> A friend of mine is the owner and founder of
> a 16 year old management consulting company.
> He does fairly well but most of his business
> comes from picking up the crumbs left by
> large consulting firms. Says he does a lot
> of clean up work where the bigs boys come
> in, crap all over everything and fly off
> with their $100,000 fee.

> He bills about 1/2 million a year and nets 6
> figures but he knows he can do better. He is
> pretty much a one man shop and has tried
> hiring salemen in the past but it never
> worked out for one reason or another.

> Anybody know anyone who specializes in
> helping consultants break through the brick
> wall?

> James

Your friend needs to learn how to build those crumb clients into really productive accounts. How? Well, here are a few ideas:

1. Ask when their next job is up for bids (and who's handling the bidding). If you don't ask, you don't get on their notification list, and others get the jobs.

If they contract out for a year, find out when their next contract bids will be and what the bidding procedures are (they often have an information packet for bidders).

2. Let them know you may be able to save them some money on their next bid (remember you don't have the high overhead the big boys do).

3. Send them a 'thank you' follow up any time you do some work for them. In that subtly mention that you have the facilities to do larger jobs for them as well.

4. Ask them for a referral when you've done a good job for them. It gets them to thinking about you and keeps you in their mind when considering job bids etc.

5. Make up a very professional brochure and distribute it to your crumb clients to show them what you really CAN do for them. Forget the small time stuff, show a variety of situations, get some testimonials from satisfied clients, make it sing to them! Don't forget to include your business card. If it can be swiped into a computer card reader to be added to their database, so much the better.

Hope this is some help.

Sandi Bowman