Selecting Your Field of Expertise
By now, you may have a number of ideas for consulting services you could offer.
To develop a list of potential fields of consulting, ask yourself:
What training have I completed?
What business experience have I had?
What are my interests and hobbies?
What skills and attributes do I have?
What do I enjoy doing for others?
Do I prefer working with people directly or indirectly?
What knowledge and skills will I need to become an effective consultant?
The topic of assessing your personal goals, covered in Chapter 3, will offer additional focusing questions to help you decide both what you want to do and how you want to do it.
Finding the Tools You Need
Once you've selected your field of consulting, deciding what tools you will need will be relatively easy. For example, if you sell advice on increasing retail sales, you will need experience in this field and you will need to know what the latest statistics, tools, and trends are. The retail sales consultant will have numerous contacts within the field, subscribe to a variety of publications, gather and study books on retail sales and related topics, and develop experience and credentials in solving retail sales problems.
Chapter 5 offers resources for consultants, including professional associations, trade journals, and books.
