information resources for your specialty. However, you are probably aware of most of them already. If not, reading books and subscribing to primary trade journals in the specific field will give you many of them. Membership in related trade associations will bring you the rest of them.

Depending on your specialty, you can take advantage of the thousands of free experts on almost any topic available through the federal government. To find them, begin at the primary federal government information website. Also contact the Small Business Administration and agencies within your specialized fields.

Be aware that your primary resources are among your trade secrets. If clients and competitors knew exactly how you did your consulting magic, they may work directly with those resources and not you. Once your business is established, even your support employees should not know or have full access to your primary resources. You've spent much time and effort finding and developing them. Don't give them away to anyone. Instead, process their data into valuable information that clients will buy.

Now that you've considered the many requirements of a consulting service, it's time to begin setting it up. Chapter 4 will start you on the road to setting up your successful consulting business.